While traveling in the West and lecturing on the Bhagavad Gita, one of the most common questions asked by peace loving Western students is, “Why is Krishna preaching and almost forcing Arjuna to take up weapons against his own kinsmen while Arjuna shows no interest in it and argues against the ghastly warfare and its irreligious and immoral outcome?”
They assume Krishna to be a warmonger and Arjuna a champion of peace—a compassionate and kind-hearted dude. Indeed, anyone who gives a cursory reading to the first chapter of the Gita sympathizes with Arjuna and is puzzled with Krishna’s preaching to Arjuna to stand up and fight. Even Mahatma Gandhi, an ardent lover of the Gita, could not digest Krishna’s instruction to Arjuna to fight, and thus commented that the whole plot of the Bhagavad Gita is allegorical. Truth, however, is more mysterious than it appears.
We tend to blame others for our problems. But if we analyze, we find that we are the cause of our own problems. We think that everyone else is the cause of my problem but me. It is very comfortable for my ego to think that others create my problem. Not me. It is very painful to think that I am the cause of my own problem. Our intellect becomes blind to our own mistakes because of pride. Pride doesn’t allow us to see our own defects. It magnifies others defects and covers our own faults.
