The Meaning of Peace in the
Bhagavad Gita
The superb Sanskrit text, The Bhagavad Gita, is
an amazing guide and in my view the ultimate “user's manual” for the human
adventure. This ancient text is a dialogue between two mighty heroes: Krishna
and Arjuna. Krishna represents the God within us all who is always waiting
patiently to guide us - if we can listen. Arjuna is the greatest warrior of the
time and Krishna is his charioteer in the battle of life. He will steer Arjuna
through, if Arjuna hears and understands.
The entire dialogue takes place the middle of a
battlefield where Krishna and his best friend Arjuna are getting ready to fight
a monumental battle between the two opposing sides of the same family. Arjuna has lost his courage and cannot
accept the thought that he must kill members of his own family and friends in
this terrible bloody war. He has thrown down his weapons and is sitting
depressed and dejected in the bottom of his chariot.
The Sanskrit word Shanti means peace, but what
is Krishna saying in the Bhagavad Gita when he uses this word Shanti? Are there not many
wars going on within us all, wars raging in our own hearts and minds? These
inner wars cloud our thoughts, consume our energies and make us stupid.
Krishna tells his good friend Arjuna that no man
can know happiness without peace (II.66). In fact the sequence of our
compulsions is quite predictable. We start thinking about a particular thing and
from those thoughts, we want it. If our desire for the thing is frustrated, we
become angry. Once we are angry, our ability to reason and think clearly is
skewed.
From this anger rises delusion. We tell
ourselves all kinds of absurd things. We deserve that thing and we will do
anything to get it, no matter what the consequences, no matter what our actions
might do to our soul. We forget that perhaps the thing is not ours to have, or
that we don’t deserve it; or that it may not be the right time for us to have
such a thing, it might bring us harm.
Thus from anger arises delusion, and from
delusion loss of memory - what we call denial - and from loss of memory we
begin to lose conscious awareness of and contact with our own spirit. Krishna
calls this the ‘death of the spirit’ which leads to real death.
Uncontrolled desire leads to death. Krishna
points out the wiser way. Instead of allowing our desires to devour our peace
of mind, the man of wisdom develops an evenness, a subtle intelligent
detachment and disinterest in the objects of the senses. These objects are
thrown at us 24/7 on our television screens. We are told we can only be happy
when we have this car, or that cell phone and the latest techno-gadgets. We
must be thin and young, we must endlessly consume products that will make us
happy winners.
By the time we are in our 30’s most of us know
that none of these things have made us happy. In fact we tire of them very
quickly and must have more, more, more. Ah, the next thing we desire will
finally bring us that elusive happiness we have been chasing. But it never
happens.
Lasting happiness is not to be found in the
external world. Temporal experiences of joy and suffering are in abundance, but
real lasting peace and understanding are only found within. When Time makes us
wise and weary of being fools, we turn within and begin to question everything.
We begin to understand how our unruly desires
have run us, controlled us, made us act compulsively, and left us even emptier
than before. We begin to observe this process. We see how our five senses have
drawn us into this delusion and we consider the idea of practicing an
enlightened control.
The continued practice of observing the
reactions of the senses and controlling our own thoughts in the mind will
inevitably lead us to inner peace. This is ‘the peace that surpasses all
understanding’ (Philippians 4:7) and this Peace is our Home, the Source of our
Real Self and the entire universe.
This is the Shanti that Krishna speaks of
in the Bhagavad Gita. For as Krishna says, the mind that allows the senses to
carry off his or her capacity for insight - literally looking within - is as
helpless as a ship caught in a storm at sea.
Krishna teaches Arjuna how to act wisely and
gives him the knowledge he needs to understand his place in the universe.
Krishna tells Arjuna that whoever has purified his mind in the fires of
Knowledge and mastered his senses will obtain this Peace (IV.39).
***
The five senses make their contact with the
external world and its objects, and send their information-impulses to our
brain, allowing us to experience the polarities of pleasure and pain, sukha-duhkha in Sanskrit. These
experiences are impermanent and are to be endured, for what is temporal has no
‘real’ existence and is unreal (Asat) in the sense that it is fluctuation and
change (Bhagavad Gita II.14-16). While the real (Sat) always exists, as the
14th century Sufi poet Mahmud Shabistari says, ‘beneath the curtain of each
atom.’
It is not that the external world has no value
as some believe. However, its state of constant change makes it the unreal (Asat) in the sense that it
is impermanent. The external reality is very real to the five senses, but there
is so much more to our world than what we can see, hear, touch, etc. Everywhere
there is the imperishable (akshara) that permeates, supports and sustains the
temporal illusory hologram.
Without Knowledge of this eternal, immutable,
imperishable Real - we are lost, floating on a sea of delusion and ignorance
that tosses us around at whim and fools us into thinking that possessions and
pleasure can give us meaning.
Krishna teaches his friend that this universe is
pervaded by that which is indestructible and Arjuna has no power to kill that.
The body may die, but the soul (Atma) never dies. It simply transmigrates to
a new body, just as we get new clothes when our old ones are worn out.
(II.17-22)
When our body is worn out we move into new forms
that resonate with our thoughts, new data-collecting vehicles to expand our
expression of the God within us all. The realization that you never die changes
your entire attitude towards living and you have the opportunity to become less
attached to the perils, failures, and successes of your current identity self.
There comes a time when in wisdom you will not
care if you have been immortalized by the media. Your search for meaning will
not be based on the approval or disapproval of others. You will care more about
doing what is right, taking action with the greatest integrity and knowledge
you have available to you in that moment, and that knowledge will always be
changing as you continually reevaluate its worth.
You will ask yourself, not so much, what did I
accomplish - but rather what consciousness was I in when I acted. When that
time comes you will have Wisdom, you will have imperishable Peace.
V.Susan Ferguson
