Chapter I (VERSE 29) & CHAPTER VII (VERSE 27)
Arjuna Vishada Yoga – The Yoga of Despondency of Yoga
CHAPTER I
(Verse 29)
सीदन्ति मम गात्राणि मुखम् च परिशुष्यति ।
वेपथुः च शरीरे मे रोम-हर्षः च जायते ॥ १-२९॥
My limbs fail and my mouth is parched, my body quivers and my hair stands on end.
In these two stanzas, there is an exhaustive enumeration of the symptoms that the patient could then recognise in his own physical body as a result of his mental confusions. That which Sanjaya had glorified as ‘pity’, when coming out of Arjuna’s own mouth, gains a more realistic expression. Arjuna says: “seeing my kinsmen gathered here anxiously determined to fight, my limbs shiver”…, etc.
All these symptoms are described in the text-books of modern psychology as typical symptoms of the mental disease named ‘anxiety-state-neurosis.’
Jnana Vijnana Yoga – The Yoga of Wisdom and Knowledge
CHAPTER VII
(Verse 27)
इच्छाद्वेषसमुत्थेन द्वन्द्वमोहेन भारत ।
सर्वभूतानि सम्मोहं सर्गे यान्ति परन्तप ॥ ७-२७॥
By the delusion of the pairs-of-opposites arising from desire and aversion, O Bharata, all beings are subject to delusion at birth, O Parantapa (scorcher of foes).
A highly scientific and extremely subtle philosophical truth has been suggested in this stanza. In his attempt to explain why and how the ego-centric personality in man fails to cognise His all-full nature, the Lord touches, by implication, the very fundamentals discovered and discussed by modern biologists in explaining the evolution of organisms. The instinct of self-preservation is the most powerful urge under which the individualized ego tries to live its life of continuous change. This instinct of preservation expresses itself in the intellectual zone as binding desires for things that contribute to the continuous welfare and well-being of the individual’s mundane existence.
When the impulse of desire, flowing from a bosom towards an object of attachment, gets half-way bumped upon an object or a being that stands between the bosom that craves and the object-of-craving, the refracted desire thoughts express themselves as aversion (II-52, 53). In the tug-of-war between these two forces of desire and aversion, the hapless ego gets torn asunder and comes to suffer the agonising pain of lynching tensions within. Naturally, its mind-and-intellect become fully preoccupied with its pursuits of the things of its desire, and with its efforts at running away from the objects of its aversion. Soon the ego-centric personality becomes endlessly preoccupied, totally confused and completely exhausted. The host of thought-disturbances that are thereby created in the mental, and in the intellectual zones, breed among themselves and add day by day to the chaos within. The ‘agitation’ (Vikshepa) is that which veils (Avarana) the Truth from the direct cognition of the individual.
Therefore, the only way by which we can come to rediscover our equipoise and tranquillity as the Eternal Self, is to arrest, control and win over the agitations of the mind. All spiritual practices in all religions of the world are techniques — either emotional, or intellectual or physical — that aim at bringing about at least one solitarymoment of perfect mental poise. Such a moment of poise is the moment of perfect mental illumination, the auspicious hour of Self-re-discovery and fulfilment of the reunion.
But unfortunately, adds the Lord in a divinely pathetic note, “ALL BEINGS FALLS INTO THIS DELUSION AT THEIR VERY BIRTH.” This is not a pessimistic submission as to the sorrowful destiny of a man, to escape from which he is incapacitated from birth. Unlike the Christ-religion, our Krishna-religion does not conceive a man as “a child of sin.” The Master-optimist, the Teacher of Hope, the Joyous Dancer of the Jamuna banks, is expressing here only a philosophical truth, that the very birth of an individual into a given embodiment, with its available environment, is the tragedy that he himself had planned out elaborately for the fulfilment of his own deep cravings and secret desires.
To get out of these delusions and gain the right knowledge constitutes the Sacred Goal of Life, and the Geeta is the Song of the Self that enchants the erring souls away from their confusions to the inviting fields of the joyous Perfection.