Life Must Go ON

As Mumbaikars seek to overcome yet another tragedy and return to their normal lives and Norwegians mourn the death of their loved ones, one is reminded of the teachings of Bhagavad Gita, which emphasizes on the non-permanence of either happiness or distress and the importance of discharging one’s responsibility without being influenced by the vicissitudes in life.

In text 14 of Chapter 2, Lord Krishna tells Pandava warrior Arjuna that the non permanent appearance of happiness and distress and their disappearance in due course are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed.

The divine cowherd also seeks to console and provide solace to a grieving humanity asserting that the soul can never be cut into pieces by any weapon, nor can it be burned by fire, nor moistened by water, not withered by wind.

“This individual soul is unbreakable and insoluble, and can be neither burned not dried. He is everlasting, all pervading, unchangeable, immovable and eternally the same”. (Text 24, Chapter 2)

Thus, one who thinks that the living entity is the slayer or that he is slain, does not understand. According to the Gita, one who is in knowledge knows that the self neither slays not is slain.

Krishna further goes on to exhort in his sermon on the battlefield that for the one who has taken his or her birth, death is certain and for one who is dead, birth is certain and therefore “in the unavoidable discharge of your duty, you should not lament”.

To those who are emotionally affected by such situations in life, the song celestial counsels, “from whatever and wherever the mind wanders due to its flickering and unsteady nature, one must certainly withdraw it and bring it back under the control of the self’. (Text 26, Chapter 6).

The Gita also offers advice to the political leadership in such a scenario. In Text 20 of Chapter 3, it says that even Kings like Janaka and others attained the perfectional stage by performance of prescribed duties. “Therefore, just for the same of educating the people in general, you should perform your work…whatever action is performed by a great man, common men follow in his footsteps. And whatever standards he sets by exemplary acts, all the world pursues”.