Bhagavad Gita Chapter 11

INTRODUCTION

This text was machine-transcribed from the printed book and may contain errors. Select the words and choose “Report a mistake”.

Krsna explains in these verses what He really is. ‘I am time,’ says Krsna. ‘I devour and destroy the world.’ This is one of the most potent truths uttered by Krsna in Gita. He has earlier talked to Arjuna about atman, about rebirth, about the nature of karma, about doing work without getting attached to the result of work, and about His glories.

For the first time, He takes off His mask and says matter-of-factly, ‘I am the Destroyer.’ He pulls no punches in responding to Arjuna’s query, ‘Who are you, and what is your purpose?’ Time never stands still. It moves on. Nothing can stop the flow of time. Nothing can bring back time. Nothing can move time forward. Time destroys. The future constantly moves into the present, and then into the past. The sad part is that though we can only experience the present, we constantly try to escape the present.

We are forever caught in the fantasies of a future

we know nothing about and the regrets of a past

we never really lived when it was our present.

Krsna is stating a simple fact here.

‘With or without you,’ He says, ‘All these warriors will be dead. As time, I shall devour them. It is not you who are the cause. You can be the superficial reason. By being the instrument of their destruction, be the gainer of fame, wealth, and power.’ It is easy to interpret these words of Krsna to mean that the future is predestined, since He says all these enemies of Arjuna will be destroyed. From this we can even interpret that His role is to protect the good and destroy the evil.

As Mahakala, time personified, Krsna destroys

all, the good and the bad. Time does not

differentiate. Time does not keep accounts of

whether you did good deeds or bad. Time

moves on and destroys the present into past,

future into present and past.

As long as we flow with time, things happen as they should. When we resist and try to have things the way we wish them to be, rather than the way they would be, we get in the way. Like the rock that gets pounded by the river and eventually gets reduced to fine dust, we too get reduced to nothing by time. By imitating the reed in the river that bends offering no resistance, we can flow with time. Struggling to choose is not freedom. It is the bondage of the mind. There is no need to make a choice. Choice happens at the level of the mind, not at the level of the being.

Choicelessness can be the choice. When Krsna speaks of destroying and wiping out the world, He is talking about the destruction of the illusory physical and material world. He is the destroyer of fantasies, He is the destroyer of identities, He is the destroyer of egos, and He is the destroyer of all that is unreal. It is important to understand what Krsna means in these words.

As the supreme consciousness, He too is the energy of Siva, the Rejuvenator. Siva is not the Destroyer as He is made out to be. He recreates by destroying. There can be no life without death.

Arjuna's dilemma was his fear of
killing all those he loved and
respected. He wondered whether
he was causing the destruction of
his entire lineage by doing this.
In truth, Arjuna was fighting
against the destruction of his
own conditioning.
His samskaras, past memories of
parental, teacher related, and
other conditionings were difficult
to destroy. This great war is
really the fight between Arjuna
and his samskaras. Krsna once
again takes responsibility for this
destruction. Earlier there were
only words. Now Arjuna had
seen the destruction for himself.
He had seen the Kaurava warriors
being consumed by the
destructive destination that Krsna
had become. It was impossible
for Arjuna to disbelieve what he
had seen - Bhisma, Drona, Karna
and othersdisappearing into the
vast form of Krsna.

Do not lose heart. Do what you have to do. Fight and destroy what remains, which is just the illusion of your fears.

GOALS:

To understand that we ought to
live blissfully in the present
moment and not succumb to the
regrets of the past or the worries
of the future