Fear – In Gita Verse 1.43 O Kṛṣṇa, maintainer of the people, I have heard by disciplic succession that those whose family traditions are destroyed dwell always in hell.
On the sacred canvas of the Bhagavad Gita Verse 1.43, Arjuna represents every soul’s battle with inner conflict. At the brink of war, his despair stems from the dire consequences he envisions – the downfall of family traditions and the damnation that he believes would inevitably follow. This moment is more than just a historical or mythological crossroad; it is the eternally recurring junction of human despair.
Within our lives, just as in Arjuna’s heart, prayers often echo with trepidation instead of pulsing with thankfulness. The undercurrent of our fears can subdue the richness of our gratitude. Our hearts race with anxiety more often than they repose in the serenity of grateful reflection. It is this unconscious state – an echo of Arjuna’s dread – that ensnares us.
Fear, a creation of the mind, shadows every tentative step we take into the uncertain morrow. The mind, by its very nature, is predisposed to timidity; empty and fragile, it conjures phantoms of innumerable disasters, each more terrifying than the last. Yet, most fears are as insubstantial as shadows, dissipating when confronted with the luminescence of consciousness. Each day’s survival is a testament to human resilience, a refutation of yesterday’s unfounded trepidations.
The revelation that transforms is awareness. Once we realise that the shackles we struggle against are forged by our minds, we can simply step out of our self-constructed confines. The fears we harboured vanish, just as darkness does at dawn, and we are liberated into boundless freedom.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Arjuna’s plight. His attachment to the fear of consequences blinds him to his sacred duty or dharma. Immersed in this quagmire of ego, he becomes unconscious to the cosmic order – that which transcends the individual and binds the universe. His ego, fueled by identification with the transient, anchors him to the realm of suffering.
This identification, this ego is enslavement. And to dismantle the ego, we must sever the bonds of false identification – the conflation of our true selves with our names, professions, and social labels. In doing so, we reclaim a state of ‘Anatma,’ as Buddha taught – a pure existence unpolluted by the illusion of the individual ‘I.’
Note how Arjuna, when first responding to Bhishma’s conch shell, is dynamic, full of spirit and resolve. In his acute presence and alertness, he symbolises life itself. Yet, when he yields to unconsciousness, he embodies a death-in-life, engendering a personal hell that looms not in some distant afterlife but here and now within him.
Through these verses, the Gita guides us to rise above our fears and limitations. It calls upon us to live with eyes wide open, fully conscious of our reality, and unchained by the spectral fears conjured by our minds. For in the realm of consciousness, there is no hell, only the heaven of freedom – a state of being where peace and purpose reign.
Our fears and uncertainties are but echoes of a distant conch shell, calling us to awaken from our stupor and embrace the potential of our inner strength. Let them not govern us. Instead, let us govern them with the sovereign rule of an illumined conscience.
May this understanding not merely resonate with us but catalyse a profound transformation. May it guide us on the path from fear to courage, from the morass of the unconscious to the heights of enlightenment, and from the constricted identity of the ego to the boundless expanse of the self in unity with the cosmos.
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