While traveling in the West and lecturing on the Bhagavad Gita, one of the most common questions asked by peace loving Western students is, “Why is Krishna preaching and almost forcing Arjuna to take up weapons against his own kinsmen while Arjuna shows no interest in it and argues against the ghastly warfare and its irreligious and immoral outcome?”
They assume Krishna to be a warmonger and Arjuna a champion of peace—a compassionate and kind-hearted dude. Indeed, anyone who gives a cursory reading to the first chapter of the Gita sympathizes with Arjuna and is puzzled with Krishna’s preaching to Arjuna to stand up and fight. Even Mahatma Gandhi, an ardent lover of the Gita, could not digest Krishna’s instruction to Arjuna to fight, and thus commented that the whole plot of the Bhagavad Gita is allegorical. Truth, however, is more mysterious than it appears.
Right now we are busy with our body-mind complex, so we are not free for God. Our mind is full of material attachments and desires. Consequently, there is no room for God. If we invite God into our house, and all of the chairs are occupied, where will he sit? When we make ourself free from our attachments, our suffering and happiness, then our mind will become clear and God can enter.
