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.
If I give up Bhakti because I’m not getting pleasure then it means that I have not understood Bhakti. It means that I have not come for Bhakti. I have come for my own pleasure. On the Bhakti path you do not have to be looking for pleasure – it comes naturally. A characteristic of Bhakti is that the person is devoid of any other desire except to do favorable activities for Krishna. Pleasure will come when love is there, because that is the very nature of love.
