The summary of Chapter 1 of the Srimad Bhagavad Gita is the simplest yet it has the foundational importance. To understand the flow of the Bhagavad Gita conversation, it is essential to understand chapter 1 of it.
There are 47 Slokas in this chapter, among them Arjun's speech started from sloka number 21. So these Slokas can be divided into two sections. In the first section which is from sloka number 2 to sloka number 20, Sanjay spoke about the environment of the War field of Kurukshetra after he received an inquiry from Pro-tem King Dhritarashtra in the First sloka of the first chapter of Shreemad Bhagavad Gita. In the 20th sloka, Sanjay told that Arjun asked Krsna to move the chariot in the middle of both the armies. Krsna listened to Arjun's wise and drove the chariot and placed it in the middle of the Kurukshetra War field under a Banyan Tree(Ficus benghalensis).
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| This is the picture of that tree that is still alive. |
After that, Krsna gave a perspective to Arjun where he identified all the members of Kaurava's Army as Arjun's relatives. In the beginning, the Arjun discouraged all his relations with Kaurava's and people who were supported Kaurava's just by acknowledging his uncle Dhritarashtra as "Durbuddhi", which was slang, thus it was a very disrespectful approach. But when Krsna gave his perspective to Arjun suddenly Arjun felt mental turbulences and his mental turbulences drastically developed and pushed him into a state of depression. His depression got so critical that he started feeling helpless and decided not to fight in the Kurukshetra War at the end moment.
Arjun has also given many arguments to support his decision. He said that if Dhritarashtra didn't understand and respect the relationship that they shared then that was his impotence of mind. He also told the after-effects of the Kurukshetra War where social conditions would drastically damage and economic crisis would also increase and the administrative system would behave discreetly and because of that in the society the crime rates would increase specifically the crimes against women. He used the phrase "Varṇa-saṅkaraḥ". This a type of disorder of Human Society, according to Arjun, which would eventually destroy the existing family traditions. The children who would take birth because of this varṇa-saṅkaraḥ disorder would not acknowledge or respect the family traditions. Arjun also proclaimed that family traditions are very essential for any family's social image.
What is there to learn
In this chapter, the introduction to the main conversation is mentioned. This chapter tells us that there will situations in our life when we will feel depressed and our depression would be the result of our knowledge that we have gathered through the experiences of our Life. In a Human's life there will different kinds of experiences until that human dies but those experiences can be categorized into three divisions.
1. Positive Experience (Sakaratmak Anubhav)
2. Negative Experience (Nakaratmak Anubhav)
3. Compound Experience (Misra Anubhav)
The first two types of experiences are not that problematic because when any person has one of these experiences about one sector or aspect of his/her life then that person comes to a definite conclusion about that aspect of his/her life and that conclusion either will be optimistic or pessimistic.
Example 1:- Think about a girl, who just entered college after completing her schooling. In the beginning few months, she concentrated on her studies only then she involved herself in a college love affair with a boy from that college. Both of them having a good time with each other. A few times later, because of a reason, they broke off their Love relationship with each other. At this point, one of these two possibilities can happen, either that girl can start concentrating on her studies again and focuses on her career or higher studies to build a strong future, this is an optimistic approach or she can feel depress and leave her studies and in extreme conditions, she can committee suicide, this is a pessimistic approach to handle the same situation.
Example 2:- Think about a boy who was working on an IT farm after completing his engineering. He contributed ten years to that IT farm and gathered sufficient experience in that sector. After that, he has decided to open his own IT farm venture and he took Business loans from the market for that and investment into that plan. But because of a sudden Market crash, the flow of profit of the entire IT sector dropped and this boy's new IT venture also get ramification, because of this Economic crisis. Now, at this point, this boy turned entrepreneur can have two possibilities, one is optimistic where he will stick with his vision of Own IT farm and try to recover the loss and bring back at least the old profile margin and continue with his venture and the second one is pessimistic, where he will drop IT venture vision and again get back to his old employee role in an existing company.
The third type of experience (Compound Experience) is problematic. Because, if a person has such type of experience then that person gets into a state of depression where confusion ignites the depression and in this state of mind any person who is going through this becomes incapable to decide what is right at that appropriate moment for him/her.
Because that person's knowledge and experiences create obstacles for that person.
For Example:- Think about a middle-aged middle-class man, who has an amount of income which is enough to run a four-person family and they were having a normal life. Suddenly this man's father who was aged encountered a heart attack and hospitalized. Doctors examined him and suggested that he needed to go through an operation because he had a blockage. If the operation didn't happen immediately then he might die. During this time, this man's only son passed out the engineering entrance examination and he required a lumpsum amount of money for his engineering admission. This situation is called Dharma-Sangkat in Sanskrit and the experience which this middle-aged man was experiencing, is known as Compound Experience or Mishra Anubhav. He can't organize enough money to contribute to both the incidents in one go, he needs to choose only one and discard another thing but which one he needs to choose because both persons are important to him and both of them depend upon him.
Arjun had encountered the same sort of experience during the Kurukshetra War.
As the name of the chapter suggest, this chapter is full of sad talking. The name of the chapter is Arjun Vishad-Yog. Vishad means Anxiety, Stress, Depression. According to Vedic Parampara, Vishad is also considered as a form of Yog. Because, when a person gets into this type of frame of mind then he/she experiences a tremendous amount of mental turbulence which pushes that person to inquiry a rightful answer or conclusion. Vishad pollinates renunciation in the person's mind. When a Wise person encounters Vishad his/her mind creates detachment from worldly pleasures which ultimately transform that person's life into something else. For a wise person, Vishad is a key to open the door of Spiritualism. Arjun was a wise man who developed emotional attachment same as his uncle Dhritarashtra which ultimately blocked his mind to think what is the right action at this very end moment when the war was about to begin. This is the endpoint, where this chapter ends.
Thank You 🙏
Hari Om
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