Gita, lesson 7: when renunciation is just a way to run

When duty weighs too heavily, the idea of giving it all up gains its own appeal. That is what happens to Arjuna, the subject of the seventh lesson in Swami Dayananda Saraswati's series on the Bhagavad Gita.

Fighting those one respects

Arjuna answers Krishna with a plea: how can he loose arrows at Bhīṣma and Droṇa, teachers who deserve reverence? On another occasion, Arjuna had shot arrows at Bhīṣma's feet as a sign of respect. Now the war is real, and that gesture no longer fits.

The temptation of renunciation

Arjuna would rather live on alms than kill his teachers. In the Vedic tradition, saṃnyāsa, the life of renunciation, is a decision made in the name of self-knowledge and liberation, mokṣa. It is not an emergency exit. Whoever takes that path must be prepared to let go of ego and world, and Arjuna's crisis is emotional, not philosophical. Dayananda adds that donning the renunciant's robe for status would be nothing more than swapping one title for another.

Suffering lives in the mind

The turning point of the lesson comes in another of Arjuna's statements. Even with an unrivaled kingdom, or sovereignty over the gods, his sorrow would not lift. For Dayananda, this is where Arjuna begins to see that suffering does not come from circumstances but from confusion and a mistaken image of himself.

Training without clarity

Arjuna spent his life learning to fight, but not to think. Weapons, even divine ones, give him neither moral clarity nor emotional steadiness. A conflict like this is resolved only by a higher vantage point, and that is Krishna's role in the scene. Dayananda also notes that Arjuna grew up among sages without becoming one himself, because his heart was occupied with power and fame.

The question born of this crisis is no longer whether to flee or fight. It becomes what actually dissolves the sorrow.

The full study is in the book The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita, by Swami Dayananda Saraswati.