Forbidden Desires

Everyone has come to realize that the word coward is anything but a compliment. According to Krishna, “The coward is ignoble, shameful, foreign to the ways of heaven,” and he says so to Sanjaya who at the moment drowns in his tears. That alone makes one realize the true meaning of the word, and why we should follow whatever roads in life to not be truthfully related to it.

We learn a lot of lessons in this simple chapter. One we hear from Arjuan is that he’d rather starve and beg for food, then live in wealth and plentiful offerings tainted with someone else’s blood. In other words, it’s better to live a true, correct life, humble as it may be, than to live one full of wealth and a treasure-full of grand treats and assets, when the fortune comes from unbecoming and regretful acts.

Krishna also states, “You must learn to endure fleeting things—they come and go.” In the simple awareness that we should learn to appreciate every single thing that takes up our lives because we have yet to know when they will disappear and leave us solemn and begging for their presence.

When we learn to accept these things, such as how we exist, and for a reason, we will have courage and will be fit for immortality. Immortality having more of a figurative meaning, I am guessing. He says that our bodies, the flesh itself, is known to end, may be withered down into dust and rotten in the earth’s boundaries, but “the embodied self is enduring, indestructible, and immeasurable,” therefore meaning our souls, the only thing that makes each and every one of us who we are, lasts forever This might answer the unforgettable question everyone comes to ask throughout life, which is “Where are we going?” It might not have a concrete answer, but it hints that we are going somewhere.

Krishna uses this mind-set to convince Arjuna the reason why they should not fight in battle. What it the point of “killing” them when all they are really doing is shooting down packs of flesh? The people themselves, will live on forever, so in ‘killing’ them, they are doing them no real harm. It’s useless.

“It cannot be cut or burned
It cannot be wet or withere;
It is enduring, all-pervasive,
Fixed, inmovable, and timeless.”






We will live forever.

We also hear him speak of how Death is certain for anything that is born, and therefore, no one can escape death, as Gilgamesh, in the text read before had so tried to do.

He tells Arjuna not to grief, for whoever dies, “loses in war,” is in heaven enjoying it’s awesome confines, and whoever wins, gets to celebrate on earth. Either way, there is no use in griefing over something, womeone, whose presence is obviously, either way, in a safe place.

The explanation starts then, of how the attraction to Sensous objects leads to brooding, attachement, desire, anger, confusion, loss, and ultimately ends with total ruin. While someone who is wise, learns to view those same objects in neither attraction of hatred, they find serenity.

We all have desires, cravings, and sometimes act with possessiveness and ungodly individuality. If we learn to act with none of the former attribute, and learn to renounce them, we receive peace.

I find that these teachings relate to everyday life, choices we make, obstacles we come by, forbidden desires that tempt us. Here we find the reality in how we should mange these things we come by, in a way that instead of descending into our human-natured wants and greed, we should learn to act with correctness and find peace.