Gita Rahasya -Tilak
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
It does not matter one whit if my enemies, seeing me unarmed at this moment, come and cut my throat, but I do not wish to enjoy that happiness which is steeped in the blood of my own relatives killed in warfare, and burdened with their curses. It is true the warrior-religion is there, but if on that account I have to incur such terrible sins as killing my own ancestors, brethren, or preceptors, then, may that warrior- religion and warrior-morality go to perdition. If the other side, not realising this, have become cruel in heart, I ought not do the same thing ; I must see in what consists the true salvation of my Self, and if my conscience does not consider it proper to commit such terrible sins, then, however sacred the warrior-religion may be, of what use is it to me in these circumstances ? " When in this way his conscience began to prick him and he became uncertain as to his duty ( dharma- sammudha ) and did not know which path of duty to follow, he surrendered himself to Sri Krsna, who preached the Gita, to him and put him on the right path ; and when Arjuna, wanted to back out of the fight, fearing that it would entail the death of Bhisma and others— though it was his duty to fight — Sri Krsna made him take up the fight of his own accord. If we have to extract the true purport of the teaching of the Gita, such purport must be consistent with this ' upakrama ' ( beginning ) and 'upasamhara' (conclusion). It would have been out of place here for Sri Krsna to explain how Release could be obtained by Devotion or by the Knowledge of the Brahman or by the Patanjala-yoga, which were purely renunciatory paths or paths entailing asceticism and abandon- ment of Action. Sri Krsna did not intend to send Arjuna to the woods as a mendicant by making a samnyasin of him, filling his mind with apathy (vairagya), nor to induce him to go to the Himalayas as a yogin wearing a loin cloth (kaupina) and eating the leaves of the nim-tree. Nor did the Blessed Lord intend to place in his hands cymbals and a drum and a harp instead of bow and arrows and to make him dance again like Brhannala before the entire warrior community of India, on the sacred field of the Kura, steeped in the beatific happiness of loudly reciting the name of the Blessed Lord with supreme devotion, to the tune of those musical instruments.
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