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Chapter 2
Similarly, we should not grieve or worry for those who are living, because grief (worry) does not help them, in anyway. We should rather care for and help them.
Arjuna's limbs were giving way and his mouth was getting parched. The root of such feelings, is his identity with the body. Such identity creates affinity for those who nurse this body. That affinity gives birth to grief and worry in thinking of their death. So one is grieved (worried) and sad after thinking of those, who are living as well as those who are dead. One is grieved (worried) about the dead because deprived of the ritual offerings of rice-balls and water, the manes, have a downfall (1/42), and he is worried about the living ones, because they are arrayed on the battlefield, staking their lives and property (1/33). Both types of worries relate to their bodies. So they are of the same character.
Instead of grieving, for those who are dead, we should offer ritual water and rice-balls etc., because it is our duty. Similarly, we should make arrangement to care for those who are living. So we should give a serious thought to it which enables us to understand our duty, while worry (grief), destroys the power of thinking.
Nanusocanti panditah:-Discrimination between the real and the unreal, is called 'Panda' (wisdom), and one who has developed discrimination, is known as Pandits (wise). Such wise men do not grieve, because they can discriminate between the real and the unreal—the imperishable self (soul) and the perishable body. Grief arises, only when the unreal is accepted as real i.e., when there is a desire to maintain the body forever. For the real, there is no grief or worry, at all.
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