My Gita

by Devdutt Pattanaik

Dhritarashtra’s blindness is not so much the absence of sight as the absence of empathy.

Arjuna’s vision is expanding, focus is giving way to perspective, attention (dhayana) to awareness (dharana) as his gaze finally rejects the boundary separating the self from the other, and action from responsibility. This is darshan!

In judgement, the world is divided: good and bad, innocent and guilty, polluted and pure, oppressor and oppressed, privileged and unprivileged, powerful and powerless. In darshan, one sees a fluid world of cause and consequence, where there are no divisions, boundaries, hierarchies or rules.

The Gita does not speak of changing the world. It speaks of appreciating the world that is always changing. Belief in one life makes us want to change the world, control it or resign to the way things are. Belief in rebirth enables us to appreciate all three possibilities, without clinging to any.

The journey from human to divine is to achieve conceptual clarity and appreciate the world as it is, while empathizing with how others perceive it.

You may value me for what I have and what I do. But I am not what I have or what I do. If you love me, focus on who I am: my hungers and my fears, and my potential to focus on who you are.

Maya distracts us from infinity and immortality, from the feeling that the world can continue without us. Maya makes us feel important.

I want you to need me. If you do not need me, and only give me, without taking anything from me, I feel inadequate, meaningless, valueless and purposeless. In wanting me, you illuminate me and contribute to my fulfilment. Likewise, you want me to need you. If I do not need you, if I am dependable but detached, you will feel insulted, hurt, unwanted, and I will appear patronizing.

Love, in either case, does not guarantee happiness. Love, in either case, does not manifest as control. Loving is its own reward, the ultimate human possibility. This is atma-rati, feeling fulfilled in doing the deed without expecting a reward,