The Bhagavad Gita For Millennials

by Bibek Debroy

‘Pluralitas non-est ponenda sine necessitate’. (When choosing between two competing theories, choose the one with fewer assumptions.)

‘Weapons cannot cut this. Fire cannot burn this. Nor can water wet this. And the wind cannot dry this.’

‘It is said that the senses are superior. The mind is superior to the senses. Intellect is superior to the mind. That [the atman] is superior to intellect.’

Not uttering words that lead to anxiety, speaking the truth and that which is pleasant and leads to welfare and self-study—these are known as austerities in speech.

‘O descendant of the Bharata lineage [Arjuna]! Whenever dharma goes into a decline and adharma is on the ascendance, then I create myself. To protect the virtuous and to destroy the evildoers and establish dharma, I manifest myself from yuga to yuga.’ This is the concept of Vishnu’s incarnations, and that of Krishna in particular.

The verb is (avarohana), to descend from a higher plane to a lower plane. But that isn’t the key message of the Bhagavad Gita. The Lord isn’t going to descend to save humanity and the world, not every time. The key message of the Bhagavad Gita is the reverse verb, (arohana), implying that we raise ourselves from a lower plane to a higher plane.

‘You have the right to action alone. You never have the right to the fruit. Do not be motivated to act because of the fruit. But don’t be motivated to not acting either.’

But societies don’t want people to be individuals. We have an infinite capacity to straitjacket and compartmentalize them, reducing them to collective categories.