Gita, Gandhi and Blood

 We have long misunderstood Gita and Gandhi. 


The Gita, doesn't advocate violence, and Gandhi, does advocate violence when necessary. What does this mean? 


The Gita's setting in the battle field, atop a chariot has many symbolisms. That man is akin to a chariot. That life is battle field. The purpose of the Gita, was to get a wistful Arjuna, to stand up and kill his own kin. This is evidently absurd for a spiritual scripture. 


Yet the Gita makes a very clear distinction between the violence of the mind and the violence of the material. It prioritizes the first, and trivializes the second. Because what are we, but flesh and bone? Instead, it draws us to our mind, where there is great violence & suffering due to illusion or Maya. We are not the body, nor the mind. We are consciousness, that which arises and dissipates. And hence, one must carry on with one's role in this transitory world, no matter what it entails.


So effectively, what the Gita advocates is a still mind, a calm mind. One that isn't violated or disturbed, by anger, hatred, jealousy, sadness, fear and hope. It urges for mind that discriminates, between the real, the truth and the transitory. It urges for stillness, for well-meaning, for no ill-will, even against one's own enemy, who's out for your head. That is the Gita's proclamation for non-violence, in the battle field.


 "I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than that she should in a cowardly manner become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonour" : Gandhi 


With Gandhi, we can see an open declaration of violence, and that violence would be anyday better than cowardly slavery. 


And this is how in India, the insistence is always on the mind. That first let the mind be free of violence, free of all those qualities that beget suffering and violence, in oneself and in others. 


But if and when this transitory, illusory world demands that arms be taken up and blood be drawn, the mind's discrimination must be alert and awake. There is the true freedom from violence. There is peace, non-violence.


And so, one can rather provocatively say that even murder can be non-violent and peace be extremely violent.

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