Devotees' Disbelief in God: Gita and God 009

Response to Gita Monopolisers Critique

SenGita (Gita and God 0001- 0007) is far removed from the various original version of the real Gita and distorts the latter is a plausible criticism. The criticism is valid but irrelevant. First, there is no true real Gita available. Even the ones that are available have many slokas that are grafted into Gita from time to time (see Bankim Chandra Chattapadhyay’s essay on SreMadBhagwat Gita) and often contradictory to the main theme and superfluous. So, there may not be any undistorted Gita at all. The translations can always be called distorted whether SenGita or any other translation. Yes, SenGita does not cover translations sloka (verse of Gita) by sloka and covers only a selection of slokas. But this is neither a distortion nor misleading in terms of the essential theme and message of Gita. SenGita cover a selection of slokas that are together more than adequate to capture the essence of Gita and many slokas are not covered because they are either repetitions in some sense or superfluous elaboration and therefore not necessary for understanding the essence of Gita. The Truth and knowledge can be expressed much more cogently and precisely than the mass of sloka renderings of Gita in various so-called authentic/ comprehensive versions. SenGita does not concern itself with the sanctity of each sloka and all slokas: its purpose is to get the essential concepts.
True, the various versions of Gita do not talk about empirical evidence on Yogis. But the words uttered by Lord Krishna are not coming out of the blue: He clearly talks about the learned/ wise men and various types of Yogis as real-life illustrations. So, Gita’s concepts, classification and theory is based on both logical reasoning and study of empirical evidence/ observations on human psychology and behavioral patterns. The dialogue form of question and answer between Lord Krishna and Arjun is unable to hide the fact that the discourse is based on logic, reasoning and empirical validation. Clearly, Gita was not written in a modern text-book form: it adopted the practice of teacher answering questions to a pupil, prevailing in distant ancient times 5000 to 10000 years Before Christ.
Gita also does not preach Yoga for everyone. It specifically recommends Arjun to concentrate on the War without the desire to achieve certain favourable outcomes. Lord advises Arjuna to understand what the Yogis have learnt and act in the battle-field with Yogi-like desire-free, anger-free, fear-free and attachment free state of existence. Arjun might have already known about the Yogis. In any case, battle field was no place to practice Yoga to reach salvation but to act with Yogi-like characteristics by keeping mind, intellect and thoughts concentrated on the concept of God and acting like God who is unperturbed, unattached and free of desire and self-ego, in complete knoweledge of the Creation and Manifestation process and yet always incessantly in action as per His own Dharma / property that is not captured by the three Gunas and the Grand Illusion of Maya. Lord is assuring Arjuna that he will be able to do what he is destined to do. It is only a rare outcome that a warrior will fight like a warrior without getting confused and realizing that what he is doing is only a manifestation of God. The chances of living such a life even in the battle-field while fighting a war is very low but it is going to materialize in the case of the phenomenon of Arjun as the manifestation of God at Kurukshtra. It is the stochastic destiny process that creates all phenomena as manifestation of God,the ultimate source of everything, contained in everything and container of everything including Arjuna, his co-fighters and his enemies in the battle field. It is only a matter of chance that Lord Krishna happens to be charioteer and adviser to Arjuna and that other warriors did not have that chance materializing in their case.

Lord did not need to preach religion or Yoga to Mankind or Arjuna. He was only answering questions to Arjuna. His answers were based on knowledge already available with Mankind through the Yogis / learned / wise people and Lord Krishna was aware of. Lord Krishna was always in the state of Yoga doing what He had to without any desire or attachment. Rather he was referring to religious rituals of worshipping God as something that the Yogis generally did not practice.

Gita is therefore fundamentally grounded on the reality of psychology and individual and social behavior of human beings, rather than trying to cultivate any mysticism about God and preaching religion on that basis. SenGita is true to the essence and fundamentals contained in the Gita without any distortion and does not mislead. But getting misled or confused is a general property of human beings and that cannot be avoided except by chance