What Does Bhagavad Gita Say About Fear

[Klaudia Aricas]

Andthe reason that we have this type of reaction, it is because of our own suppressed and very deep fearfulness of death. And it is from this actual root - fearfulness of death - that all other types of fear manifest.

And that is the nature of death. It is a great disruptor. And at this point it is like everything has come to an end. There is this permanence that you sense about what is going on, that everything has come to an end.

You know, the nature of my attachments to other people and other things, the nature of relationships, the desire that we may have, for instance, for a home or some shelter somewhere, in all of these things there is a desire for permanence. We not only desire, we hope, we cling vainly to this hope that these things will be permanent. And we want this permanence. And what death does is demonstrate that relationships, that the desire for a home or a shelter, that the nature of our attachments to things, all of these things are impermanent; and these will be broken. And so death reminds us of this reality and so it is really, deeply disturbing at the core of our being.

You know fear and these ideas that we have, this idea that I am my body, this is actually ignorance. It is not knowledge, it is ignorance and ignorance equals pain. It is like a formula: ignorance equals pain. You cannot separate them.

So then the question is, of course, what is the alternative? What is the alternative to this ignorance? What is the alternative to death? In--let me just go back a little bit. You know, when we embrace so profoundly this idea that the body is me, that it is who I actually am, oh my God, the myriad of unbelievable problems that will arise from this ignorance, from this ignorant condition is monumental. It is the cause of all suffering in this world. All, not most. All suffering in this world can be attributed to this idea of embracing, the idea that the body is who I am. This is me, this is my identity.

So as I mentioned, what is the alternative? The alternative, of course, is the cultivation of real understanding. If we look at a person that is not living in ignorance, we will find that such a person is truly spiritually enlightened. In the second chapter of the Bhagavad-gita, in the 56th verse, Krishna says that:

When a person is equipoised even in happiness and distress, who is free from attachments, free from fear, and free from anger, such a person is called a sage of steady mind. Their mind is in a very stable and steady condition.

So the reason that somebody is in that state is due to knowledge, spiritual knowledge. This knowledge or real knowledge is actually the panacea. It actually destroys darkness in the same way that light destroys darkness. When everything is dark and you turn on the light, instantly the darkness is destroyed. In the same way knowledge instantly evaporates the darkness of ignorance.

So we must understand that by virtue of the fact that we exist, embodied within this body, living in the material world, we will be confronted in different points in our life with calamities. They will occur because it is the nature of material world. But even in the face of the greatest calamity when one has taken shelter of the Supreme Soul, when one has taken shelter of the knowledge that is being offered, when one is acting on that knowledge, then one can be free from fear even in the midst as stated of the greatest calamity. So this is the key to fearlessness.

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In the previous article, I talked about having a good mentor in life whether it's for professional use or personal use. After reading some verses I happened to have an understanding that the teachings in the Gita are actually for us. In this article, I would like to talk about what I have been learning and what others, who run successful leadership, businesses do and what we can learn from them.

I am not a good writer and neither I am a good storyteller, I am only writing so I can understand myself and probably help others with my understanding and spread this greatest book to the greater public. I would like to reiterate, Bhagavad Gita isn't a religious book. The book has never mentioned any religions in any of the 700 verses. In my opinion, we came before religion and here we all are leaping from our current understanding into the advanced form but this greatest knowledge was given to mankind thousands of years ago and we are now understanding slowly.

To understand the context of the Gita, one must understand the basic story which is very simple and I recommend one to read through it if you aren't familiar esp those who aren't part of Indian culture.

In this article, I just want to talk about one thing, just one and one verse only. In chapter 1 of the Gita, Arjun, who is the warrior and he needs to fight the war of Dharma(righteousness) to establish the good has a win over the bad so the future generations always remember this as the foundation of moral values and belief. During the first chapter, on most occasions, Arjun doesn't show any signs of willingness to fight. He lacks willpower. There is a FEAR factor in him. During the time of Mahabharat, Arjun was considered to be the best and the greatest warrior in the Universe. What can be understood here is, despite being skilled at its best form, if there is no willingness to do any good things, then that skill becomes useless. There is nothing that skill set can drive anything forward. Like in any business or trying to lead people in any organisation, the skilled individual can bring or add no value to that organisation. Skills can be earned through rigorous practice and experiments but the driving factor to that business is something other than the skill itself. It is believed that if we only have the skilled manpower but no will to drive forward for the greater good, that can become poisonous, and dangerous and can possibly become a liability too. Arjun could potentially lead to the loss of the greatest war going to be fought.

Translation: My whole body shudders; my hair is standing on end. My bow, the Gāṇḍīv, is slipping from my hand, and my skin is burning all over. This is FEAR - False Evidence Appearing Real. This can engulf one no matter how skilled or knowledgeable an individual is. This can pose a great threat to anyone around. Lord Krishna had to motivate Arjun to a self-start motivation not circumstantial but substantial, this is what a great leader does. One must embrace the willingness to do beyond the boundary and one can do better when it meets with skills. There are many great world leaders who gave us victories and one of them is Mahatma Gandhi, who used to read Bhagavad Gita every day searching for an answer to many questions he used to have.

Wayang is an ancient Indonesian theater tradition in which the shadows of puppets are cast onto a screen. Solo is its historical center, so a few years ago I went there to watch. Here is what a play looks like from the audience side:

He was a great fighter, an ambidextrous and precise archer, indeed an Indian Apollo with arrows. He practiced in the dark, the better to hit his victims during the day time. He won the hand of his wife, Draupadi, in an archery contest remarkably similar to the one Odysseus won against the suitors at Ithaca to regain his wife Penelope.

The Pandavas were leading a huge army in a righteous cause against their own cousins, the Kauravas, also with a huge army. The Kauravas had stolen a kingdom from the Pandavas in a rigged game of dice, humiliating Draupadi in the process. The Pandavas went into exile, but then came back, seeing their duty as fighting to reclaim their kingdom and honor.

For eighteen days, battle raged. Millions died and fewer than a dozen men survived. Blood turned the field of Kuru into red mud. Arjuna and his brothers shot so many arrows into one of their enemies that the man fell from his chariot and landed not on the ground but on the arrows sticking out from his body like the quills on a porcupine.

Under the guise of physical warfare it described the duel that perpetually went on in the hearts of mankind, and that physical warfare was brought in merely to make the description of the internal duel more alluring.

His brothers correspond to other positive states of mind (the ancient Indians were very precise on the subject), And all five were married to Draupadi, whom yogis understand to be Kundalini, the coiled feminine energy at the base of the spine. Freud called it libido, the Greeks called it Eros.

With no desire for success, no anxiety about failure, indifferent to results, he burns up his actions in the fire of wisdom. Surrendering all thoughts of outcome, unperturbed, self-reliant, he does nothing at all, even when fully engaged in actions.

Actually, it was Krishna, in conversation with Arjuna, on the eve of an 18-day battle that would kill about four million (!) and which only eleven men would survive. Here are Arjuna and Krishna, his charioteer, in between the opposing armies just before the battle, as Krishna reveals to Arjuna the two crucial secrets to our lives: how to know and do your duty, and how to live.

Oh, wait a minute. Did I say that Hannibal was in the same situation as Arjuna? I meant, that we all are in the same situation as both Arjuna and Hannibal. That is the point of the Gita, and also (more humbly) of my book.

The Gita is a poem in the original Sanskrit, and the translation that best preserves the beautiful, easy, fluid feel of a poem is the Bhagavad Gita by Stephen Mitchell (Three Rivers Press). The opening quote above comes from his translation.

Please Accept my humble obeisances ,all the glories to srila prabhupada, i want to know deeper way to remove fear in KC, doing chanting 16 rounds and following the regulative priniciples , although i am not get out from fear, Why is it karma or anything What should i do .

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