Gita Down: Visada Yoga of Despair, The Door to Grace

There are currently six billion possible interpretations of the Bhagavad Gita; here’s one concerning Chapter One. Arjuna takes a new perspective.

The battle between good and evil is about to begin, and Arjuna, who literally has God, aka Krishna, on his side, decides to move into the middle of the battlefield to take a look at his enemy.

And from this new point of view, his world is shattered. He sees the brotherhood of humanity, literally. There, within the evil forces of Dhritarashtra, he sees family and friends. The world is not as black and white as he believed.

And in a moment of despair, he drops his weapon and sits right down, not out of some philosophy of non-violence as Gandhi is quick to point out in his commentary on the Gita, and not out of some misguided morality as others have understood, but from the shock of one who has suddenly seen the falsehood of belief and thus the madness of this world.

It is exactly a similar moment of despair that brought Siddhartha Gautama to his quest for Buddhahood.

For some, these moments are epiphanies that play out for years. Adyashanti talks about his experience as a child when he realized the grownups around him actually believed their own lies. It led to years of Zen meditation before his awakening. Or this moment may be a sudden realization as Eckhart Tolle has related when he sees through the duality of his suicidal anguish.

It is the Dark Night of the Soul or maybe Disturbing Years of Twilight. But this suffering and despair is indeed a yoga that brings us toward the necessary questioning of what the world is, and more importantly, who I am. And, in turn, the grace of God, Krishna, Consciousness, What I Am, will reveal nothing but the truth.

The fact that Arjuna sits down is not a fluke. It’s not some weakness on his behalf. Yes, there’s attachment and yes, there’s rationalization, and yes, yes, yes, there’s deep dark confusion. It all comes from the human response to a sudden realization something’s rotten in Kurukshetra.

And without such a moment, Krishna doesn’t have his say.