Chapter Three
The Human Disciple
Note 3.6
Revolt and All-Embracing Inner Bankruptcy
▀ ▄ ▀ Sensational, Emotional and Moral Revolt
The character of this inner crisis is the sensational, emotional and moral revolt of the man who was hitherto satisfied with action and its current standards. He is the man who finds himself cast by them into a hideous chaos where they are in violent conflict with each other and with themselves.
In this situation there is no moral standing-ground left, nothing to lay hold of and walk by, no dharma (Dharma means literally that which one lays hold of and which holds things together, the law, the norm, the rule of nature, action and life) .
And on top of it, to have happened such crisis to a person who is the soul of action in the mental being is the worst possible crisis, failure and overthrow.
Here, we have to note that the revolt itself is the most elemental and simple possible.
From different aspects, we can view this revolt as :
▀ Sensationally – the elemental feeling of horror pity and disgust
▀ Vitally – the loss of attraction and faith in the recognised and familiar objects of action and aims of life
▀ Emotionally – the recoil of the ordinary feelings of social man, affection, reverence, desires of a common happiness and satisfaction, from a stern duty outraging them all
▀ Morally – the elementary sense of sin and hell and rejection of “blood-stained enjoyments”
▀ Practically – the sense that the standards of action have led to a result which destroys the practical aims of action
All this conflict leads to the all-embracing inner bankruptcy. Arjuna expresses this when he says that his whole conscious being, not the thought alone but heart and vital desires and all, are utterly bewildered. He can not find dharma anywhere. Nowhere he sees any valid law of action. He takes refuge as a disciple with Krishna for this sole purpose.
Arjuna practically asks from Krishna –
give me that
▀ which I have lost,
▀ a true law,
▀ a clear rule of action,
▀ a path by which I can again confidently walk.
We should particularly note here that Arjuna does NOT ask for the secret of life or of the world, the meaning and purpose of it all.
He is only interested in knowing dharma. Interestingly, it is precisely this secret which Arjuna does not ask from Krishna which the divine Teacher intends to give him!
Krishna wants Arjuna to give up all Dharmas except the one and only Dharma which is the broad and vast rule of living consciously in the Divine and acting from that consciousness.
Therefore Krishna first tests Arjuna for the completeness of his revolt from the ordinary standards of conduct. Then he proceeds to tell Arjuna much that has to do with the state of the soul. Krishna does not, however, tell him anything of outward rule of action which he was asking for.
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The Human Disciple
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