Bhagavagd Gita - Session 1 - Track 108

In this struggle, each one tries to hurt the other. Each one is trying to devour the other, destroy the other and by destroying each one succeeds in living, in continuing to subsist, to survive and in this battle according to Darwin, only ‘he’ can survive or only ‘that’ can survive which is the fittest, the strongest who can battle best, and keep its own feet on the earth.

This is the modern view of the world, but this view is as ancient as the Upanishads, in fact not only Indian ancient conception even in the west there was a great thinker called Heraclitus, much before Socrates and his one great dictum was: “War is the father of all things”. He pointed out that if you look at the whole world, nothing happens in the world without a war. He said: “War is the father of all things”. And therefore he said “Do not run away from the war; war is a fact”, the world design is such, whatever may be ultimate purpose which you can find by greater devotion of thinking or realisation, but the fact is that in the movement of God, the design of the world is such, that struggle has been put as a fundamental law, at least at present, whether it is an ultimate law or not we have to see, but at present there does not seem to be any escape from the fact that forces come from different directions, they meet each other, they collide with each other, they battle with each other, they try to destroy each other and ultimately some survive, some are destroyed and again some other forces come to battle with them, and it goes on and on: “War is the father of all things”! This is how we can see the whole world to be.

The Gita does not shrink from this basic proposition. Therefore He starts with  kurukṣetre. The very starting point is a stark realisation of the reality of the world that your greatest problems of life arise when you realise that you are in a battle. Whether you know it or not, you are already in a battle, everyone of us; there is a battle going on in the world even though we are now born and come into the field, remember that you are already a member of an army, already, by the very birth.

First we have to realise, it is Kurukshetra; it is a battlefield. Therefore the basic proposition of the Gita is: ‘Do not run away from the battle, face the battle, even if you run away, you are in the battle, because there is nothing else in the world except battle’. Breathing itself is a battle, then where is the question of running away from the battle. You are in the battle. So, you start by your saying that you are in the Kurukshetra. If you run away from this, you won’t find the solution, not that problems will not arise: if you run away from this proposition, problems are there always, because battles already exist everywhere. So, be in the battle and look at all the people who are around you and have a good look at all the people who are arranged, one side here, one beside the other, and they have all assembled together as if on a ‘holiday’ to fight with each other.