Conversation about Dharma | Bhagavad Gita Ch 2, Verse 14

Today’s Shloka is from Bhagvad Gita: Chapter 2, verse 14, Where Lord Krishna says - 

The Gita keeps reminding us that the different faculties of thought that we have: body, sense organs, mind and intellect, are important, but they are not us. For the soul is beyond all of these.

It is the contact of the senses, mind and intellect with the world that creates this world of dualities in the form of happy/sad, pleasure/pain, fame/infamy etc. And just as one comes, so will the other and they are all subject to complete transience, and none of these dualities are ever permanent in this world. So Shri Krishna reminds us to always bear all dualities with strength and remind ourselves that “this too shall pass.”

Pain is inevitable as long as we have a body but the response to the pain is our choice. Pain will exist, but suffering is optional. This reminds of a Buddhist analogy - the Buddhists speak about two arrows, the first arrow is the so-called “bad event” that happens in our life, something over which we have little to no control.

This will cause pain. But what the Buddhists emphasize is the second arrow - the suffering we feel in response to the bad event, the despair, complaining, temper tantrums, that we put ourselves through in response to events that happen. While the first arrow may be out of our control, the piercing of the second arrow is completely in our control and is definitely the more painful one.