Sakthi-Gita

Working on Addictions / Habits

Exercise for second chapter of  Gita 

 This is will be one of the most challenging exercise for you to do. But it is Fun.

Second day of war
On the second day, once again the battle drums conches and trumpets were sounded. Second day war was more ferocious and cruel. Dur-yodhan had appointed Bhishma, the great grandfather of both the Pandavas and Kavravas. Bhisma caused heavy damage to the Pandava army.  Seeing this Arjuna asked Krishna to take him to Bhishma. Arjuna faced Bhishma and a very terrible fight ensued. All other soldiers stopped fighting to watch the spectacle. Arjuna was able to check Bhishma to some extent but he was still hesitating to kill his loving great grandfather in-spite of Krishna teaching Gita.

Exercise-2 for  second chapter.

This is going to be a great exercise. We understood from Krishna's teaching that only by transcending Ego we will know that we are not this body with petty desires, longings, mine-ness, attachment and fear. all this occurs because we think we are this Ego, mind, body, intellectual complex. Now as Arjuna asked Krishna our question is how to transcend this Ego. The beautiful answer lies from the events of the second day war. Dur-yodhan (Ego)  knew that Arjuna would be emotional in killing his beloved great grand-father Bhisma. Therefore Dur-Yodhan employed Bhisma to lead his army and so every time when  Arjuna encountered his grand-dad becomes emotional and loses interest to fight.

      Now it  is very important to understand that Bhisma  has a boon that he will not be killed and will die only when he wishes for death.   Isn't it interesting to note that our "habit's or addiction" is like this great-grand-father Bhisma?. No matter what others tell or advice, unless we ourself sincerely wish can we see the death of our habits and addictions? We all have like this one or more Bhisma's in us. Like Arjuna we become  emotional and hesitate to fight our habits and addictions when it comes to the point of fighting or confronting with our habits and addictions.

     Like Dur-yodhan our Ego employs habits and addictions to dance to its tunes. Like Bhisma in Mahabharat  we would be grumbling about our habits and addictions but cannot abandon it simply because of the controlling power of our Ego. To weaken the power of Ego, we must first overcome the chief commander of the army - Bhisma. Dur-yodhan (Ego) is the main enemy but it cannot be destroyed in one shot because it employs all others in the battle field like Duryodhan in Mahabharat war. He is killed only on the 18th day and till then Arjuna has to fight with his beloved relatives. Similar is our plight of fighting our Ego and in the process we have to kill many of our beloved habits and addictions.

    This is the sole reason of many spiritual practices advocating denial or giving up of of our habits. To mention a few are giving up smoking, alcohol, sweets, long hours of sleep,  taking up practices of fasting, silence etc are all oriented to fight the Ego indirectly. We cannot confront immediately our Ego but can only march forward step by step.

     So our exercise for the second chapter is this step of giving up of our habits or addictions. Find out one of your long lasting habit or addiction and work on it. The criteria for choosing one habit should be meet the following conditions.

1. Should be of long period and deep rooted.

2. Should be something that you want to give up and find it difficult  to give up.

3.You would feel miserable, emotional in giving it up.

             Arjuna was fondled by his great grand father when he was young. Among all the 105 grand children Arjuna was Bhisma's darling. Bhisma always gave Arjuna extra share of sweets and would tell bedtime stories. So Arjuna could not kill this loving Grandfather in the war. But krishna warns Arjuna that unless Bhismais killed Dur-Yodhan cannot bedefeated.

      It is certain that you all would grumble about giving up your great grandfather Bhisma ( Habits and addictions) , but understand  without that you cannot win your Mahabharata war going inside you. Understand clearly that giving up the habit and making you miserable is not the point here, but using this we will be able to confront our Ego and finally transcend it and know our real nature of peace.

Please click here to read about the pre-cautions while doing this exercise.