Some people ask: “If we stay equal and unaffected amidst happiness and distress, gain and loss, victory and defeat, as the Bhagavad-gita (02.38) recommends, won’t that take away our humanity and make us like unfeeling robots living a mechanical existence?”
Not at all, answers Gita wisdom. Because the sanctity of spirituality doesn’t erode but enhances the dignity of humanity.
The sanctity of spirituality refers to the purity and the exaltedness of the consciousness of advanced spiritualists who remain transcendental to worldly ups and downs.
The dignity of humanity refers to the various perceptions, emotions and actions that characterize human beings, that make people human. To erode the dignity of humanity means to chip away the human capacity for emotions, essentially to make a human being incapable of loving, frequently due to repeated disillusionment in the attempts to love.
Gita wisdom doesn’t reject our loving propensity as false or illusory; it only reorients that propensity from the temporary to the eternal, from matter to Krishna. When we learn to love Krishna, then we are never disillusioned, as love for Krishna can go on eternally and can go on bringing us ecstasy.
Moreover, when we love Krishna, it’s not that we become unfeeling towards everything material – rather we offer our affection to the material in relationship with Krishna. Thereby the dignity of our humanity becomes enriched; our natural human emotions rather than being repressed become purified and reinforced as pathways to the spiritual.
Arjuna accepted Krishna’s teachings about living equipoised, yet he mourned the death of his son Abhimanyu. And thereafter he increased his service to Krishna by taking revenge against the wrongdoers who had unfairly slaughtered his son.
Thus, by subsuming our human emotions within a world of emotions that extends over eternity, our spirituality enriches our humanity.
Bhagavad Gita Chapter 02 Text 38
"Do thou fight for the sake of fighting, without considering happiness or distress, loss or gain, victory or defeat – and by so doing you shall never incur sin."
Prabhuji,
Supposing a loved one dies early as a result of a disease or some unnatural causes, how can we remain equipoised, when even Krishna’s greatest disciple, Arjuna, mourned the death of his son? How do we compensate (or relate to Krishna) for having shown our feelings of distress at the death of a loved one?
Hare Krishna!
Answered here:
http://www.thespiritualscientist.com/2013/12/if-we-feel-grief-struck-on-losing-a-loved-one-how-do-we-relate-with-krishna-thereafter/
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