Some days a thing is too heavy to carry. You have to decide something that will hurt people you love, or you have to choose between two things that are both right. You cannot eat, you cannot sleep, and each night you argue both sides again. Your hands are cold. You do not want to move, and you cannot stay still.

Arjuna stood in exactly this place, and the Gita starts there. What he did first is simple. He said plainly what was wrong, and then he asked. He did not try to decide while he was sinking. That is the first step, and anyone can take it.

Arjuna's body spoke before he did

Arjuna was the best archer of his time. On the field he saw his own relatives and teachers standing across from him, and he was overcome with compassion (Gita 1.28). Then his body gave way. His limbs failed, his mouth dried, his body shook, and the great bow slipped from his hand. He said that he could not stand firm and that his mind was whirling (Gita 1.29–30).

The Gita tells this plainly. It does not call it shameful. If your body reacts before your mind has caught up, you are in good company.

He said out loud what was heavy

Then Arjuna did something worth copying. He put it all into words. He said that he did not want victory, or a kingdom, or pleasure, because the people he would want them for were standing right there, ready to die (Gita 1.32–33). He said he would rather be killed without fighting back (Gita 1.46). Then he sat down on the seat of his chariot and put his bow aside (Gita 1.47).

Saying it did not fix anything. But it gave the weight a shape. A heavy thing that has a name can be looked at.

From complaining to asking

Lord Krishna's first words to him are short. They tell Arjuna to rise from this sinking, because it is not worthy of him (Gita 2.2–3). They do not tell him to stop caring about his people.

Arjuna answers, and then he says the most honest sentence of the whole scene.

He says that his mind is confused about what is right, that he does not know what is truly better, and that he is a disciple who has taken refuge in the Lord. He asks to be told. He does not ask for comfort. He asks for what is truly better.

The word for this confusion is moha, and the word for turning to someone as your refuge is sharanagati. Both are old, simple ideas. You are confused, so you turn to someone you trust, and you ask.

What this does not mean

It does not mean that being shaken is a weakness to be ashamed of. Arjuna trembled, and the Gita does not hide it.

It does not mean that you should feel nothing. Lord Krishna never tells him to love his people less.

And it does not mean that you should give up. Arjuna did say, "I shall not fight," and fell silent (Gita 2.9). But he stayed on the chariot, and the Lord, smiling as it were, began to speak (Gita 2.10). The silence was a pause that made room for the answer. The answer itself comes in the next part of the Gita, which begins in The Imperishable Self.

An example

Take Anil, the eldest son in a family. He must decide whether to close the old family shop that feeds two of his uncles' families. He cannot eat. His hands shake when he opens the account book. Each night he argues both sides until he is too tired to think.

One evening he does something different. He writes three lines. "What I am afraid to lose is the shop and my uncles' trust." "What I do not know is which is the right thing." "What I want to be told is how to see this clearly." The next day he takes those lines to an elder he respects and reads them out without defending himself.

He has not decided. But the knot now has a shape, and he knows the question he is asking.

A practice for today

Questions readers ask

Is it weak to feel this shaken?

No. Arjuna was the greatest archer of his day, and the Gita says he trembled (Gita 1.29–30). Lord Krishna does not mock him. He asks him to rise from the sinking (Gita 2.3), which is a kind of help.

Was Arjuna wrong to refuse to fight?

His care for his people was real. But his mind was divided, and he said so: "We do not know which is better" (Gita 2.6). He himself calls it a fault (Gita 2.7). The Gita answers the question in the teaching that comes next, in The Imperishable Self and Duty, Honour and Fear.

Does asking for guidance mean I have failed?

It is how the Gita says knowledge is received: through humility, sincere questions and service (Gita 4.34). Arjuna's request is the turning point of the scene (Gita 2.7), and at the end of the book he says that his doubts are gone (Gita 18.73).

Why did Lord Krishna smile?

The Gita says "smiling, as it were" (Gita 2.10). It is the calm of a teacher who sees the whole matter. It is not mockery, and it comes in the middle of the two armies, just before the teaching begins.

Going deeper

For the same verses in order, with the reasons Arjuna gave and what each one rests on, read the detailed reading. For a close study of each verse, the difficulties and the answers, read the deeper reading. To see how the scene begins, go back to Arjuna on the Field.