(Hindus) Do you feel there is an Arjuna inside you?

Question

our present day environment, the confusion as to how to deal with negativity... finding truth about karma..what is right and what is wrong...etc

Do these things awaken an Arjuna in you...yearning for the Truth... and God??

Answer 1

I'm not Hindu but I feel Arjuna inside me. I remember this passage from the Bhagavadgita was among the first texts that inspired me as a teenager. I think Arjuna is inside every man and woman. I think Arjuna is the representation of us, humans.

I usually don't like long copied and pasted texts but here I would like to make an exception. Sorry for the inconvenience:

Here is the portion of the second chapter, as recently translated by Barbara Stoler Miller, in which Krishna explains why it would be cowardly of Arjuna not to fight.

Excerpt from The Bhagvad-Gita

You grieve for those beyond grief,
and you speak words of insight;
but learned men do not grieve
for the dead or the living.

Never have I not existed,
nor you, nor these kings;
and never in the future
shall we cease to exist.

Just as the embodied self
enters childhood, youth, and old age,
so does it enter another body;
this does not confound a steadfast man.

Contacts with matter make us feel
heat and cold, pleasure and pain.
Arjuna, you must learn to endure
fleeting things--they come and go!

When these cannot torment a man,
when suffering and joy are equal
for him and he has courage,
he is fit for immortality.

Nothing of nonbeing comes to be,
nor does being cease to exist;
the boundary between these two
is seen by men who see reality.

Indestructible is the presence
that pervades all this;
no one can destroy
this unchanging reality.

Our bodies are known to end,
but the embodied self is enduring,
indestructible, and immeasurable;
therefore, Arjuna, fight the battle!

He who thinks this self a killer
and he who thinks it killed
both fail to understand;
it does not kill, nor is it killed.

It is not born,
it does not die
having been,
it will never not be;
unborn, enduring,
constant, and primordial,
it is not killed
when the body is killed.

Arjuna, when a man knows the self
to be indestructible, enduring, unborn,
unchanging, how does he kill
or cause anyone to kill?

As a man discards
worn-out clothes
to put on new
and different ones,
so the embodied self
discards
its worn-out bodies
to take on other new ones.

Weapons do not cut it,
fire does not burn it,
waters do not wet it,
wind does not wither it.

It cannot be cut or burned;
it cannot be wet or withered;
it is enduring, all pervasive,
fixed, immovable, and timeless.

It is called unmanifest,
inconceivable, and immutable;
since you know that to be so,
you should not grieve!

If you think of its birth
and death as ever-recurring,
then too, Great Warrior,
you have no cause to grieve!

Death is certain for anyone born,
and birth is certain for the dead;
since the cycle is inevitable,
you have no cause to grieve!

Creatures are unmanifest in origin,
manifest in the midst of life,
and unmanifest again in the end.
Since this is so, why do you lament?

Rarely someone
sees it,
rarely another
speaks it,
rarely anyone
hears it--
even hearing it,
no one really knows it.

The self embodied in the body
of every being is indestructible;
you have no cause to grieve
for all these creatures, Arjuna!

Look to your own duty;
do not tremble before it;
nothing is better for a warrior
than a battle of sacred duty.

The doors of heaven open
for warriors who rejoice
to have a battle like this
thrust on them by chance.

If you fail to wage this war
of sacred duty,
you will abandon your own duty
and fame only to gain evil.

People will tell
of your undying shame,
and for a man of honor
shame is worse than death.

The great chariot warriors will think
you deserted in fear of battle;
you will be despised
by those who held you in esteem.

Your enemies will slander you,
scorning your skill
in so many unspeakable ways--
could any suffering be worse?

If you are killed, you win heaven;
if you triumph, you enjoy the earth;
therefore, Arjuna, stand up
and resolve to fight the battle!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Be intent on action,
not on the fruits of action;
avoid attraction to the fruits,
and attachment to inaction!

Perform actions, firm in discipline,
relinquishing attachment;
so seek refuge in understanding--pitiful
are men drawn by fruits of action.

Disciplined by understanding,
one abandons both good and evil deeds;
so arm yourself for discipline--
discipline is skill in actions.

Wise men disciplined by understanding
relinquish the fruit born of action;
freed from these bonds of rebirth,
they reach a place beyond decay.

When your understanding passes beyond
the swamp of delusion,
you will be indifferent to all
that is heard in sacred lore.

When your understanding turns
from sacred lore to stand fixed,
immovable in contemplation
then you will reach discipline.

Answer 2

As a retired public sector official , I, have been forced by conflicting situations, compelling situations, threatened by power, irritated, blackmailed, obstructed, indangered by so many people during the period of my service. Every time thogh to say that I felt an Arjuna is high handedness according to me, I should with all greatfulness to Lord Krishna accept that I have followed his saying in Gita on Karma. I always took to my duties undettered and unmindful of the consequences and results. And the blessing is that I am answering your questions peacefully sitting in my house .Now I know that whatever I do is as ordained by the Lord.

At present my mind wants to feel like Rama Bhakjtha Hanuman. I look at the face of Hanumanji for a long time and turn to Sri Rama, filled with the bhakthi of Sri Hanuman.

Answer 3

Yes. True. Where is the modern day Krishna, to awaken the Arjuna in me?

"Krishna nee begane baroo".

Answer 4

Arjuna - You mean
- a Warrior to accomplish God's tasks,
- a Seeker of knowledge that can liberate
- a Believer who can obey even to kill
- a Humble Man ready to be led by God himself
- a Focused man?
Oh yes I wish I am on the path.

Answer 5

uhhh no..........

I ain't Arjuna, can see myself as Krishna though. He was a bad *** with all his political moves and lying and cheating to make the "good" side win. In all of our religious mythology i think he was by far the coolest guy around. Always the realist, that's missing in so many of our religious figures.

Answer 6

No but sometimes I feel there is a Python inside me.

Answer 7

Not really.

I just figure, what can I do?

Oh well, life goes on!

Answer 8

NO