Essays on the Gita, First Series (Arya Publishing House, 1922)

Therefore, says the Teacher, put away this vain s orro w and shrinking, fight, O son of Bharata. But w5ierefore such a conclusion? This high and great knowledge, this strenuous self-discipline of the mind and soul by wh^^t^s to ns^b£yond__the cl ^tKe"^o^tionsjind the cheat of the senses to true self-knowledge, Inay well free us from grief and delusion ,* it may well cure us of the fear of death and the sorrow for the dead ; it may well show us that those whom we speak of as dead are not dead at all nor to be sorrowed for, since they have only gone beyond ; it may well teach us to look undisturbed upon the most terrible assaults of life THE CREED OF THE ARY^ FIGHTER 2and upon the death of the body as a trifle ; ii t_ma y ^It us to the conception of all life’s circumsto^^^ as a manifesta tion of the On ^Land as a means for our souls tQ raise themselves above appearances by an upward evolution until we know ourselves as the immortal Spirit. But how does it justify the action^demanded of Arjuna and the sla ughte r of Kurukshetra? The answer is that thjs is th e^ction required o^ Arj una in_J:he p^th_he^ has_ to traveT ; it has come inevitably in the performance of the fanc tion demanded of^him by Jiis jwa d harma , hw social duty, the law of his life and the law of his being. Thisjworld, this manifestation of the Self in the material universe is not only a cycle of inner development, but a _field^ in^ which^ the external circumst ances of l ife have to be accepted as an environment and an occasion for th at develo pment. It is a world of mutuaTfelj^ and str uggle ; not a serene and peaceful gliding through easy joys is the progress it allows us, but every step has to be gained by heroic effort and through a clash of opposing forces. Those who takejy>_the mner and the outer struggle even to the most physical clash of all, that of war, a re the K shatriyas, the mighty n^; war , force, nobility, courage are their nature ; protection of the right and an unflinching acceptance of the gage of battle is their virtue and their duty. For there is continually a struggle between right and wqng, justice and injustice , the force that protects and the force that violates and oppresses, and when this has once been brought to the issue of physical