BG14

Today was the 32nd sloka:
na kankse vijayam krishna
na ca rajyam sukhani ca
kim no rajyena govinda
kim bhogair jivitena va
On this day also the lecture was from Srirangam temple. In the 'vazhi thirunamam' - that is the long live hymn- on Swamy Sri Manavala Mamunigal, it is said that if Srirangam is well looked after, all World will be looked after well. Such is the importance of this Kshethram, which has been sung by all the ten Alwars and which is unique.
Arjuna continues " [ after killing my own kinsman and freinds] I do not desire for victory, kingdom, or happiness. Oh Govinda what use is there of such a kingdom , pleasure or even life itself"
There are three broad categories of people in this world. Some want to live at the cost or destruction of others. Some others are there who will let others live and they also live. There are few more who will not mind their destruction to make others live. They are respectively bad, average and good - in sanskrit adama, madyama and uthama -types. Practically we can see in our lives examples of these types. A mother scorpion gives birth to young ones .All these come out of the mother's body by bursting the back of the mother, in the process the mother dies. They live at the cost of their mother.
In the case of a cow we feed them and we get milk and both we and the cows live. While the candle and sandalwood represent the third category. While burning and giving us light, the candle gets destroyed. Similarly, to provide fragrance, the sandalwood is destroyed. In fact it provides the fragrance even to the sharp cutting edge of the axe as the sandalwood is cut. Just as sandalwood is rare so also such good people are rare to come across. So in life one should identify and move with them accordingly. We should never go near people who try to flatter and entice us with sweet words but are scheming to live by destroying us. Though the relationship or friendship will continue we should be careful as to what extent we move with them. Arjuna sees no good by destroying his own relatives and Friends. Here he addresses Sri Krishna as Govinda and we will see in the next lecture why he addresses so.