“Everyone is interested in himself and his own welfare. No one is interested in the Supreme Self.”
Let’s analyse this sentence:
- The phrases “Everyone” and “no one” refer to all conditioned souls.
- “Everyone is interested in himself and his own welfare.”: All conditioned souls are only concerned with their own success and happiness.
- “No one is interested in the Supreme Self.”: No conditioned soul is eager to please Krishna. Summary understanding: The universal trait of conditioned souls is to focus solely on personal pleasure (whether selfish or extended), and not on Krishna’s pleasure. In other words, even when we seemingly serve Krishna, it’s not because we genuinely care about His satisfaction, but because we want something in return. For instance, we may seek recognition or even liberation.
In Arjuna’s case, because he sees no benefit for himself, he does not want to fight.
Question: What is the antidote for this selfishness?
Our light: hearing, discussing and assimilating the Bhagavad-gita’s messages.
“Discussion of Kṛṣṇa is very potent, and if a fortunate person has such association and tries to assimilate the knowledge, then he will surely make advancement toward spiritual realization.” Bg 9.1 purport
“Therefore people misunderstand that Bhagavad-gītā is ordinary warfare, violence. But it is not that. It is arranged by Kṛṣṇa because, to fulfill His mission. His mission is paritrāṇāya sādhūnāṁ vināśāya ca duṣkṛtam [Bg. 4.8]. That is His satisfaction, not Arjuna’s satisfaction, not anyone’s satisfaction. It is His plan. He comes, He descends on this planet, in this universe, just to establish the real purpose of religious life and to kill, to vanquish those who are opposing the real purpose of life, human life. That is His mission, simultaneously two things. Paritrāṇāya sādhūnāṁ vināśāya ca duṣkṛtam.” Lecture 1973
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