In this stanza, when Arjuna has completely realised the helpless impotency in himself to come to any decision, he surrenders totally to Krishna. He, in his own words, admits the psychological shattering felt and lived by him in his bosom. He has instinctively diagnosed, correctly, even the cause of it to be “an uncontrollable amount of over-whelming pity.” Of course, Arjuna does not realise that it is his misplaced compassion; but, whatever it be, the patient is now under the mental stress of extreme confusion and bewilderment.
Arjuna confesses that his intellect (Chetas) has gone behind a cloud of confusions regarding what Dharma and Adharma are at that moment for him. The problem — whether to fight and conquer the enemies or not to fight and allow the enemies to conquer him — which needed an urgent solution, could not be rationally judged with the depleted mental capacities of Arjuna.
We have already explained Dharma and found that the Dharma of a thing ‘is the law of its being.’ A thing cannot remain itself without faithfully maintaining its own nature, and ‘THAT NATURE, WHICH MAKES A THING WHAT IT IS’ is called Dharma. Hinduism insists on the Manava Dharma, meaning, it insists that men should be true to their own essential nature, which is godly and divine, and, therefore, all efforts in life should be directed towards maintaining themselves in the dignity of the Soul and not plod on through life like helpless animals.
Here Arjuna indicates that he is quite ready to follow all the instructions of the Lord and maintain perfect faith in the wisdom of his Divine Charioteer. The Pandava must also be considered to have indicated that, if he, in his foolishness, were to raise doubts, even for the thousandth time, Krishna should have the large-heartedness, compassion and kindness patiently to explain them again to his disciple. All through the Geeta we come across many occasions when Arjuna punctuates Krishna’s message with his own doubts. Never does Krishna, even once, grow impatient with his disciple. On the other hand, each question, as it were, is seen to have added more enthusiasm and interest to the discourses on the battle-field.
