Bhagavad-Gita: Teachings 17 & 18

I just couldn't agree with some of the sins that were talked about by Krishna in teaching 17. That passionate men "crave foods that are bitter, sour, salty, hot, pungent, harsh, and burning, causing pain, grief, and sickness." (132) In my opinion of the word passionate, passion is more like a person who lives life to its fullest. But maybe in Bhagavad-Gita, the word passion meant something else. According to the dictionary here is the definition.

passion: a strong and barely controllable emotion.

So now I understand it a lot better. What was meant by passionate men, was that men were incapable of controlling their emotions and desire for desires. In this case desire is sin. But then this other quote left me confused, "Wavering and unstable, performed with hypocrisy, to gain respect, honor, and worship, that penance is called passionate." So I looked up passionate and here it is:

passionate: showing or caused by strong feelings or a strong belief.

"The joy that is passionate

at first seems like ambrosia

when senses encounter sense objects,

but in the end it is like poison."

(140)

Why would being passionate be a penance? But I'll just set that thought aside because I'm thinking beyond it a little too much.

I really liked Krishna's thoughts on right and wrong, they just make sense. "When one fails to discern sacred duty from chaos, right acts from wrong, understanding is passionate." (139) What I understood from this is that if you are able to understand, comprehend, or feel bad for a person who has not been able to know what is right and what is wrong, and goes the wrong way, you are being understanding. By being understanding you are being passionate, you are not in control of your emotions and therefore you have lost all discipline. Krishna is definitely not in favor of passion or any feeling that describes you as out of control. You have to be in control of yourself at all times.

"When it sustains acts of mind, breath, and senses through discipline without wavering, resolve is lucid."(140) Resolving would be making the absolute right decision, and it is lucid, right there in front of you, so it wouldn't make sense to go the wrong way and lose your control, according to Krishna.

I found the comparison between lucidity and passionate to be very interesting and it is definitely something you can see in humanity: "The joy of lucidity at first seems like poison but is in the end like ambrosia, from the calm of self-understanding. The joy that is passionate at first seems like ambrosia when senses encounter sense objects, but in the end it is like poison."(140) I can see lucidity as reality itself. When we are not able to face reality (which might be good or bad) so we resort to passion, which might be going the other way around and avoiding reality. Lucidity is right there clear for us to see, while passion is just something we might create to distract us from it.

I was a bit disappointed when I realized that Arjuna will probably fight in battle after all Krishna told him. "Krishna, my delusion is destroyed, and by your grace I have regained memory; I stand here, my doubt dispelled, ready to act on your words." (145) Arjuna is now in control of himself and has let the passion for what he believed in go, he is now facing reality, and facing the fact that Krishna was right.