III: 2

Chapter 3, Verse 2

“Your statements seem
To contradict each other.
They confuse my mind.
Therefore tell me plainly
By what path
May I attain
The Supreme?”

Sri Krishna Prem:

“Arjuna, in demanding a clear-cut intellectual presentation which shall be decisive and final, is looking for something which cannot be given. Krishna’s method is not to overwhelm the mind by demanding assent to an intellectual scheme clearly formulated once and for all. Such an assent would not lift the student above the level of the thinking mind. Rather, Krishna aims, by setting forth apparently conflicting but actually complementary aspects of truth, to force the student to transcend ordinary levels of thinking in favor of the higher intuitive knowledge of the pure Buddhi, the clear seeing of the discerning faculty not influenced by likes and dislikes, thus bringing to birth in the soul a new and synthetic wisdom which shall be built into one’s very being. The Gita aims at setting forth the Yoga as a coherent whole, but in so doing, it is inevitable that the mind, which loves to pursue one train of thought to its logical conclusion regardless of others, should be brought up sharply from time to time and made to grasp the other sides as well.”

[Intellectual formulations of truth are helpful only if their limitations are recognized. These formulations are fraught with paradox due to the nature of language and discursive thought which divide and separate into component parts. It is when the mind becomes silent that spontaneous, intuitive promptings find their way to the surface of consciousness, embracing the components in a seamless oneness.]

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche:

“Clarity is a sense of being able to see into the nature of things as though all reality were a landscape lit up on a brilliantly sunny day without clouds. Everything makes sense. Even disturbing thoughts and emotions have their place in this brilliant landscape.”

[Implicit in this understanding is an acceptance of all happenings, of what is, within and without.]