Chapter 2 Verse 13- Samkhya Yoga
Sloka
Swadharmam api chaavekshya na vikampitum arhasi;
Dharmyaaddhi yuddhaacchreyo’nyat kshatriyasya na vidyate.
Translation
Further, having regard to thy own duty, thou should not waver,
for there is nothing higher for a Kshatriya than a righteous war.
Interpretation
After speaking about the nature of the body and mind, Lord Krishna again turns his attention to the duty of Arjuna. He says that one needs to have an understanding of one’s duty and should never deviate from it. And the duty is different for different people. For a Kshatriya his ultimate duty is to fight a war. That war becomes holy and equal to worship if that is fought for protecting the dharma. Fighting that war is essential duty of any Kshatriya. That is the highest dharma of Kshatriya and he should not escape from that.
Extending interpretation to mankind’s life!
The two most important words that Lord Krishna speaks in this verse are “duty” and “waver”. How many of us take our duty seriously? Before that what is a duty? Duty is not your job, career or profession but duty is your dharma. You choose your duty so duty comes above everything. Over a period of time, we all develop a feeling of complacency and negligence towards our duty. That leads us to waver from our duty. We usually think, what if I dont complete this work today or what if I skip my work today and enjoy? Anyways I have not taken a break from work for a long time. All these are the wavering thoughts that push us away from our duty.
We should stay away from this wavering mentality and take our duty with utmost seriousness. Work is Worship. We worship God. So Work is God. The day you neglect or postpone your work, you are moving away from Godliness. That is equal to moving away from our dharma. Each one of us are assigned with our duties by none other than God, who makes us to choose our duties and we have to fulfil them with utmost sanity. That is what Lord Krishna tries to explain to Arjuna through this Shloka.
