RDB 15 Bhagavad Gita II

This whole idea of love with detachment has really puzzled me since we began our discussions on it. I have always believed that if I throw my heart fully into everything that I do that the results will reflect my passion and my effort. At first I was really bummed when people started questioning everything that I believed in, but now I have come to understand their thinking more fully. In my TC class on Friday, we watched a Canadian film titled “Away From Her”.
This movie tells the story of a couple in love torn apart by one spouses fight with Alzheimer’s. Although the husband does everything in his power to keep their love alive and strong, his wife’s deteriorating mind tears them apart. While his wife struggles with the confusion of her memories vanishing before her eyes and begins to take interest in an old childhood friend that lives at the same nursing home, her husband stands beside her and continues to visit her everyday no matter the circumstances. Towards the end, the husband selflessly brings this childhood friend turned sweetheart to visit his wife in order to ensure her happiness. Even though he obviously still loves his wife, the husband realizes his need to move on and to continue living, not dwelling on what could have been. Though this film taught me that love is “an ever-fixed mark” and continues even through the most dismal of situations, it also showed me that love with detachment is a valuable lesson to learn (Sonnet 16). I now realize that from such passion and zeal can come obsession. The Bhagavad-Gita mentions that “passion, engendered by thirst for pleasure and attachment, binds the soul”, and I believe that this is the form of passion that is most present in our world today. But is passion that is not in this form really all that bad? While Krishna is speaking to Arjula, he says, “those who surrender their actions to me…with no thought, save of me” (99). Another time he declares “those whose faith never fails and concentrate their whole nature on me…are my beloved” (103). Thus, I believe that if the nature of one’s passionate actions is to glorify God, then they are just. We must realize that we “are ruled by (God’s) will, and if we surrender ourselves to Him, then pursing our passions is worthwhile (71). When we are selfless and make sacrifices, I like to believe that others can see God through us and it is this idea that gives me hope and reassurance for the future.