Those without eyes will see

In response to this VT story, Alex said,

Makes me wonder if she read the same BG where Krishna instructs Arjuna to not be a coward and fight: "She said that the Gita impressed upon her that, “The path to the truth is non-violent and no one should insult anyone else.”

My thought:

Well, if you think about it a couple of steps of logic down, you could make a case. That is not a problem.

On the other hand, you could ask whether it is appropriate to deduce that the Gita was about getting along and letting each other live. To which I say a good message found in a nasty place is still a good message.

She could have said, "Right, Krishna is like fighting a stupid religious war. So Hindus and Muslims should kill each other like our good lords intended, right?"

That would also have been a rational message, perhaps a little more prosaic. A little more external an understanding of the Bhagavad Gita.

My faith is that the Gita is a spiritual book, set in a particular cultural environment, but its wisdom is on the side of eternal "good" things, like peace and love and harmony and unity. The paradoxes it presents are deliberate and necessary, because no description of reality that did not contain paradox would be complete.

That is the premise. Now further arguments ensue, but the crux of the matter is that without a dominant body of individuals cultivating peace, genuine inner peace, genuine spiritual peace, there can be no enforcing of it among the rajasic and tamasic folk.

The Gita and indeed all shastras are "desire trees" in their capacity for multiple interpretations, which means multiple frames of reference based in multiple subjectivities or adhikaras.

Of what use is a shastra if it has multiple standpoints and is unclear? you may ask.

I would say, it is intentionally unclear or contradictory. Through these flash points of sensitivity it stimulates a unique collective world view, with a frame based on a certain collection of arguments about reality, what it is, what is its purpose, and what might be done about it, i.e., what kind of reality do we want to construct?

Is that good? Of course, because the frame in the Gita is centered on discussions about the truth of the self and the ways of knowing and discovering it. These are the what create the parameters of the arguments it stimulates.

The worst kind of person is the one who wants to enforce a uniform instruction on a text like the Gita. That is because the basic instruction of the Gita is to surrender to God. Period. And the most important God is the one instructing you -- the individual -- from within, not from without.

The rest of the Gita is just explaining to you the rationale for surrendering, as well as how to go about it and so on. A manual for practical spiritual intelligence, if you will.