Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2, Verse 33 (BG 2.33) — Meaning, Translation & Commentary

BG 2.33 If you withdraw from this battle, you will lose not only your sacred duty and honor, but you will surely become a participant in sin. To fail to oppose the unrighteous is as grave a transgression as the slaying of an innocent person. The nature of dharma has been explained before. Every living being is born into this world in a particular body with pre-existing desires, for a specific purpose. That purpose is to exhaust these desires and thereby recognize one's true nature. The desires with which each person is born constitute their svadharma—their inherent nature. Arjun's svadharma is that of a warrior, whose distinctive virtue is honorable and glorious courage. To lose the opportunities that life presents for the exhaustion of these desires is to create an obstacle in the path of spiritual development. If these desires are not exhausted, the pressure of vasanas upon the human mind continues to increase, for new impressions accumulate alongside the pre-existing desires. Though Arjun might flee the battlefield in this moment, he will later suffer remorse for having lost this opportunity, because such flight is forever contrary to his warrior nature, through which alone he can attain lasting peace. A child naturally inclined toward the arts can never become a successful merchant. When parents, out of love for their child, impose their own desires upon him, it is observed that such a child's personality remains fragmented. Such examples are found in every field throughout the world, and especially in the spiritual realm. Many persons, struck by momentary dispassion from slight suffering and hardship, abandon their homes in search of God and retreat to forests. Yet there they find only restlessness and sorrow throughout their lives. The mind harbors desires for sensory experience that can be fulfilled within family life. But by abandoning home and sitting in the caves of the Himalayas, they neither fulfill these desires nor find it possible to meditate upon God. It is natural that distractions multiply in their minds—these are called sins. According to Hindu dharma, the mistakes a person commits by forgetting their true nature as atman are called sins. The disturbance of mind arising from human efforts to gain pleasure through sensory experience is inevitable, and this itself is sin, for it involves the forgetting of the atman, which is bliss itself. Not only will you lose your duty and honor, but...