57: Fight or Flight or...?

CHAPTER 13, TEXTS 1-2: Arjuna said: O my dear Kṛṣṇa, I wish to know about prakṛti [nature], puruṣa [the enjoyer], and the field and the knower of the field, and of knowledge and the object of knowledge. The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: This body, O son of Kuntī, is called the field, and one who knows this body is called the knower of the field.

Animals live in fear. 

Always. 

Think about it - for the most part, animals/aquatics/insects/etc. are eaten alive. If they are not eaten alive, they are always in fear of being eaten alive. Imagine that. You are still alive and conscious, and another animal is eating your body. 

Maybe this sounds graphic, but this is just the reality of the material world. 

Human beings are animals too, you know. 

Maybe we don't live in fear of being eaten alive (other than those villains in Indiana Jones movies) but our fear manifests in two basic ways:

Fight

or

Flight. 

Either ramp up the adrenaline and start arguing/kicking/screaming/punching or

Turn away from the conflict/problem/situation as soon as possible and run away as far as possible. 

Fight or flight. So often we operate in these two modes of existence. Fear manifests in countless ways in our physical, and emotional lives, often plaguing our mental health. 

But there is a third option: 

Observe. 

Don't fight. Don't take flight. 

Just be. Watch. Observe. 

In his book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey writes how between stimulus and response, there is a space. Living a conscious, effective, and inspiring life sometimes boils down to a simple process: widening that space. Acting from that space. 

Instead of reacting out of fear - fighting it out or running away - stop, pause, and consider the situation. Make a decision from a place of clear knowledge and presence. 

Conscious life and indeed spiritual life begins when we realize that we *can* make a choice and not operate from some automatic fear reaction. Making conscious choices is waking up to the most powerful function of the soul - free will. 

Making choices begins with understanding that we each have a body, and within that body is a soul. In this verse of the Gita, Arjuna is inquiring about the field (ksetram) and the knower of the field (ksetra-jna). Prabhupad writes how the body is the field of activity for the conditioned soul, and "the person, who should not identify himself with the body, is called kṣetra-jña, the knower of the field." 

This is the crux of the matter: the understanding that I - the soul - am the witness. Prabhupad writes how even a child can understand that the body goes through so many changes, but the person inside of the body does not change. The soul is the witness. 

Here in this verse, it's clear that there is a difference between the body (the field) and the soul (the knower of the field). Prabhupad emphasizes that "The owner is distinctly ksetra-jna." The field may be destroyed, but the knower of the field continues to exist. There is no need to fear. 

Being a little removed from all the drama of life alleviates fear, because I understand that all the pain and horror and death is happening within the field, not to me, the soul, the knower of the field. 

Our greatest challenge of fear will come for us all one day: death. We probably wont be eaten alive, but we will definitely die - whether that is tomorrow or fifty years from now.

Do I fight against death? Do I run away from it and numb myself? 

Or do I observe?

That's my choice. 

Making this choice is the beginning of conscious living. 

Full purport here: https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/13/1-2/