Amidst the gloom and despair due to the pandemic, there have been oases of human kindness and selfless service. Doctors have worked tirelessly for days, providing succour to the suffering. Nurses, caregivers and other frontline staff have risked their lives to provide care. Auto drivers have converted their vehicles into ambulances, fitting them with oxygen cylinders to ferry the seriously ill to hospitals. The common thread running through all these examples is the concern for fellow beings and doing service without any expectations or any other personal motive.
They have done is exactly what the Gita speaks of in its chapter on Karma Yoga. As the Lord says: “Man is constantly being influenced by this material world and is subject to intense passions and desires. The two greatest enemies of man are desire and egotism/arrogance. Desire is expectation of reward, material or otherwise for one’s actions. Egotism and arrogance is the thinking that ‘I am doing this work. Everyone should see it and appreciate it and say that it is because of me that this work has been accomplished and if not for me, it would not have been done” and so on. So when these two devils beleaguer man, his mind is in a constant state of churning, an incessant inner turbulence. This is a sort of mental fever. “Vigatajwara” is the term to describe this malady. The cure for this illness lies in "doing your duty as an offering unto me”. When the Lord speaks in the first person and says “me” he means that he, the supreme one, resides in everyone’s heart and man has to do his duty sincerely.
In fact, while advising Arjuna, Lord Krishna uses the term “Mahabahu”. Its literal meaning is the strong, well-built fearsome warrior Arjuna with formidable arms and shoulders. But, as revered Swami Chinmayananda says, this term really means “he who engages in relentless battle with his internal enemies of desire and egotism and attains victory over them”. This is the “war or Yuddha” for every man whose aim should be to continually evolve emotionally and spiritually so that he becomes a better human being, contributing to the welfare of society. Corona Warriors have exemplified the Lord’s advice.