tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24357551126547649202024-03-28T06:16:19.170-07:00inner traditionsnamastasyaiSatya Chaitanyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749603528440573740noreply@blogger.comBlogger254125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2435755112654764920.post-59586785821652343482020-12-22T04:11:00.000-08:002020-12-22T04:11:09.164-08:00Living Gita 43: In Praise of Karma Yoga<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaGWkMwkpFh6eHlLBaSs2Kocgwv0BICjgWj3cspO7FyGcHqVto-pjmpowffTDAjho1dDuXQYp20fUd9ZzvTOkaSsw0OoZd4wncIBpyrV1P9s_1s23Md9O51DWWHtYRVxKmMpPapnzaVAHe/s300/krishna+adoring+the+feet+of+radha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaGWkMwkpFh6eHlLBaSs2Kocgwv0BICjgWj3cspO7FyGcHqVto-pjmpowffTDAjho1dDuXQYp20fUd9ZzvTOkaSsw0OoZd4wncIBpyrV1P9s_1s23Md9O51DWWHtYRVxKmMpPapnzaVAHe/s0/krishna+adoring+the+feet+of+radha.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoBodyText"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A series of articles on the Bhagavad Gita for people
living and working in our volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times
filled with stress and fear. This scripture born in a battlefield teaches us
how to face our challenges, live our life fully, achieve excellence in whatever
we do and find happiness, peace and contentment.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">[Continued
from the previous post.]<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">vyavasaayaatmikaa
buddhir ekeha kurunandana <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">bahushaakhaa
hyanantaashcha buddhayo'vyavasaayinaam ll 2.41 ll <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">yaam
imaam pushpitaam vaacham pravadanty avipashchitah <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">vedavaadarataah
paartha naanyad asteeti vaadinah ll 2.42 ll <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">kaamaatmaanah
swargaparaa janmakarma-phalaprdaam <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">kriyaavishesha-bahulaam
bhogaishwarya-gatim prati ll 2.43 ll <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">bhogaishwarya
prasaktaanaam tayaapahrita-chetasaam <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">vyavasaayaatmika
buddhih samaadhau na vidheeyate ll 2.44 ll<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">On this path, Arjuna, your mind is resolute, with attention
on a single-focus. On the other hand, the thoughts of the irresolute are many-branched
and endless. The ignorant ones speak flowery words and argue for the Vedas that
lead to repeated births and karmas and say heaven is highest and there is
nothing higher. They are obsessed with numerous rituals that lead to enjoyment
of pleasures. Such people whose interest is only in pleasures, prosperity and
power, whose minds have been robbed by them, have no resolute minds and they
are not able to attain samadhi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Krishna praises Karma yoga further and says on the
path of karma yoga your mind is resolute and you have a single focus. What you
are doing in karma yoga does not matter, your focus is one: purification of the
mind.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Ramana Maharshi says about karma yoga in his classic
short work Upadesha Saram ‘eeshwara-arpitam necchayaa kritam chitta-shodhakam
muktisadhakam.’ In karma yoga work is done dedicated to God – eeshwara-arpitam
– and it is done with the purpose of purification of the mind – chitta-shodhakam.
You do whatever life brings to you, or God brings to you, and not works chosen
by you – nechchhaya kritam. The choice of the work is not yours but of the
samashti, of the cosmos, of Existence. You have already surrendered your will
so you do not make any choices but accept whatever comes to you.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Ancient India tells many stories of such acceptance
and practicing karma yoga, perhaps the most famous of which is that of
Dharmavyadha, the story of the butcher of Kashi that the Mahabharata tells us. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The story begins with an ascetic who is making
his morning oblations to the rising sun standing in a river. As he raises water
in his palms to offer it to the sun, the droppings of a bird flying overhead fall
into his palms. The ascetic looks up in fury and the bird turns to ashes
midflight. He is amazed by his own ascetic powers. Power gone to his head, the
ascetic goes on his rounds of bhiksha. Stanting in front a house, he addresses
the lady of the house, “Bhavati! bhikshaam dehi”, “Oh Lady, give me alms.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The lady ignores him completely and this time he raises
his voice and says again “Bhavati! bhikshaam dehi”. He is ignored again. He
remembers he is no ordinary ascetic but has just reduced a bird to ashes
midflight. Raising his voice, in arrogance he shouts this time in a commanding
voice, “Bhavati! bhikshaam dehi.” This time the lady turns around and says ‘Please
wait. I am doing something. As soon as it is over, I shall give you bhiksha.”
Then she adds, ‘And don’t think I am a little bird you can turn to ashes with
your anger.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">That cools the ascetic down. How did she know about
the bird? No one saw it and he has told no one about it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">When the lady comes he is not interested in the
bhiksha any more but wants to know how she knew about the bird. She asks him to
go to Kashi and meet a man called Dharmavyadha there if he wants to know it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">In Kashi he asks everyone about a sage called
Dharmavyadha but no one has heard of him. Eventually someone directs his steps
to a butcher called Dharmavyada and it is from him that the ascetic learns the
lady’s secret – karma yoga. “Just as I am doing the butcher’s job that has come
to me with total acceptance and total dedication, the lady serves her husband unworthy
of her with devotion accepting what life has brought her. That is karma yoga
and there is nothing you cannot attain through karma yoga,” the butcher tells
the ascetic. “The highest yogic powers, and everything else that you desire can
be attained through karma yoga,” adds the butcher of Kashi in this strange
story in which a butcher teaches yoga to an ascetic.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The Mahabharata has several stories in which roles are
reversed like this.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Bindumati is a prostitute whose story ancient India
tells. She attains high spiritual powers through the practice of karma yoga as
a prostitute. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">As we shall see later, Krishna says in the Gita: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">mayi sarvaani karmaani sannyasya adhyaatma-chetasaa
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">niraasheer nirmamo bhootvaa yuddhyasva vigatajvarah.
BG 3.30<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Surrender everything to me [God] and with your mind
focused on your inner self, expecting nothing, without attachments, fight, free
from feverishness.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Though this is not the most famous verse in the Gita
that speaks of karma yoga, it is the best summary of karma yoga. Surrender your
actions to God and then do whatever you do with the aim of purifying your mind
– that is having adhyatma-chetas, focus on your inner self. And do what you
have to do with passion and full dedication, while having no goals to gain
anything other than inner purity from the act.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">This is what Krishna means when he says vyavasayatmika
buddhi – mind resolutely focused on a single thing, in this case on inner
purity. The butcher is doing butchering and making a profit from killing
animals, but his focus is only on inner purity. The prostitute is earning her
living by prostitution – but her aim is inner purity. The housewife is serving
her husband with the aim of inner purity. What you do does not matter, you have
only one aim: inner purity. That is the attitude of karma yoga – karma yoga
buddhi, the vyavasayatmika buddhi of karma yoga.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Vyavasayatmika means nishchayatmika – determined,
resolute. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">You are an executive and as an executive you have many
things to do. You do them with dedication and passion, but at the same time
your focus is on inner purification, making your mind quiet, still and
positive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You are a sales person, and if
you are a karma yogi, above all you keep your aim as making your mind quiet,
still and positive. You are a driver, a clerk, a gardener, a shop keeper, a
teacher, a newspaper man and you keep your focus on keeping your mind quiet,
still and positive – that is karma yoga. So your main focus remains the same –
inner purification – whatever you do. That is what Krishna calls vyavasayatmika
buddhi and says it is a single one – ekaa. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Whatever you do, you do it for the common good
[lokasangraha] dedicated to God [with ishwararpana buddhi] for inner
purification [chittta-shodhanam]. And you don’t choose what you want to do – whatever
comes to you, you accept and do with this purpose [nechchhaya kritam].<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Krishna has much to say about those who are obsessed
with the ritualistic section of the Vedas, the karmakanda. He calls speech
about ritualism pushpitam vacham, flowery words. Empty words that sound
beautiful. So according to him, even when speech about ritualism sounds
beautiful, it is all empty. Do this ritual, this will happen to you – empty
words.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">A great modern master said all religions start with
the living experience of great masters. But their disciples do not have the
experience the masters have had, so they reduce their teachings to philosophy
and the next generation reduces the philosophy into ritualism, by which time
the rituals have become meaningless.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">I have heard that a cat wandered into a Zen monastery.
It was time for the evening worship and the master asked the disciples to tie
up the cat since it was creating a lot of nuisance. Next day the cat came at
the same time again and was tied up. This continued for a few days when the
master died but the disciples continued to tie up the cat. Problem started when
the cat died – disciples were running all over looking for a cat to tie up so
that the evening worship could begin!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Anthony de Mello in his collections of spiritual
stories talks about a desert country and the one fruit rule practiced there. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">“In a desert country trees were scarce and fruits were
hard to come by. It was said that God wanted to make sure there was enough for
everyone, so he appeared to a prophet and said, “This is my commandment to the
whole people for now and</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> for future generations: no
one shall eat more than one fruit a day. Record this in the holy book. Anyone
who transgresses this law will be considered to have sinned against God and
against humanity.”</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“The law was faithfully observed for centuries until scientists
discovered a means for turning the desert into green land. The country became
rich in grain and livestock. And the trees bent down with the weight of
unplucked fruit. But the fruit law continued to be enforced by the civil and
religious authorities of the land.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“Anyone who pointed to the sin against humanity involved in allowing
fruit to rot on the ground was dubbed a blasphemer and an enemy of morality.
These people, who questioned the wisdom of God’s holy word, were being guided
by the proud spirit of reason, it was said, and lacked the spirit of faith and
submission whereby alone the truth can be received.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“In churches sermons were frequently delivered in which those who broke
the law were shown to have come to a bad end. Never once was mention made of
the equal number of those who came to a bad end even though they had faithfully
kept the law or of the vast number of those who prospered even though they
broke it.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“Nothing could be done to change the law because the prophet who had
claimed to have received it from God was long since dead. He might have had the
courage and the sense to change the law as circumstances changed for he had
taken God’s word not as something to be revered, but as something to be used
for the welfare of the people.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“As a result, some people openly scoffed at the law and at God and
religion. Others broke it secretly and always with a sense of wrongdoing. The
vast majority adhered rigorously to it and came to think of themselves as holy
merely because they held on to a senseless and outdated custom they were too
frightened to jettison.”</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Rituals are like that. They had meaning at one time
but now they have been reduced to ... just rituals. What is most disturbing is
the fanaticism with which we cling to outdated, meaningless rituals. One of my
relatives refused to talk to me for twenty years because I refused to stick to
certain rituals. Most religious quarrels are about religious rituals and not
about more important things <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
Gulliver’s travels two countries fight for generations about which side of an
egg to break – the larger one or the smaller one!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The Upanishads have no respect for rituals nor does
Krishna or the Gita. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Ritualism is endless and day by day it becomes more
and more narrow and fanatical. Recently when there was a death in my family,
since I was away and could not go because of the covid times, my sister did the
rituals. The priest was so elaborate that a simple ritual that earlier took
half an hour took three full hours. Surprisingly, all were very happy – how systematically
he does it all, they said, comparing him to the earlier priest who did a
similar ceremony in half an hour! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Religion has nothing much to do with rituals but most
people understand religion as rituals. Recently I met a priest of another
religion who, when he learned that I am a Hindu, asked me, “What are the
rituals of your religion?” He wasn’t very familiar with Hinduism. I wanted to
tell him that in my religion rituals did not matter much – you may do them or
you need not do them. But he was a young man who did not know much about
religion and I did not feel like getting into a detailed discussion with him.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Professional priests make rituals as elaborate as
possible. I have a Hindu friend who is a priest and another who is a ritualist.
Both of them go into endless details of rituals and the smallest variation in
rituals is pure horror for them. This is what Krishna speaks of as abhikrama
nasha and pratyavaya, both of which terms we discussed in the previous article.
As we saw, Krishna says that there is neither abhikrama nasha nor pratyavaya dosha
in karma yoga.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Get into the world of rituals, you get confused. That
is what Krishna means when he says the minds of those who follow rituals are
many branched and filled with numerous confusing thoughts.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Also, Krishna is not rejecting rituals altogether.
Done in the right spirit and with understanding, they can be beautiful. What
Krishna is against is confusing them with religion, taking them for religion,
thinking religion is nothing but rituals. And of course, he is against fanatical
adherence to rituals, saying this is how things could be done, there is no
other way of doing them. One should have a free, liberal, enlightened attitude
towards rituals. Then they can make religion, and life, richer. Rituals are
like ornaments on a woman – they can beautify her but ornaments are not the
woman. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The word Krishna uses to describe ritualistic people
is avipashchitah - ignorant ones. They speak in flowery words about the
pleasures of heaven as though there is nothing higher than them. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">One can easily get bored with pleasures unless sorrow
too comes every now and then – it is only in comparison with sorrow that a
pleasure is a pleasure. And in the heaven ritualists describe too, there are
the same problems as here on earth. Some will be more powerful depending on the
amount of merit of good acts they have, some will be less, which will lead to
jealousy. Nahusha’s story tells us he<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>became Indra, had power over all the gods, they obeyed him completely,
he enjoyed the pleasure of all the drinks, food and music of heaven, all the
sights of heaven, had all the apsaras in his bed, and was still unhappy because
he did not have Indrani in his bed. Stories tell us of Urvashi becoming angry
because she wanted to have Arjuna as her lover but couldn’t because he refused
her on ethical grounds saying she was once the wife of an ancestor of his,
Pururavas, and hence like his own mother. In her anger, she curses Arjuna to
become a eunuch for a year. Which story tells us anger is there in heaven,
desire is there, frustration is there, the need for vengeance is there, all
that create misery on earth are there. How can heaven then be a happy place?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The highest joy is known as samadhi, which comes when
the mind is completely still and there is not a single thought in it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Indian wisdom says ananda, happiness, is our nature
and it is our mind that prevents us from experiencing it. When the mind becomes
still, in other words when the mind ceases to be because a still mind is no
mind, we experience the happiness that is behind it. To experience happiness
all we need is a still mind, just as to see a coin lying at the bottom of a
pool all we need is for the water to become clean and still.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The Upa</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">nishads also tell us that the ananda we can have
through the fulfillment of our desires is limited, not unlimited. The
Taittiriya Upanishad in its famous ananda mimamsa asks us to imagine a young
man, perfectly healthy, educated and cultured, and to whom the entire earth
with all its wealth belongs. Then the Upanishad tells us that the highest
happiness he can experience is but an infinitesimal part of the happiness of
the man who is free from desires.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Flowery words of the karma
kanda of the Vedas mislead people. They believe that through aishwarya – prosperity
and power – ananda comes. They are wrong. Ananda has nothing to do with
prosperity or power. If your mind is still, you are in ananda. Ananda is
stillness of the mind.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">In the science fiction book
Dying Inside, Robert Silverberg describes the happiness inside the heart of a
simple Austrian farmer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the book a
man has the ability to feel what others are feeling by entering their hearts
and this is what he feels when he enters the heart of the farmer.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">“David … slides down through dense layers of
unintelligible Deutsch ruminations, and strikes bottom in the basement of the
farmer’s soul, the place where his essence lives. Astonishment: old Schiele is
a mystic, an ecstatic! No dourness here. No dark Lutheran vindictiveness. This
is pure Buddhism: Schiele stands in the rich soil of his fields, leaning on his
hoe, feet firmly planted, communing with the universe. God floods his soul. He
touches the unity of all things. Sky, trees, earth, sun, plants, brook,
insects, birds—everything is one, part of a seamless whole, and Schiele
resonates in perfect harmony with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>How can this be? How can such a bleak, inaccessible man entertain such raptures
in his depths?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Feel his joy! Sensations
drench him! Birdsong, sunlight, the scent of flowers and clods of upturned
earth, the rustling of the sharp-bladed green cornstalks, the trickle of sweat
down the reddened deep-channeled neck, the curve of the planet, the fleecy
premature outline of the full moon – a thousand delights enfold this man. David
shares his pleasure. He kneels in his mind, reverent, awed. The world is a
mighty hymn. Schiele breaks from his stasis, raises his hoe, brings it down; heavy
muscles go taut and metal digs into earth, and everything is as it should be,
all conforms to the divine plan. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">“Is this how Schiele goes through his days?
Is such happiness possible? David is surprised to find tears bulging in his
eyes. This simple man, this narrow man, lives in daily grace.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">In Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, there is a
similar description, though not of happiness but of beauty.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">“He looked around, as if he was seeing the
world for the first time. Beautiful was the world, colourful was the world,
strange and mysterious was the world! Here was blue, here was yellow, here was
green, the sky and the river flowed, the forest and the mountains were rigid,
all of it was beautiful, all of it was mysterious and magical, and in its midst
was he, Siddhartha, the awakening one, on the path to himself. All of this, all
this yellow and blue, river and forest, entered Siddhartha for the first time
through the eyes, was no longer a spell of Mara, was no longer the veil of
Maya, was no longer a pointless and coincidental diversity of mere appearances,
despicable to the deeply thinking Brahmin, who scorns diversity, who seeks
unity. Blue was blue, river was river, and if also in the blue and the river,
in Siddhartha, the singular and divine lived hidden, so it was still that very
divinity’s way and purpose, to be here yellow, here blue, there sky, there
forest, and here Siddhartha. The purpose and the essential properties were not
somewhere behind the things, they were in them, in everything.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Siddhartha is experiencing the world for the
first time through a mind that has become still and this is what he
experiences!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">The Upanishads and the Gita would completely
agree with Robert Silverberg and Hermann Hesse and would say such happiness and
such beauty are possible, but possible only when our mind is still, when it is
not tormented by desires, when we are a-kamahatas, not victims of kama.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Heaven in any case is a myth.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">We are all familiar with the world of advertisements.
Use this soap, and your skin will glow like the moon. Use this toothpaste and
you will feel electrified by freshness. Use this drink and you will have
endless energy. Wear this dress, you will look like Miss World. But you know
they are advertisements and don’t take them literally. Speech about heaven and
its pleasures, in Krishna’s words, is pushpitam vacham, flowery words that mean
no more the advertisements do.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">The world tells us if you have a bigger car,
if you have a bigger house, if you have a more beautiful spouse, if you have a
better paid job, you will be happy. These are cosmetic changes, all
superficial, they do not touch your insides and hence do not contribute to
happiness except momentarily.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">It is the asuri man who lives for external goals.
The daivi man lies for internal aims. The asuri man does not find joy in life, only
kicks, whereas as the daivi man finds lasting happiness. So cultivate the inner
world and not the outer world.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Aim at making the mind calm. One way of
making the mind calm is meditation. As the mind becomes calm through
meditation, in the words of the Gita, you attain the highest joy.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">yatroparamate chittam niruddham
yogasevayaa <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">yatra chaivaatmana atmaanam
pashyann-aatmani tushyati ll 6.20 ll <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">sukham aatyantikam yattad buddhi
graahyam ateendriyam <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">vetti yatra na chaivaayam
sthitashchalati tattwatah ll 6.21 ll <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">yam labdhwaa chaaparam laabham manyate naadhikam
tatah<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>ll 6.22 ll<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">“When the mind mastered by yoga attains quietude you
see your own self by yourself and you rejoice in yourself. There is a joy that
only the pure intellect can understand, a joy that is beyond the senses, and
once established in it, you never move away from the truth. And having attained
that, you do not consider any gain higher than that.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Another way to reach the same goal is through
the practice of karma yoga. Do what you do with ishwararpana-buddhi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dedicate your work for the common good. Work not
to gain for yourself something from it but to give others.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The secret of happiness is giving, not getting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An individual who lives to give finds joy. A
couple who give each other rather than demanding from each other finds
happiness. A family who gives finds happiness. A society that gives is a happy
society, not the one who constantly demands from the world, from others.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The giver finds happiness, not the taker.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Trees, rivers and cows do not have free will. But we
can learn a lot of things from them. A popular Sanskrit verse says:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Paropakaaraaya phalanti vrikshaah
paropakaaraaya vahanti nadyah<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Paropakaaraaya duhanti gaavah paropakaaraartham idam
shareeeram.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Trees produce fruits for the good of others, rivers
flow for the good of others, cows yield milk for the good of others, and this
body too is for the good of others.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">It is a question of attitude. Those who believe we
should live for others find happiness and those who believe we should live for
ourselves end up lonely and unhappy. The Gita says it is a sin to cook for
oneself alone – we should share whatever we have with others. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">That is called the spirit of sacrifice, the yajna
spirit. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Live in yajna spirit, teaches the Gita. And it also teaches:
yajnaarthaat karmano’nyatra lokoyam karmabandhanah – the world is bound by
actions other than those performed in the spirit of sacrifice.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>Satya Chaitanyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749603528440573740noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2435755112654764920.post-54160136779614363932020-12-21T04:19:00.000-08:002020-12-21T04:19:06.865-08:00Living Bhagavad Gita 42: Introducing Karma Yoga<p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg22rNYC8rZAMIHOoM3j2yVcBhuwvNNqb43XZm5w1yjk3dXIhPMjp_uJSYxPDgYfjvEBupu8RxVCZy0GpaTklqrC0elwv-FSvbM8DOGN_epYTxahGEYyUA9eYs8BUE2OLzwqm9CG_RFkAxi/s1482/radha+krishna+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="982" data-original-width="1482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg22rNYC8rZAMIHOoM3j2yVcBhuwvNNqb43XZm5w1yjk3dXIhPMjp_uJSYxPDgYfjvEBupu8RxVCZy0GpaTklqrC0elwv-FSvbM8DOGN_epYTxahGEYyUA9eYs8BUE2OLzwqm9CG_RFkAxi/s320/radha+krishna+5.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoBodyText"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A series
of articles on the Bhagavad Gita for people living and working in our volatile,
uncertain, complex and ambiguous times filled with stress and fear. This
scripture born in a battlefield teaches us how to face our challenges, live our
life fully, achieve excellence in whatever we do and find happiness, peace and
contentment.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">[Continued
from the previous post.]<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">eshaa
te'bhihitaa saankhye buddhir yoge twimaam shrinu <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">buddhyaa
yukto yayaa paartha karmabandham prahaasyasi // 2.39 // <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">nehaabhikrama-naasho'sti
pratyavaayo na vidyate <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">swalpamapyasya
dharmasya traayate mahato bhayaat // 2.40 // <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">What I have
talked to you about so far is the wisdom of sankhya. Now listen, Arjuna, to
the wisdom of yoga with which you will break through the bonds of Karma. Here there
is no abhikrama-nasha, loss due to non-completion of what you began, nor is
there any pratyavaya, harm in doing things differently from the prescribed way.
Even a little of this dharma can save you from the great fear.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">With this verse, a new section in chapter two begins.
Krishna himself announces the new beginning by saying what he has spoken about
so far is sakhya yoga and what he is now going to talk about is karma yoga for
which the word he uses is buddhi yoga. Buddhi yoga is a good name for karma
yoga because karma yoga is about certain attitudes – buddhi – towards work,
like nishkama buddhi, ishwararpana buddhi, and so on. Along with Krishna, let’s
too look back at certain important ideas that we have explored so far in our
discussions.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We began the chapter with Arjuna’s vishada, his
distress under the emotional hijack he suffered. Emotions hijack us in our weak
moments. They are like highway men looking for any weakness in people. Or like
a pack of wolves looking for the weak lamb among the herd. Eventually Arjuna
surrenders to Krishna calling himself his disciple and asking Krishna to
protect him– shishyaste’ham shaadhi<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>maam
tvaam prapannam. Krishna takes over, doing exactly what needs to be done – by
lashing out at him with sharp words so that he wakes up from the stupor of tamas
that<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>has over taken him temporarily. It
is truly temporary because Arjuna and tamas do not go together. We do not find
Arjuna under tamas at any other time in his life – not even in the dice hall when
Yuudhishthira sank into deep tamas and intoxicated by the dice game, wagered
away all his wealth, his kingdom, his brothers, himself<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and his wife Draupadi, when the entire Kuru
sabha fell under the pitch darkness of tamas. But now that he is under tamas,
he has to be brought out of his indolence and sloth and Krishna does exactly
what needs to be done under the circumstances. Krishna here behaves precisely
like a brilliant surgeon who puts his scalpel exactly where it needs to be put
– at the center of the malignancy within. And he does it with seeming
pitilessness. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In an early scene in the movie Chak De India, the
coach of the Indian National Women’s Hockey team and the newly selected players
are meeting for the first time. Shahrukh Khan, who plays the coach, blows his whistle
and introduces himself, “Naam Kabir Khan. Mein coach hoon.” He looks at the
players and says, “Hope all of you are here.” It is at that moment that a
player walks in, Preeti Sabarwal and introducing herself by her name asks if it
isn’t there the registration of the women’s hockey team is going on. Kabir Khan
tells her registration of the Indian National Women’s Hockey team is already
over, she is very late and she should try the next year. Preeti is annoyed and
argues that Kabir Khan can’t keep the captain of a state team out. Kabir asks
her of which state team she is the captain and when Preeti tells him
‘Chandigarh team’ he points out this is not the Chandigarh team. Kabir Khan
says categorically this is the Indian National Women’s Hockey team and there is
no place in it for those who come late. Eventually Preeti is allowed to join
the team only after she completes her punishment for coming late: doing ten rounds
of the playground in seven minutes with her kit up. Kabir Khan exudes power
here and Preeti has no choice but to obey him. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">He asks the players to line up and introduce
themselves and the girls do that, each announcing her name and saying from
which state team she is. Every time a girl does that Kabir Khan asks her to
stand away from the team and it is only when one girl announces her name and
says India as her team’s name that she is allowed to stay in the team. The girls
learn their lesson fast and one by one all of them introduce themselves by
their names and saying India as their team’s name. Kabir Khan tells them he
will say this only once and will not repeat it: “This team needs only those
players who first play for India and then for their teammates. And after that
if they have any life left in them, then for themselves.” Preeti Sabarwal who
has by then completed her rounds now joins the team.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">When Lakshmi, the female team manager, tries to speak
for Preeti saying she is a good player and recommending her, Kabir Khan curtly
says: “I’ll decide who is good and who is bad.” By demonstrating his authority
over even Lakshmi, Kabir makes it crystal clear who is the decision maker here
and what he wants from the players: unity and discipline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The short scene, slightly comical and harsh, initially
creates a kind of animosity towards Kabir khan for his harshness. The players
introducing themselves by taking the name of the state from where they come is
the standard practice and people coming a little late is not uncommon in India
– they may have valid reasons. Besides Preeti is a privileged person, as a
state captain. But Kabir Khan totally succeeds in sending the message he wants
to send – how important unity as a team and total commitment to it are and how
important discipline is to them all. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His
entire future coaching of the team will be based on these values: unity as a
tem, commitment to the team and discipline; it is through these that he
transforms a loser team into world champions. The shock treatment he gives at
the very beginning registers those values indelibly in the minds of all and
clearly tells all there is no place in the team for those who break any of
those values.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">That opening scene contributes to the team’s success
and their eventual world leadership no less than anything else that happens
subsequently. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Sometimes a shock treatment is necessary. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In the case of Arjuna the only way to instantly bring him
to his senses is the whiplash Krishna gives him by calling him a eunuch. What
Arjuna is doing is unpardonable – refusing to fight for dharma, refusing to
fight adharma and for a kshatriya there is nothing more shameful because he is
defined as a person who fights adharma, who has vowed to protect dharma. The word
eunuch Krishna uses for him is the most insulting term, the most hurting term,
in the Mahabharata culture you can use against someone like the heroic Arjuna,
the greatest archer of the day and warrior who knows no fear. Krishna’s choice
of the word is instant but it speaks of his brilliance.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Krishna then speaks to him from the highest
standpoint, the adhyatma or spiritual standpoint, the standpoint of the highest
in Indian philosophy, the standpoint of the absolute truth, the paramarthika
satya. He tells Arjuna there is no death and what we call death is a myth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Death does not end anything – anything except
the body. Not even the pranas. The pranas remain with us even after death, as
the books by Brian L. Weiss and similar others prove to the modern mind, as the
east has always taught. The antahkarana with all its component parts remain
with us – manas, buddhi, chitta and ahamkara, which along with prana constitutes
the sukshma-sharira or the subtle body. The karmas and our vasanas remain with
us, along with our primal ignorance of our nature called avidya – the karana
sharira which is the cause, karana, for future births. What we call jiva or
jivatma is the sukshma sharira and the karana sharira together when we are not
in the body – after death – and along with the body when we are alive. Of
course, also along with the soul. So what dies is only the physical body, the
annamaya kosha. The atma, our true self, which is beyond all these, never dies
nor is it ever born – as the Gita says: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">na jaayate mriyate vaa kadaachin naayam bhootwaa
bhavitaa vaa na bhooyah ajo nityah shaashwato'yam puraano na hanyate hanyamaane
shareere ll2.20 ll <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“It is never born nor does it ever die; after having
been, it again never ceases to be. Unborn, eternal, changeless and ancient, it
is not killed when the body is killed.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Gita also discusses the insignificance of death by
comparing it to the different stages we all pass through in life: kaumaram or
adolescence, yauvanam or youth, jara or old age. Dehantara-prapti, attaining a
new body, is no more than that, says the Gita.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">So Arjuna’s worry that Bhishma, Drona and the other
people he considers his own, swajana, will be killed is misplaced. Death is no
more than change of clothes – we discard used bodies and take new ones just as
we discard worn out clothes and take up new ones:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">vaasaamsi jeernaani yathaa vihaaya <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">navaani grihnaati naro'paraani <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">tathaa shareeraani vihaaya jeernaany<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">anyaani samyaati navaani dehee ll 2.22 ll <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“Just as a man throws away his worn out clothes and
puts on new ones, so too the self living in the body discards worn out bodies
and enters new ones.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Krishna realizes this absolute standpoint may be too
high for Arjuna and for a lot of other people, so he comes down to the dharma
level, the level of social ethics. He points out that as a kshatriya it is his
duty to fight adharma and establish dharma. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The kings in those days had by and large forgotten
their commitment to dharma and had started following the ways of adharma. Most
of them had forgotten that power is not a privilege but a responsibility and as
men endowed with power their duty was to stand for the poor and the downtrodden,
to protect the weak from exploitation by the powerful, it is for this purpose
that kingship had come into existence – to end matsyanyaya, the fish eat fish
policy. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Minister Kanika taught Dhritarashtra that anything
that a king does to grab power is justified because power justifies everything.
Many other ministers taught the same to their kings and by and large there was
a belief that ethics are only for show and selfishness is what they should
believe in their hearts. They advised kings to be like fishermen – the word
used by the epic is matsya-ghati, those who kill fish. They taught kings to be
as ruthless in destroying enemies as the razor is in shaving off hair. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they taught an enemy is whoever stands in
the way of their reaching their goals, no matter what those goals are. Your
son, your father, your friend, no matter who it is, if he stands in the way of your
attaining your goals show no mercy to him, they taught. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">As a kshatriya, Krishna points out, it is Arjuna’s
duty to destroy those who practice such policies and to fight evil wherever you
find it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Krishna not only points out that it is Arjuna’s duty
to destroy adharma, he also teaches the chance to fight a war for dharma is a
golden opportunity provided by the samashti – the cosmos, life – to him and it
is like the gates of heaven being opened wide for him. It is only fortunate
kshatriyas that get such opportunities, Krishna tells him. Fighting is Arjuna’s
swadharma and just as a painter comes fully alive only in moments of painting,
a singer only in moments of singing, a dancer only in moments of dancing, it is
only in moments of battle that Arjuna fully experiences self-actualization and
self-transcendence. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">So fight the war for the sake of dharma and also for
your own sake, that is what Krishna tells his friend from the dharma angle. It
is his duty to others and it is also his duty to himself. He owes it to himself
as much as he owes it to others. Therefore get up and fight, Krishna tells
Arjuna.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The ancient Indian tradition of teaching is to begin
at the highest level and then gradually climb down to the lower levels. We find
it in the Gita itself several times and we find it in the Upanishads. Thus the Kena
Upanishad begins at the highest philosophical level explaining the power behind
the eyes and ears and other sense organs and organs of action, the universal
power behind everything, the One Truth, the Brahman. Then the same truth is
taught through a beautiful story that tells us that the real doer behind all our
actions is Brahman though we in our lack of understanding assume we do things,
our successes are ours and so on. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: 120.5pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The story says that once the gods win a
great victory and they become arrogant. Then a mysterious being, a yaksha,
appears before them and Indra, the lord of the gods, sends Agni, Vayu and so on
one by one to find out who it is. Questioned by the gods, instead of answering who
he is, the yaksha asks them who they are. Agni says he is Agni and can burn
everything to ashes and the yaksha palaces a blade of grass before him and asks
him to burn it. He tries to burn it from the left, then from the right, then
from the top and then from everywhere, but fails and goes back ashamed. The same
way, Vayu is not able to move a blade of grass. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Then Indra himself comes and the yaksha disappears and
in his place he finds Goddess Uma Haimavati who teaches him that the victory
was not of the gods but of Brahman, they should not be arrogant considering it
their victory. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It is after this someone says, aupanishadam brrohi,
‘Please teach me the Upanishad.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
poor guy has missed the whole teaching. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
is instructed to repeat the Shatarudriya, the one hundred prayers addressed to
Rudra, also known as Rudradhyayi, Rudraprahsna and by many other names. The
idea is that it will purify his mind and he will then be able to understand the
higher truths the Upanishad speaks of.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Following this ancient tradition, after discussing
what bothers Arjuna from the standpoint of adhyatma first and then from dharma
standpoint, Krishna moves on to discuss it from the laukika stand point – the
worldly or samsaric standpoint, which is the lowest. Krishna tells him if he
did not fight the war and ran away from it, people, particularly his enemies, would
consider him a coward, they would ridicule him and question his samarthya –
competency. For a man competent to the point of being excellent in whatever he
does, to the man who is the best in his chosen field, the greatest archer of
the day in the world, Krishna asks, what could be more painful than people
laughing at him .And then Krishna assures him he shouldn’t worry about a thing:
if he loses, heaven is his; and if he wins, the earth is. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Having discussed his problem from the adhyatmika,
dharmika and laukika standpoints, Krishna tells Arjuna how to fight the war, as
we saw in the previous verse:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“Treat pleasure and pain the same, so also gain and loss
and victory and defeat and then engage in battle.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Krishna assures him that fighting this way he shall
not acquire sin, if that is what worries him. When you transcend the ego and
act, you acquire no sin at all. Sin is only within the realm of the ego. When
you go beyond sukha and duhkha, when you go beyond labha and alabha, when you
go beyond jaya and ajaya, you are already beyond the ego and you incur no sins
for your acts.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Krishna indicates here something that he shall discuss
in much greater detail later, something that is absolutely central to the Gita:
Doership is a myth, the belief that we do things is a myth. Actions happen
through us, we don’t do them. “The Lord neither creates doership, nor karmas
for people. He does not unite people with karma-phala either.” He does not
unite people with the results of their actions. All the time it is swabhava,
prakriti, that is acting. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The wise man is he, the yogi is he, who while doing
all kinds of actions like seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, going,
sleeping, breathing, speaking, letting go, seizing, opening and closing the
eyes knows that he does nothing at all, that the senses are moving among the
sense objects. And the one who knows thus, Krishna adds elsewhere in the Gita,
is the wisest of men, the true yogi, and he has already done all that a man
needs to do. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This is called seeing inaction in action, akarma in
karma, and if you can see that you have become like Krishna – or you have
become Krishna himself since Krishna is the soul in us, our soul, the universal
soul - who says he has nothing to achieve, he has already achieved all that
needs to be achieved and if he keeps working, it is only for the good of the
world, for lokasangraha.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Akarma is the highest philosophy of the Gita and there
is nothing higher. There is no higher philosophy than the philosophy of akarma
and also there is no higher secret of excellence in action than akarma. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Having indicated this, Krishna winds up the sankhya
section of the chapter and moves onto what he calls buddhi yoga, which is what
is commonly known as karma yoga. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">O0O <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Speaking about karma yoga, Krishna says what he has
talked about so far is the wisdom of sankhya and and he shall now speak of the
wisdom of yoga with which we will break through the bonds of karma. He then
adds that here there is no abhikrama-nasha, loss due to non-completion of what is
begun, nor is there any pratyavaya, harm in doing things differently from the
prescribed way. Even a little of this dharma can save you from the great fear.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Krishna is speaking here comparing karma yoga with
karma kanda – the section of the Vedas dealing with highly complex and involved
rituals that the original simple Vedic rituals eventually become. Garhapatya, a
Vedic ritual and its kins anvaharya-pachana <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and avahaniya, for instance, were extremely
simple rituals to begin with, requiring the performer to maintain three fires
at home. An educated man, a dwija, a twice-born so called because he has
received a second birth through education, was supposed to maintain these fires
at home once he completed his studies, went back home and became a grihastha.
The fires – they could be just three lit lamps – stood for the fire or the
light of knowledge and the three fires stood for commitment to the three Vedas,
which at that time was all knowledge available to society. So in essence
agnihotra was a constant reminder to the educated man to remain committed to
knowledge – all knowledge – even though he had formally completed his studies
in the gurukula – something like the modern concept of lifelong learning.
Agnihotra told the man that learning never ends, just because he has completed
his studies in the gurukula it does not mean he knows everything and there is nothing
more to learn. In that sense agnihotra was both a reminder to remain humble and
also to remain open to more learning – book learning, the learning that comes from
other people, the learning that comes from his own reflections and the learning
that life brings to him.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I have known a professor who used to go to the
classroom with the notes her professor had given her when she was a student –
notes yellowed from age. She would then look at the notes and write every word
there on the chalkboard while also reading each word out aloud. Students copied
them down in their notebooks, memorized them and reproduced them in the exam
where all questions came from those notes and all answers were also to be found
in the notes. She taught history and to her the great revolt of 1857 which we
call today the Great Indian Rebellion of 1857 was still Sepoy Mutiny. She never
felt the need to revise her knowledge. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Agnihotra was a reminder that this was not enough, you
have to keep learning, you have to share your knowledge with others through
teaching and you have to generate new knowledge. That is how you pay back your
rishi rina, debt to the rishis, who gave us knowledge.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">It was a simple ritual to begin
with. But eventually the ritual became complicated. Similarly agnihotra was another
simple ritual that every educated man performed every morning. They were rites </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">for expiating sins committed against others with or without knowledge and
asking forgiveness from existence for any offences one might have committed
towards life and the world. It was a ritual that expressed love, care and
reverence for nature reminding us to live in tune with nature and not exploit
and harm nature. This beautiful ritual too became complicated. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Just as medicine that used to be simple but has now
become so complicated that it is totally beyond the understanding of the common
man, rituals became so complicated that only professional priests could do
that. And professional priests added a rich vocabulary to the rituals that was
not part of everyday speech, just as medical science adds new terms that only
professionals understand. Both the terms abhikrama-nasha and pratyavaya Krishna
speaks about belong to this class of words.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Ritualists were terrified of Abhikrama-nasha, because
the priests told them that if you began a ritual and did not complete it, it
would not only cause the destruction of all that you did but also you would incur
sin for not completing the ritual. Similarly, there are precise ways in which
each ritual had to be done, and if you made any mistakes in the process, you
not only lost the benefits of the ritual but also committed a sin called
pratyavaya. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Krishna, a non-conformist, a rebel to the core and
non-ritualist who gives new meaning to every term he uses in the Gita, assures
Arjuna that there is neither abhikrama-nasha nor pratyavaya in karma yoga. You
can do karma yoga fearlessly. And you don’t need a priest to do it for you, you
can do it on your own. Besides, even a little of karma yoga done delivers you
from the great fear – the fear of death. Karma yoga takes you into worlds
beyond death, you enter the world of apunar-bhava, you escape the helpless
cycle of births and deaths.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Spirituality is simple. It is simplicity itself. We
make it complicated because we are complicated. Spirituality is being sahaja,
natural as we are meant to be. Live in the now, that is spirituality. When we
do something, focus on it completely, that is spirituality. Allow the love in our
heart to flow out to others, that is spirituality. “My way is the way of the
white cloud,” a master said – meaning, go with things, go where the wind of
life takes you, that is spirituality. Don’t cling, let go, float with the current,
that is spirituality. Be joyous, that is spirituality. Live consciously, that
is spirituality. Accept, that is spirituality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Spirituality is being ordinary – not special. The
urge to be special is unspiritual. No tree wants to be what it is not. It is
content with what it is – that is spirituality. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Just do what you must do and do it with total
attention and devotion – that is spirituality.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Reaching out to others is spirituality. Having the
common good as a basic value – that is spirituality. Having daivi sampada –
positive virtues – instead of asuri sampada – negativity – that is
spirituality. Spirituality is living authentically and not blindly led by
others. Spirituality is transforming work and life into worship. Spirituality
is celebrating life – utsava bhava.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Spirituality is self mastery – not being a slave to the baser emotions
in us. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">An American came to Zen master Ikkyu and asked him
to tell him as briefly as possible what Zen is: the master picked up a piece of
paper and his brush and painted the word attention on it and handed over the
paper to the American. The man looked at it, frowned and said, “Can you make it
a little elaborate?” The master took the paper back and painted something more
on it and gave it back to him. When the American looked at it he saw the word attention
written twice. Now visibly upset, the man asked, “Master, can’t you make it a
little detailed so that I can understand it?” The master took the paper back
again and wrote something more on it. And the man read, “Attention, attention,
attention’.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">That is Zen, the very essence of spirituality. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">And the Gita teaches nothing different.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">O0O</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Image courtesy: Sathe</span></span></p>Satya Chaitanyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749603528440573740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2435755112654764920.post-16825001602545462162020-12-20T22:11:00.001-08:002020-12-20T22:11:53.260-08:00Living Gita 41_The Art of Actionless Action<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje9g1bNeUPVbVJpJhvecYD4QF325dZ8bJW65s_LaKWsaUG9zkl1HTpf-3Wn-EnKk35jpaHeMMKShEvJwgmiAoSBo1WweaEOJ62-besXs2opjHfwamwdNGO3DvrsJD_Vnbf80JQjK4bH-CU/s1482/radha+krishna+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="982" data-original-width="1482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje9g1bNeUPVbVJpJhvecYD4QF325dZ8bJW65s_LaKWsaUG9zkl1HTpf-3Wn-EnKk35jpaHeMMKShEvJwgmiAoSBo1WweaEOJ62-besXs2opjHfwamwdNGO3DvrsJD_Vnbf80JQjK4bH-CU/s320/radha+krishna+5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">A series
of articles on the Bhagavad Gita for people living and working in our volatile,
uncertain, complex and ambiguous times filled with stress and fear. This
scripture born in a battlefield teaches us how to face our challenges, live our
life fully, achieve excellence in whatever we do and find happiness, peace and
contentment.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">[Continued
from the previous post.]<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">sukhaduhkhe same kritwaa laabhaalaabhau
jayaajayau <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">tato yuddhaaya yujyaswa naivam paapamavaapsyasi ll
2.38 ll <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Treat pleasure and pain the same, so also gain and
loss and victory and defeat and then engage in battle. Battling thus you shall
not incur sin.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Krishna is the greatest rebel ever, there has never
been another rebel like him. Bu he is the right kind of rebel, a rebel with a
cause, not a rebel without a cause. His cause is supreme: in his own words,
protecting the good, destroying the wicked, and establishing dharma. It is more
like reestablishing dharma rather than establishing it, because it had already
existed in the past, but had declined over long stretches of time, kaaleneha
mahataa, in the words of Krishna. It is the same dharma that he wants to
reestablish, not an original dharma. He has no compulsion to be original. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The compulsion to be original is an egoistic
compulsion, a compulsion born of the egoistic mind. In fact, all compulsions
are born of the egoistic mind, minus the egoistic mind there are no
compulsions. Krishna does not claim the dharma he is talking about is original,
the dharma he is teaching is original; he says it is the same dharma that has
always existed, it has only been forgotten by people, particularly by people
who should remember it, by men in leadership positions. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">He says in so many clear words that the dharma he is
speaking about is the dharma that the rajarshis of the past knew, the dharma that
he – the wisdom of the soul – had taught royal sages like Vivaswan, Manu,
Ikshwaku and so on at the beginning of time, in the days when kingship had just
come into being. He had taught them how to live and lead for the good of the
people, how to use the authority invested in them for doing good to the people,
how to serve their interests best by using that authority, how to live their
life as individuals and as leaders of men and the organizations called kingdoms
rooted in values like truthfulness, integrity, kindness, compassion,
understanding, the spirit of sacrifice, putting others’ interests before one’s
won. He had taught them how to serve their subjects while remaining their kings,
had taught them how not to let power go to their heads and trample the ordinary
men and women underfoot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">They knew for instance that the eyes of the poor and
the weak were like the eyes of the snake, like the eyes of the sage, which can
reduce you to ashes and therefore they should not exploit or give pain to the
weak. But they did not exploit the weak not out of fear, but out of love for
them. They saw the same divine in the educated and cultured and the uneducated
and rough, in the rich and the poor, in the brahmana and the chandala, in the
cow and the dog, in everything. And everybody’s pain was like their own pain to
them, everybody’s happiness like their own happiness. They were not obsessed
with power, for them power was not an end in itself, but a means to a noble end
– for lokasangraha, for the good of the world. Power was not a privilege to
them but a responsibility, as it was to kings like Rama and Bharata in much
later years.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">These were the ways envisioned by the rishis of yore and
those were the ways he wanted to bring back into the world of kings, into the
world of leaders, with no claim to originality. Rebels rebelled for the sake of
rebelling, for the sake of their egos, so that people called them rebels and
originals, talked about them, extolled<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>their originality, but he had no such interest, for he had no ego, he
had transcended his ego.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was not like
an attention deficient child who needed constant attention and kept doing
something or the other so that attention was on him, as many rebels do. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">And this rebel says that sin is not in the act but in
the actor. Krishna says if you act in a particular way, then whatever you do,
even if it is killing, you will incur no sin. If sin is in the act, that cannot
be true - if a particular act is sin, whatever way you do it, it will be sin.
Like if killing per se is sin, in whatever way you do the killing, it will be
sin. But Krishna says if you kill in a particular way, it will not be sin.
Which means that it is the way you kill that makes it a sin or otherwise. That
it is the attitude of the killer that decides whether it is a sin or not. If
you kill with a particular attitude, then it is not sin, if you kill with
another attitude, then it will be sin. Since all attitudes are conditions of
the mind, it is the mind of the killer that makes the killing a sin or otherwise.
In other words, it is the doer that makes an act a sin, not the act itself.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Sin is not in the act but in the doer. A revolutionary
statement.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Victor Hugo’s French classic Les Miserables is one of
the greatest works of world literature. A large novel, it is about a good man named
Jean Valjean who steals a loaf of bread to feed his hungry little sister. He is
arrested by Inspector Javert, for whom a theft is a theft whatever the reasons
behind it, and is sent to prison where he spends nineteen years for his
original crime and for trying to escape repeatedly. Eventually when he comes
out of prison and seeks a job, no one is willing to give him one because he was
once a convict. Eventually he reaches a new town and, taking a new name,
through hard work and talent becomes a successful rich man famous for his
charities and the owner of a factory that employs many people. Here again he is
again arrested by Javert, this time for hiding his true identity, while he is
at the bedside of a young dying woman who had turned prostitute fo feed herself
and look after her baby. It makes no difference to Javert that Valjean is now a
generous man doing so much charity, kind to everyone, and was at the bedside of
the dying woman with her baby whom he had brought to her so that she could have
a look at her before she died. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">After more years in jail, Valjean escapes again,
starts looking after Cossette, the daughter of the dead woman, as his own
daughter. But Javert is still is in pursuit of him and locates him once again
but Valjean is able to flee with Cossette before he is arrested and finds
employment as a gardener in a convent with Cossette living with him and
attending school. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Cossette is now grown up and she and a young radical student
called Marius are in love. When the young political radicals fighting for
freedom and democracy capture Inspector Javert, it is Valjean who saves him but
in spite of that Javert is not willing to forget his duty towards the law and
let go of Valjean. Eventually unable to reconcile the conflict in his mind, between
his commitment to the law and gratitude to Valjean for saving him from
execution by radicals, Javert jumps into a river and kills himself.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">As we can see here, to Inspector Javert it is the act
that is a crime and not the actor – he knows Valjean is a wonderful human being
but he believes that his past crime still makes him a criminal and he needs to
be punished. A lifetime of pursuing a good man in the name of the law for a
crime that began as stealing a loaf of bread to feed his hungry little sister!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Whether it is a crime or a sin, in both cases it is
the same. Both the crime and the sin are in the actor and not in the act, that
is what Krishna is trying to say here when he says in you perform actions with
a particular attitude, you will not incur sin. Valjean is a sinner to the law:
he has stolen a loaf of bread, he has tried escape the prison, he has lived
under an assumed name, many are his crimes before the law if you go by the act;
to the law the fact that he is now almost a saint, a charitable man loved by an
entire city and lovingly elected its mayor, helpful to many, even willing to
risk his freedom and life to do good to others – these things do not count.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The old attitude of treating the act as sin and not
the actor is childish, says a modern master. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">A woman giving her breast to her father is a sin in
all religions. So is a father sucking the breast of his daughter. But it is the
theme of one of the most celebrated and costliest paintings of the world.
Hundreds of master painters have painted the scene, celebrated statues and murals
have been made on the theme, all with the least condemnation of the act. On the
contrary, they all celebrate it!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The original story behind these paintings, murals and
statues has the name Caritas Romana or Roman Charity. It is the story of a
woman called Pero whose father Cimon was sentenced to death by starvation and
thirst by the Roman court. Pero seeks permission to visit her father in the
jail every day until he dies and the permission is given. As she comes to
visit, carrying her recently born baby, the guards make a thorough search of
her to make sure she is not carrying any food or drink for her father and of
course they do not find anything. Their suspicions grow when the father does
not die as expected even after weeks and they make their searches even more
thorough but they cannot find anything with her. Eventually after six full
months, they realize what has been happening: Pero has been secretly suckling
her father, she had been giving him her breast milk. The story has a happy ending:
when the authorities realize what has been happening, instead of getting
furious with her they are so moved by the incident that they not only let her
go free but frees her father too. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">It is not the act that is sin, but the attitude behind
the act.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The person behind the act makes
it a sinful or a virtuous act. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Many years ago I developed a course in ethics for
young people. One of the case studies given to the young girls and boys to
discuss in the course was that of a young girl who is in a moral dilemma. There
is a flood in the local river and the girl’s boyfriend is on the other side.
The boyfriend is seriously ill and there is no way of saving him unless she
reaches him and nurses him back to health. There is a boatman at the ghat but he
is unwilling to take her across because of the fury of the river; he will do it
on one condition: she would have to give herself to him. Finding no other
solution, she does that in her despair to save her boyfriend, goes to her
boyfriend and nurses him back to health. A few days later he asks her how she
reached him when the river was in spite and she tells him the truth. The boy
gets into a fury and rejects her for being unfaithful to him. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The course required the participants to decide after
discussion among themselves whether the girl had sinned or not when she gave
herself to the boatman.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">If the sin is in the act, she had; but if it is in the
person she hadn’t. She was making a sacrifice for saving the life of her
boyfriend and a sacrifice is always an act of merit. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Did Yudhishthira commit a sin when he lied about the
death of Ashwatthama to Drona for the sake of dharma? If we go by the act, then
he did; but if we go by the intention behind the act, then he did not.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">In the Mahabharata itself we come across a son of
Ahalya and Gautama referred to as Chirakari, Slow-to-Act. We do not know his
real name. He is in a dilemma. His father Gautama has asked him to chop off the
head of his mother for committing adultery. Disobeying one’s father is a sin.
But killing one’s mother is a still greater sin. Chirakari now does not know
whether to obey his father and to kill his mother or to disobey him and spare
his mother’s life. He is not able to make up his mind one way or the other and
in this dilemma a lot of time is lost by when Gautama has a change of heart and
comes back running in despair to cancel his earlier order. He praises his son
for disobeying him. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">If the sin is in the act, Chirakari has sinned by
disobeyng his father. But if we look into his reasons, he has of course not
sinned. He had strong reasons to disobey his father.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The sin is not in the act but in the actor. The
disobedience is done for the right reasons and hence it is no sin.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">When Krishna says when you battle treating pleasure
and pain the same, so also gain and loss and victory and defeat the same, you
shall not incur sin, once again Krishna means much more than what he says. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">To understand this, let’s take the case of a baby
kicking its mother from within her womb – all babies do that. We know kicking
one’s own mother is a great sin. But does the baby commit any sin by kicking
its mother? Of course not, we all agree. But why? Because the baby has no ego
yet, at least no active ego. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">In a hilarious scene in the recent movie Chennai<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Express, we have Meenamma, the character
played by Dipika, giving in her sleep a resounding kick to her friend Rahul played
by Shahrukh Khan, who is sleeping in the same bed, sending him off the bed half
way across the room. Now, kicking any sleeping man is a sin but does Meenamma
commit a sin here? No one would say she does. Because in sleep she has no ego. Similarly,
if you kick your husband or wife in sleep, does it amount to sin?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course not, for the same reason: he or she
has no ego as a sleeper.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">If you have no ego, no act of yours is a sin. Extending
this argument further, if you do something without egoistic purposes, then what
you do will not be a sin.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Actions without desires, actions from which you want
nothing for yourself, are called nishkama karma. In nishkama karma, you perform
actions without attachment to results, victory or loss making no difference to
you, gain or loss making no difference to you. And that is what Krishna is
asking Arjuna to do: Treat pleasure and pain the same, so also gain and loss
and victory and defeat and then engage in battle. Battling thus you shall not
incur sin.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Krishna is asking Arjuna to go into battle without
egoistic purposes, without the ego, in the nishkama karma spirit and assures
him that if he acts in that spirit he will not incur sin.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Akin to nishkama karma in spirit are karmas done with ishwararpana
buddhi and swadharma buddhi. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">When we have to do something we do not want to do but
we must do, as Arjuna has to do now in the battlefield, as we all have to do a
lot of the time I our life, do it with swadharma buddhi – with the attitude
that this is my dharma, this is my duty, this is something that I am bound to
do. Do it with the attitude that you are doing it not for gaining anything for
yourself but for the good of others. Do it with ishwarapana niddhi – with the
attitude that you are doing it as an act of worshipping God, then you shall not
incur sin. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Krishna’s revolutionary statement. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi put it beautifully when he
said in Upadesha Saram:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">eeshwaraaarpitam nechchhayaaa kritam<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">chitta-shodhakam mukti-sadhakam. [Upadesa Saram 3]<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">“When actions are dedicated to God, done not because
you desire something [but for the good of the world], they purify your mind and
lead you to liberation.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">This verse is closely related to the previous verse in
Upadesha Saram which says;<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">kr</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">i</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">ti-mahodadhau patana-k</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">a</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">aranam<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">phalam asa</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">a</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">svatam gati-nirodhakam.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">“[Results of] actions [life scripts as discussed in
earlier essays] are the cause of fall into the vast ocean [of samsara].
[Besides] their returns are impermanent and also obstructions on the path.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">So by performing your actions dedicating
them to God, as acts of worship of Sacred Existence, done for lokasangraha,
surrendering their results to the world, whether they are good or bad, whether
they are successes or failures, whether they are happy or unhappy, considering
gain and loss as equal, accepting all results with equanimity, you do not incur
sin. </span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">We can understand what Krishna says at another yet
dimension: that of akarma.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">That is what Krishna means when he says if for you
pleasure and pain are the same, so also gain and loss and victory and defeat
are the same, and then even if you kill in the battle it will not be a sin. To
consider pleasure and pain the same, to consider gain and loss the same, to
consider victory and defeat the same, you have to be egoless and if you are
egoless, what you do is not a sin. Because sin is not in the action but in the
condition of the actor, in his attitude, in his state of egolessness or
otherwise.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Be egoless and fight the battle, that is what Krishna
is telling Arjuna. And if you are egoless, then naturally happiness and unhappiness
will be same to you, victory and defeat will be the same to you, gain and loss
will be the same to you. Happiness and unhappiness are seen as happiness and
unhappiness by the ego, victory and loss are seen as victory and loss by the
ego, gain and loss are seen as gain and loss by the ego.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Egoless actions are called akarma, actorless actions,
doing things without a doer being present. Sometimes akarma is translated as
non-action, to distinguish it from inaction. The Chinese have a term which
means exactly the same thing: we-wei, meaning empty action, actionless action,
actorless action, action in which the actor is absent. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Akarma is a term Krishna praises in the highest
possible terms in the Gita. As we shall see later in greater detail, Krishna
says: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">karmano hyapi boddhavyam boddhavyam cha
vikarmanah <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">akarmanashcha boddhavyam gahanaa karmano
gatih ll 4.17 ll <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">karmany-akarma yah pashyed akarmani cha
karma yah <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">sa buddhimaan manushyeshu sa yuktah kritsnakarmakrit ll
4.18 ll<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">“We have to understand what action [karma] is and we
have to understand what forbidden actions [vikarma] are. We have also to
understand what non-action [akarma] is. Indeed hard to understand are the ways
of action. He who recognizes non-action in action and action in non-action is the
wisest among men; he is a yogi and has already done all that he needs to do.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Elsewhere Krishna says:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">naiva kinchit karomeeti yukto manyeta
tattwavit <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">pashyan shrinvan sprishan jighrann <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">ashnan gacchan swapan shwasan ll 5.8 ll <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">pralapan visrijan grihnan unmishan
nimishannapi <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">indriyaani indriyaartheshu vartanta iti dhaarayan ll
5.9 ll <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">“The yogi who knows the truth thinks he does nothing
at all – while seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, going, sleeping,
breathing, speaking, letting go, seizing, opening and closing the eyes –
convinced as he is that it is the senses that move among the sense objects.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The true yogi is an akarta – non-actor, non-doer,
non-performer, while doing all kinds of actions like seeing, touching, eating,
sleeping, coming, going and the thousand other things we all do every day. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">There is a beautiful story about Krishna, Rukmini and
Durvasa. Once Sage Durvasa came to meet Krishna but he had to stop on the other
side of the Yamuna because the river was in spate. Krishna asked Rukmini to
take some kheer to the sage and she started from the palace happily. It is only
when she reached the Yamuna that Rukmini realized the river was in spate. She
returned to Krishna and told him that she couldn’t cross the river because of the
flood. Krishna laughed and told her to go back to the river and tell her if
Krishna was a true brahmachari, she should part and give way to her. Rukmini
laughed now – Krishna was her husband and the father of her children, she knew
Krishna was not a brahmachari, but Krishna insisted and she went, still
laughing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">To Rukmini’s amazement, when she told the Yamuna what
Krishna had told her to say, the river parted and gave her way. Rukmini crossed
the river, went to the sage on the other side and gave him the kheer. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Rukmini collected the empty vessels after he finished
the kheer and it’s only when she reached back the Yamuna that she realized that
the river was still in spate. She went back to the sage and told him about it
and Durvasa laughed and told her to go back to the river and tell her if
Durvasa has not eaten the kheer, she should part and give her way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By now Rukmini was thoroughly confused but
she did what the sage asked her to do, though she had just seen with her own
eyes him eating all the kheer. Of course, Yamuna parted her waters and gave her
way.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The whole episode was a lesson in what akarma is for
Rukmini as it is for us. One can do anything and yet not do it at all if one is
an akarta, a witness to what is happening, just a nimitta for things to happen
through. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Akarma is when you become just a nimitta – an
instrument, a passage, a tool for actions to happen through. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">At one stage in the Gita, in<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the Vishwarupa Darshana Yoga, Krishna tells
Arjuna that all the people who stand in the battlefield have already been
killed by him – by destiny, by Existence, by God, by samashti prarabdha, by the
cosmic will, whatever term we prefer to use – and Arjuna has only to become a
nimitta:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">tasmaat twam uttishtha yasho labhaswa <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">jitwaa shatroon bhungkshwa raajyam
samriddham <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">mayaivaite nihataah poorvameva <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">nimitta-maatram bhava savyasaachin ll 11.33 ll <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">“Therefore, Arjuna, get up and win glory. Defeat your
enemies and enjoy the rich kingdom. They have all been already killed by me. Be
just a means for things to happen through!” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Becoming a nimitta is doing akarma! When you do
akarma, you become just a passage for things to flow through, as Krishna’s
flute is for his music to flow through. Things happen through you and you don’t
do them, you are not the doer.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">And when you are not the doer, naturally, you incur no
sin for those actions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Incidentally when you do that, when you do akarma,
when you become an akarta, all your actions, if they can be called your
actions, become brilliant. This is the highest performance excellence. You
excel in your actions to the extent you are absent in your actions! And Krishna
knows, Arjuna’s name is already a synonym for excellence and if he can rise to
the level of akarma, every action that comes out of him will have the stamp of
the highest excellence.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">So Krishna is not only teaching us how to do things we
don’t want to do, which<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>our heart does
not agree with, like in Arjuna’s case the battle at the moment, but also how to
do things at the highest<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>level of excellence.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">When you perform actions remaining the same in
happiness and unhappiness, in victory and failure, and in gain and loss, you
are egoless and egolessness is the art of excellence. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Yoga karmasu kaushalam, says Krishna in the Gita –
yoga is excellence in action. And the path to the highest excellence is through
akarma, actionless action.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">At its highest level, the Gita is a book of the art of
actionless action.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">And remember: Doership is a myth. We do not do the
things we do. They happen through us. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Though our egos wouldn’t let us agree with this. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Photo courtesy: Sathe </span></p>Satya Chaitanyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749603528440573740noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2435755112654764920.post-62201026732301535802020-12-18T02:34:00.000-08:002020-12-18T02:34:08.316-08:00Living Bhagavad Gita 40: People are People <p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrHkjJrEDsbcU2_AXdreD93enAI5syimyJTOvAuuGleFQ5EEJd0CqXQLiUro5oOhb7hjbwgL0PdRaAvSDuf_on93anUxxQ1d5aYim-wjWQDSw_9Dg91j01tPoteUT5xL1fRaqux2zrlctZ/s300/krishna+adoring+the+feet+of+radha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrHkjJrEDsbcU2_AXdreD93enAI5syimyJTOvAuuGleFQ5EEJd0CqXQLiUro5oOhb7hjbwgL0PdRaAvSDuf_on93anUxxQ1d5aYim-wjWQDSw_9Dg91j01tPoteUT5xL1fRaqux2zrlctZ/s0/krishna+adoring+the+feet+of+radha.jpg" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoBodyText"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: arial;">A series
of articles on the Bhagavad Gita for people living and working in our volatile,
uncertain, complex and ambiguous times filled with stress and fear. This
scripture born in a battlefield teaches us how to face our challenges, live our
life fully, achieve excellence in whatever we do and find happiness, peace and
contentment.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: arial;">[Continued from the previous post.]<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">hato vaa praapsyasi swargam jitwaa vaa bhokshyase
maheem tasmaad uttishtha kaunteya yuddhaaya kritanishchayah ll 2.37 ll <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">If you are killed in battle, you will go to heaven;
and if you win, you will enjoy the earth. Therefore, Arjuna, resolve to fight
and get up.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the previous article, discussing verse 36,
we saw how Krishna comes down to the level of Arjuna to motivate him using his
need for keerti, a strong need all kshatriyas shared. Krishna uses the word
samarthya there: <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">avaachya-vaadaamsh-cha
bahoon vadishyanti tavaahitaah <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">nindantastava
saamarthyam tato duhkhataram nu kim ll 2.36 ll <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Krishna’s choice
of the word there is brilliant but for reasons of space we could not go into
the implications of the word but we shall do so here before proceeding further.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Samarthya or
samarthata means competence, the ability to do something, a competence which at
its height becomes excellence, the ability to do something brilliantly, a word
that was extremely close to India’s heart in the ancient days. Our name for the
master of all beings, the prajapati, was Daksha. Dakshata, competence or
excellence was the Indian ideal in every field and India excelled in whatever
field it went into, be it spirituality, literature, music, medicine, astrology,
astronomy, mathematics, linguistics, erotics, aesthetics, natya-shastra, just
name it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">No other culture went
into such depths of spirituality as India did. For instance, moksha or
apunarbhava, which the Buddhists call nirvana, is an understanding spiritual
traditions from no other land speak of, most of them stopping at heaven, which
is something that India holds in contempt saying that heaven is just a state of
mind, a happy state no doubt, and even if you imagine it as a place of pure
happiness, it is going to come to an end when your good karmas end and you are
going to be born again on this earth – ksheene punye martya-lokam vishanti, as
the Upanishads say. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Krishna in the
Gita says speaking of heaven:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">yaam
imaam pushpitaam vaacham pravadanty-avipashchitah <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">veda-vaada-rataah
paartha naanyad asteeti vaadinah ll 2.42 ll <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“Unwise are those,
Arjuna, who speak about [the rituals of] the Vedas, who are obsessed with
desires, who look upon heaven as the highest and argue that there is nothing
beyond it, that there is nothing beyond pleasures.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Just as India went
deeper into spirituality, we also developed so many spiritual paths for man:
ashtanga yoga, shakta tantra, shaiva tantra, vaishnava tantra, Buddhist tantra,
jain tantra, swara yoga, laya yoga, nada yoga, raja yoga, bhakti yoga, karma
yoga, janna yoga, kundlaini yoga, sahaja yoga, the list is endless. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">India achieved
such excellence in literature that we see Vedic poetry can compete with the best
and the latest in world poetry. Look at this poem from the Rig Veda called
Suryaa’s Bridal Journey for instance: <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The raibhi metre was
her bridal friend, <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The narashamsi hymn
her escort home. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Lovely was Suryaa’s
robe, <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Decorated by the gatha
song. </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Thought was the pillow
of her couch,<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Sight was the unguent
of her eyes. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Her jewellery was the
sky and the earth, <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">When Suryaa to her husband
went.” [RV.X.85.6-7]<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Or take the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hymn of Creation</i> from the Rig Veda,
called the Nasadiya Sukta, frequently called the most beautiful philosophical
or mystical poem in existence, of which I am giving here only an English
translation but to know the real beauty of which you should listen to it in the
original Sanskrit:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">There was neither
non-reality nor reality then, <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">There was no air nor
sky. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">What covered it and
where? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">And whose was the
shelter? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Was water there,
fathomless and deep?</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Death then existed
not, nor life immortal, <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Neither of night nor
of day <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Was there any sign. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The one breathed, <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Airless, by
self-impulse. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Apart from it was
nothing whatsoever. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Darkness was hidden by darkness in the beginning <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">With no distinguishing sign. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">All this was water. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The life force that was covered with emptiness <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">That one arose through the power of heat. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">There arose primal
Desire in the beginning <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The first seed of the
mind <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Wise sages searched
into the heart of mystery <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">and found Existence’s
kinship with Non-existence.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We were easily the most
advanced people in medicine in the ancient world, including in surgery. The
book Bharat ke Pranacharya or Masters of Medical Science in Ancient India, a
product of Ratnakar Shastry’s lifelong research into the subject, speaks of the
excellence we achieved in medicine. The Shushruta Samhita gives us drawing of
125 surgical instruments used by him!<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">And in mathematics, there were
no rivals to India. Advanced mathematics in the west begins with Pythagoras who
came to india with the specific aim of learning Indian philosophy and
mathematics. What we have all studied as the Pythagoras theorem in school is
actually an Indian theorem by Baudhayana, several hundred years prior to
Pythagoras, originally used for constructing fire pits for Vedic sacrifices.
And the numerals known all over the world today actually originated in India
from where it went to the Arabs and cme to be known as the Arabic numerals.
Zero, of course, so central to all mathematics and to computers, was originally
an Indian number which no other culture had.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Our achievements in music are
unparalleled. To us music was divine, a subsidiary Veda called the Gandharva Veda,
and we associated each of the basic six ragas of music with a season, a time of
the day and a deity. Indian music divides the octave into twenty-two shrutis or
demi-semitones, says the You Tube video Origin of Music: Sama Veda. These
microtonal intervals permit, continues the video, fine shades of musical
expression unattainable by western chromatic scale of twelve semitones. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">To us, music was one of the
paths that led to God.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We raised excellence to such an extent that we said
excellence is divine and wherever there is excellence, it is divinity itself,
God himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Yad yad vibhootimat sattvam shreemad oorjitam eva va; tattad eva avagachhas
tvam mama tejo’msha-sambhavam, says the Gita: “Whatever is splendid, whatever
is endowed with glory, whatever is filled with energy, understand that as born
of a part of me [God].” <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We saw God in excellence.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">When Krishna says those
who wish bad for Arjuna will ridicule his samarthyam, Krishna means much more
than what the words say. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Arjuna is one of the highest
examples for excellence from ancient India. His samarthya, his dakshata, was
the highest in his chosen field. Even as a student, he excelled. He was born
with a passion to excel as subsequent events show. Podf course, none of us
comes into this world as empty slates – we all bring with us karmas, vasanas
and samskaras from our innumerable past existences. Our past life scripts
accompany us into this lifetime, which is one reason why we must write positive
life scripts in this life time.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">No learning we do, no
good karma we do, is ever wasted. Avashyam anubhoktavyam krtam karma
shubhaashubham, the past masters said, and they meant neither our bad karmas
nor our god karmas ever abandon us. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">There is an interesting
story about how his own guru, Dronacharya, tried to stop Arjuna from excelling in
archery and failed. The story found in the Adi Parva of the Mahabharata says
that one day Drona told the gurukula cook never to serve a meal to Arjuna in
the dark. The instruction was specifically about Arjuna, not about all the
students, and the as we read the story we are confused – why would the great
acharya give such an instruction to his cook? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We reaslize the why of it
only after subsequent events happen. As ordered, the cook was careful never to
serve Arjuna a meal in the dark but one day while Arjuna was having his supper
the wind blew out the lamp and Arjuna continued to eat in the dark. And in the
middle of that night Dro0na was woken up from his sleep by the booming sound of
a bow string being released. Drona came and saw exactly what he had feared:
Arjuna was practicing shooting in the dark. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Drona until that day
wanted his own son Ashwathama to be his best student and the best archer in the
land. He had done things a guru should not do to to make Ashwatthama the best
and to prevent any other student from becoming the best and in every one of
these dark games the guru played Arjuna had beaten him. This time too Arjuna
had done exactly that. Just as he could eat in the dark, Arjuna had intuited
that he could also shoot in the dark. Whch is the eventuality that Drona had
foreseen and wanted to prevent with his cunning.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It should be said to
Drona’s honour that on that night he changed. He hugged Arjuna with tears in
his eyes moved by his commitment and dedication and said that now he would see
that Arjuna became the best archer in the whole world. And that is what happened
too, as we all know.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">That was Arjuna – a man
whose name is synonymous with samarthya. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Karna’s bitter rivalry
with Arjuna was about their samarthya. Karna wanted to beat Arjuna in samarthya.
When Karna entered the rangavedi and challenged Arjuna while Drona’s students
were displaying their skill in dhanurvidya, it was to prove that he was
superior to Arjuna in samarthya – at least no less than Arjuna in samarthya –
that Karna wanted. He was denied the opportunity because of his supposedly lower
birth as we all know. But Karna kept his rivalry with Arjuna alive till his
very end. When his mother Kunti asked him to join the Pandavas he told her he
cannot do that but instead would promise to spare the lives of all her sons
except that<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of Arjuna. He told her
either Arjuna or he would live, thus still leaving her with five sons, such was
his rivalry with Arjuna, for which there was no reason other than the question
who had greater samarthya as a warrior. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Perhaps the darkest stain
on Drona is the Ekalavya incident in which seeing that the nishada has superior
samarthya in archery than Arjuna had, he asked for the boy’s thumb as his
gurudakshina though he had not given Ekalavya a single lesson – this too was to
retain Arjuna’s fame as the best young man in samarthya in archery. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">How Arjuna won Draupadi
as is wife was also through his samarthya, <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Samarthya is so important
to Arjuna that he had vowed to kill anyone who had questioned his samarthya and
the samarthya of his bow Gandiva. At one stage during the eighteen-day war
Yudhishthira, smarting from defeat and humiliation by Karna, questioned both
Arjuna’s samarthya and the samarthya of the Gandiva for failing to kill Karna
in that day’s battle. When he did that, Arjuna wanted to kill Yudhishthira from
which it was only with great difficulty that Krishna could prevent him, such
was Arjuna’s feelings towards his samarthya. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It is this samarthya that
Krishna says people would laugh at if he refused to fight the war. Krishna
knows that the one thing Arjuna is more proud of than anything else is his
samarthya and that saying people would question that will really hurt Arjuna. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">For all men of excellence, samarthya is important
and they cannot tolerate an insult or a wound to it. When I was young and used
to live and study in an ashram, I used to help in the international
headquarters of the organization to which the ashram belonged – it was a huge
organization with branches in more than a hundred countries across the world. Working
voluntarily with me after his retirement was someone who in his earlier days
used to be the Managing Director of several leading corporate houses of the
country. He was an excellent driver with a passion for driving but one day, now
in his seventies, for the first time in his life he had a driving accident. A
very simple man, a wonderful human being, sensitive to the core, he took the
accident as a failure of his skill and I remember how he remained in deep gloom
about it and couldn’t sleep for many, many nights. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Krishna wanted to awaken
in Arjuna’s heart lokabheeti, the fear of censure by the world, in order to reawaken
in Arjuna his commitment to dharma and make him fight the war for dharma. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The world needed the war for destroying the
philosophy among leaders of the day that power was an end in itself. And
Krishna knew more than anything else this is what was going to work because
people questioning his competence is something that Arjuna will not be able to
accept at all.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I am sure when Krishna tod Arjuna people would
laugh at him ridiculing his skill, the image of Karna and Duryodhana laughing
at him came to his mind. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">During Yudhisthira’s
rajasuya sacrifice, while touring the ‘palace of illusions’ that Maya had made
for them, Duryodhana had experienced sthala-jala-bhranti, had taken the floor for
water and water for the floor, while Draupadi was standing and watching along
with her maids. The maids had burst out laughing at Duryodhana’s embarrassment
though Draupadi did not. She maintained a dignified silence. But when
Duryodhana reported the incident to Dhritarashtra back at Hastinapura, what he said
was that she had laughed at him along with her maids, which insult to his
intelligence is something that couldn’t forgive. [A dialogue that has become
very popular about this scene is that seeing Duryodhana stepping into water
thinking it was solid floor Draupadi had laughed aloud and said ‘andhe ka beta
andha hi hoga,’ the son of the blind too will be blind. There is nothing like
this in the Sanskrit epic and it is totally illogical. We know the children of
the blind are not necessarily blind. Besides, such speech befits a common woman
of the street and not the stately Draupadi.] It is in part to avenge this
insult to his samarthya that he humiliates Drauapdi in the dice hall so
horribly, perhaps the most shameful and shocking incident in all of Indian
lore. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In our last
article we discussed how Arjuna’s predominant guna is rajas, how his needs are
predominantly rajasic and how the way to motivate him is the way rajasic people
are motivated. Understanding people from the standpoint of the gunas is one of
the most important ways of understanding people. But there are other ways too,
though none of them is totally unrelated to the gunas. As we just saw, Arjuna’s
whole life is a search for excellence, a constant striving for excellence. A
lifelong learner, he excelled in what he did and his self-image as an
outstanding individual is extremely important to him. Just as Karna had a need
to prove that he is superior to Arjuna, he too had a need to prove that he is
superior to everyone in his chosen field, including Karna. Esteem needs are
extremely important to rajasic individuals, just as power needs are. Just as a
brahmana’s life is driven by his intellectual and spiritual needs, by his
search for peace and serenity,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>by his
constant striving for the higher in life driven by his sattva guna, a kshatriya
is driven by<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the need for esteem which
comes through power and authority over others. the German philosopher Nietzsche
speaks of ‘the will to power’ – if anyone can exemplify the will to power, it
is the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>kshatriya – and I don’t mean a
kshatriya by birth but a kshatriya by gunas, exactly as Krishna means the word
in the Gita. The kshatriya seeks power because it is through power that
prestige comes, which is his central need.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Insulting
samarthya leads to loss of prestige which a kshatriya cannot tolerate. He may
even go on a war because his prestige, his honour, has been challenged by someone.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">All
people have egos. Speaking about one of the seven people truths, Tom Peters,
author of the world’s first Management best seller, says: people are people and
they have egos. It is a universal fact, something true even about very saintly
people. And one of the most effective ways of mentoring, guiding, counseling,
teaching, and leading people is to appeal positively to their egos and to their
ego needs. These ego needs differ from person to person. During one of my
Management Development Programmes for senior corporate executives I asked them
what they expected from their jobs and here are some of answers they gave me in
writing, showing how people’s needs differ:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“I want to make a difference in what I do at work.”</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“I love to travel and this job provides me with the opportunity.”</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“I’m a bit of a show-off really so that’s why I demonstrate products to
people.”</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I get a kick from solving
problems. The bigger the problem, the more I love it.”</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“I look forward to coming to work because we have a great team and I love
to be with them.”</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“I like this job because I am always learning new things. I have
developed enormously here.”</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“I’ll be honest. I need the money and I work here because the pay is
good.”</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“What motivates me is a fear of failure. I never let people down.”</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">There is nothing like a challenge. It’s great when my boss throws a
challenge at me.” </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“I just want to be liked and loved, to be honest with you. When I am
praised and appreciated then I am motivated.” </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 35.7pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -17.85pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“A sense of achievement
is what motivates me. I am always wanting to achieve things.”</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Don’t think what motivates you is what motivates others. Each one of us
is motivated by different things. The deer is delighted by fresh grass. The
lion by the young deer’s meat. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 17.85pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I have heard:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 17.85pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">You cannot put a big load in a small bag,<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Nor can you, with a short rope,</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Draw water from a deep well.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">You cannot talk to a politician</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 17.85pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">As if he were a wise man.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Have you not heard how a bird from the sea</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Was blown inshore and landed</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Outside the capital of Lu?</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The Prince ordered a solemn reception,</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Offered the sea bird wine in the sacred precinct,</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Called for musicians to play the compositions of Shun,</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Slaughtered cattle to nourish it:</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Dazed with symphonies, the unhappy sea bird</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 17.85pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Died of despair.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">How should you treat a bird?</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">As yourself</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Or as a bird?</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Ought not a bird to nest in deep woodland</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Or fly over meadow and marsh?</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Ought it not to swim in river and pond,</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Feed on eels and fish,</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Fly in formation with other seabirds,</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 17.85pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">And rest in the reeds?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Bad enough for a sea bird</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">To be surrounded by men</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">And frightened by their voices!</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">That was not enough!</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 17.85pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">They killed it with
music!</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Play all the symphonies you like</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">On the marshlands of Thung-Ting.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The birds will fly away</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">In all directions;</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The animals will hide;</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The fish will dive to the bottom;</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 17.85pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">But men will gather
around to listen.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Water is for fish</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">And air for men.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Natures differ, and needs with them.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Hence the wise men of old</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Did not lay down</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 17.85pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">One measure for all.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">That is why Tom
Peters says: Motivation is a door closed from the inside. Only a person himself
can truly motivate him, no one else. Of course if you know that person well,
from deep within him, you can help him motivate himself. That is what Krishna
is doing here: help his friend motivate himself. Giving him the drive needed to
motivate himself. Krishna knows Arjuna well, even better than Arjuna knows
himself. After all, Krishna is the antaryami, the antaratma of all – the one
inside us all, the one who controls us from within us. Sarvasya chaaham hrdi
sannivishtah, as he says in the Gita: I am present in the heart of all. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Remember the words
emotion and motivation come from the same root word. What motivates us is our
emotions, what will motivate others is their emotions. Lokaninda, the censure
of the world, is a powerful motivating factor and that is what the master guru,
the best friend, philosopher and guide a man can ever have, Krishna, is using
with Arjuna.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In many primitive
societies they have no rules, no laws for social control, to maintain social
order. All they have is ridicule and the fear of ridicule by one’s own people
keeps the entire society ethical, bound to its mores, customs and traditions. They
do not need any other means of social control, any other means of social
regulation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Be careful about
stepping on people’s egos. A man might forgive someone stepping on his foot,
but never on his ego. Stepping on someone’s ego is like stepping on a deadly snake-
the snake turns around and bites. There is no escaping that.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The bard of avon
said hell hath no fury like a woman spurned. Being spurned is unbearable to all,
men and women. And arrogant people tend to spurn others, which is the reason
why an arrogant person cannot be a good friend, a good colleague, a good boss,
a good husband or a good wife, or anything good for that matter. Arrogance
antagonizes all.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Humiliate the ego,
you become an enemy forever. Even Rama, always the model for behaviour with
people, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>had to pay a high price for once
for humiliating someone. When Shurpanakha came to him and requested him to
marry her, he sent her to Lakshmana, telling her he is without a wife.
Lakshmana sent her back to Rama and then an infuriated Shurpanakha attempted to
eat up Sita – the rakshasas were cannibals. The subsequent actions of Lakshmana
on the orders of Rama led to the entire later events of the Ramayana, including
Sita’s abduction by Ravana and her subsequent imprisonment in Lanka for almost
one full year, every day of which was like everlasting hell of Sita.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">One of my students
once submitted to me an article as her assignment on leadership. The article
was almost ninety percent from Wikipedia and, besides, was totally irrelevant
to the topic. You cannot expect high marks for copy-pasting form the Net and
her marks were naturally low. The student was so furious with me for the rest
of the year – she was my student for two consecutive semesters, doing two
different courses – and I remember her turning abusive in her fury, making me
sad for her. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">There is a
widespread belief that Hitler became the monster he eventually became because
he was spurned by women for his short height, his lack of self confidence, his
plain looks and other poor qualities. Six million jews were forced to live nightmare
lives in concentration camps and eventually killed there, either poisoned in
gas chambers or by other means. A man’s ego wounded and hell results.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Wounding the ego
creates hell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">But the ego can also
be used constructively, creatively, for noble purposes. Which is what Krishna
is doing here. He is using the power of the ego to motivate Arjuna to fight for
the good of all, to take up weapons against adharma, and to accept the golden
challenge the samashti has brought to Arjuna as agift – the dharma yuddha.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Krishna asurres Arjuna he has nothing to lose,
whether he wins or loses. “If you are killed in battle, you will go to heaven;
and if you win, you will enjoy the earth. Therefore, Arjuna, stand up,
determined to fight.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">hato
vaa praapsyasi swargam jitwaa vaa bhokshyase maheem <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">tasmaad uttishtha kaunteya yuddhaaya
kritanishchayah ll 2.37 ll<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Veeraswarga, the heaven of the heroes, is something
every Mahabharata warrier looked forward to and that is what Krishna is talking
about here, having climbed down from the heights of Upanishadic wisdom to
Arjuna’s current level. In doing that, Krishna is following the ancient Indian
tradition of beginning teaching at the highest level and then gradually
climbing down to lower levels.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">O0O </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Photo Courtesy: Unknown artist </span></span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></span></p>Satya Chaitanyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749603528440573740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2435755112654764920.post-25149102460715246192020-12-17T02:37:00.002-08:002020-12-17T02:38:52.859-08:00Living Bhagavad Gita 39: Motivation through Lokabheeti<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjar0tWUdNm_g_HIIRyM6wdM7OFLi7FnKYPoHcBVm8bI5h-8N-QTqJFYuiKoCRlu-ekZbw8KGly8njJV7t6SSRSBDZdQjrnbgVizFLU0JJetHcgtCbySPcNjcWewovdAtf0nWQQMwVyCwda/s300/krishna+adoring+the+feet+of+radha.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjar0tWUdNm_g_HIIRyM6wdM7OFLi7FnKYPoHcBVm8bI5h-8N-QTqJFYuiKoCRlu-ekZbw8KGly8njJV7t6SSRSBDZdQjrnbgVizFLU0JJetHcgtCbySPcNjcWewovdAtf0nWQQMwVyCwda/s0/krishna+adoring+the+feet+of+radha.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoBodyText"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: arial;">A series
of articles on the Bhagavad Gita for people living and working in our volatile,
uncertain, complex and ambiguous times filled with stress and fear. This
scripture born in a battlefield teaches us how to face our challenges, live our
life fully, achieve excellence in whatever we do and find happiness, peace and
contentment.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: arial;">[Continued from the previous article]<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">akeertim chaapi bhootaani kathayishyanti te'vyayaam </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">sambhaavitasya cha akeertir maranaad atirichyate ll 2.34 ll </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">bhayaad ranaad uparatam mamsyante twaam mahaarathaah </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">yesham cha twam bahumato bhootwaa yaasyasi laaghavam ll 2.35 ll <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>avaachya-vaadaamsh-cha bahoon
vadishyanti tavaahitaah </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">nindantastava
saamarthyam tato duhkhataram nu kim ll 2.36 ll </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">And people
will speak of your disgrace forever. Isn’t disgrace worse than death for a man
of honour, Arjuna? Mighty warriors will think that you have backed away from
war out of fear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You will fall in the
eyes of those who once held you in high esteem. And your enemies will laugh at
you, saying shameful things about you. What can be more painful than this? </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">O0O</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">As we saw
earlier, Krishna tried all he could to avoid the war because of its horrors,
even going to the extent of trying to tempt Karma to join the Pandava side by
offering him the crown of the Bharatas and the temptation of Draupadi, seeing
that all other attempts have failed. As Krishna explained to the Rishi Uttanka
when the aged rishi wanted to curse Krishna for failing to stop the war, it is
in the nature of things that an incarnation accepts certain limitations on
himself when he incarnates [See my article <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Krishna:
When I am Born a Human Being,</i> available online] and there was nothing more
he could do to avoid the war except accepting defeat for dharma, which he
wouldn’t do because it is to establish dharma that he had taken birth. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">So that the
side of dharma wins the war, Krishna guides the Pandavas right from the stage
of preparations for the war till the very end not because they are his friends
but because they are on the side of dharma and Duryodhana is adharma. Throughout
the war Krishna does many things to make sure the side of dharma wins. For
instance, Krishna says that he used his power as a yogi – he is a
maha-yogeshwara – to prevent one particular thought from entering the mind of Karna:
the thought of using the unfailing shakti called Vaijayanti given to him by
Indra when Karna gave him the kavacha and kundalas he was born with that made
him invincible in battle. When Karna eventually uses Vaijayanti against
Ghatotkacha who had become unstoppable, Krishna becomes so relieved that
Arjuna’s life has been saved he leaves the reins in his hand and jumping on to
the chariot floor, picks up Arjuna in his arms and patting his back and holding
him in his arms jumps up and down, whooping in joy all the while. He tells
Arjuna here that for three months he had not been able to sleep properly for
fear that Arjuna might lose his life to Vaijayanti. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Krishna helps
the Pandavas win the war for dharma by so many other ways as we all know. His
agreeing to be Arjuna’s driver – a position far beneath his dignity as the
greatest warrior of the day, the most respected man and a kingmaker before whom
crowned heads from across the land bowed – being just one of them. He saves
Arjuna’s life so many times, like when the naga Ashwasena who had escaped the
Khandava bonfire enters one of Karna’s astras and comes at Arjuna with
murderous intent; by advising Arjuna to bow down before the Narayanastra, and
so on. It is Krishna who persuades Yudhishthira to tell the lie that
Ashwatthama has been killed so that Drona would lay down his weapons and could
be killed. It is again Krishna who advises Arjuna to signal to Bhima how
Duryodhana’s thigh could be crushed in the final battle of maces.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The victory
of dharma was important for Krishna, tt was the purpose of his incarnation.
True he uses some devious means for the victory of dharma, but reluctantly, as
the very last option and only when there are no other means available.
Sometimes to defeat adharma, adharma itself has to be used, something Indian
culture approves of as an apad-dharma by saying shathe shaathyam samaacharet,
use wickedness against the wicked, just as to remove a thorn you have to use
another thorn. But you have to make sure that it is used with great reluctance,
only when there is absolutely no other path available, and only against the
wicked [or those who are on the side of the wicked, as Drona was with
Duryodhana].</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It is because
Krishna now sees the war as absolutely unavoidable that he is trying to
repeatedly persuade Arjuna to fight it, giving him reason after reason to do
it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Besides, just
as the war is a necessity for the victory of dharma, it is a necessity for
Arjuna too – it is his swadharma, it is the path Arjuna must tread for his growth,
just as it is the path he must tread for his keerti. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">And now
Krishna shows him the other side of the picture: he tells him that just as the
war for dharma will give him keerti, if he does not fight it he will bring him
akeerti. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">akeertim chaapi bhootaani kathayishyanti te'vyayaam </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">sambhaavitasya
cha akeertir maranaad atirichyate ll 2.34 ll <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Loka-bheeti, loka-bhaya,
the fear of the censure of the world, is one of the ways of motivating oneself
and others, particularly for motivating a kshatriya, a man of rajas. The
approval of the world is important for all, but it is not so important for a
man of sattvva, he can grow above that and it is not so important for a man of
tamas, he is beneath that, but for a man of rajas it is central.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In the
fourteenth chapter of the Gita Krishna speaks of rajasic people as those with a
need to grow horizontally, as against sattvic people whose need is to grow
upward and tamasic people who tend move downwards. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">oordhwam gacchanti sattvasthaa madhye tishthanti raajasaah </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">jaghanya
gunavrittisthaa adho gacchanti taamasaah ll 14.18 ll </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">As a rule, the
approval of the world is not just important for the rajasic people, they<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>live for it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Western
motivational psychology speaks of what motivates people. Abraham Maslow, for instance,
speaks of the basic human needs that motivate us. For him, the vast majority of
people are motivated by physical and physiological needs and to a lesser extent
safety and security needs. Hunger, thirst, sex, these are the most basic
physical and physiological needs and safety and security are essentially the
need for a roof above our heads, the possibility of hunger and thirst being
appeased tomorrow too. At a slightly higher level, people have the need to
belong – to a family, to a few people who love them and care for them, to some
organization and so on. And then we have esteem needs at the next higher level
– the need to be looked upon with respect by people. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In the
original work of Maslow, at the next level is the need for self-actualization,
which is the need for making actual the potentials we have within us, such as
someone with music potentials making real his potential by becoming a musician,
someone with potentials with sports or someone with leadership potentials
making his potentials real and becoming a good sportsman or a good leader.
Subsequently however, three other needs were added to Maslow’s hierarchy,
making it eight types of basic needs. On the revised list of Maslow, we have
the need for meaning, called cognitive needs, at the fifth level and the need
for beauty, order and so on, called the aesthetic need, at the sixth level. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Cognitive
needs are the need for a purpose in life, for meaning in what we do for a
living and in our life as a whole and so on. The cognitive need being not
fulfilled is one of the biggest problems in the world today. A huge section of
the world’s people today do not find any meaning in what they do and the lives
they live. Which is the reason why life has become such a tragedy for so many
people, there is so much depression in the world today, diseases and suicides
related to depression is on a constant rise. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Aesthetic
need is the need for beauty in our life and in our surroundings, some kind
of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘music’ to our life. People have a
need to be surrounded by beauty and order, by some kind of rhythm in their life.
This second highest kind of human need may by a result of the fact that
existence is essentially beautiful, the world is made of what mystic India
called saundaryam or sundaram, as in the expression satyam-shivam-sundaram. All
existence is beautiful, even the smallest things have immense beauty in them,
but we miss that unless we grow in our sensitivity and reach the stage where
this need is important to us. Tibetan culture speaks of drala, the beauty of
ordinary things: the least thing in existence is bathed in immense beauty they
say. In Indian culture, we have visualized the Mother of the Universe, the
source from the universe has come into existence, as an embodiment of beauty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the spiritual paths India developed is
meditation upon the Goddess as the embodiment of beauty, with everything about
her as beautiful. One of the most important spiritual classics by Adi
Shankaracharya is called Saundarya Lahari, Waves of Beauty, which teaches
sadhakas to meditate upon the ultimate reality in the feminine and as the
personification of beauty. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">On Maslow’s
revised list, both cognitive needs and the aesthetic need come before the need
for self-actualizatioin and the final need is for self-transcendence.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Some people
understand the self-transcendence need as the need for each one of us to reach
out to others<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and in that sense, live a
life that is not just ego-centric but larger. However, for Maslow himself the
self-transcendence need meant the need for what he called peak experiences,
experiences of ego transcendence and time transcendence, the feeling that you
are not the ego but something vaster, the bhooma, that you are not bound by
time but is free from it, experiences that most of us have had occasionally.
BBC has published a book that is a compilation of such experiences hundreds of
people have had and the name they chose for the book is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Common Experience</i>.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Transcendence,
self actualization, aesthetic need and meaning needs, the kind of needs we call
spiritual needs, are highly pronounced in the case of sattvic people, though
the rajasic people are not altogether devoid of these needs. However, the vast
majority of rajasic people are dominated by esteem needs and belonging needs.
When Krishna tells Arjuna that if he does not fight the war for dharma, the
Kurukshetra war, he will lose his keerti, Krishna is appealing to his esteem
needs in an attempt to motivate him. He tells Arjuna that not fighting the war
will lead to infamy for him and asks him what could be worse than that infamy for
a man of great renown like him. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">He adds that
people are not going to see Arjuna’s refusal to fight as an act of charity or
compassion, that it is out of the impropriety of his fighting his own gurus and
seniors, how own people, that he refuses to fight. They would see it all as
just one thing: fear, cowardliness. The great Arjuna ran away from battle out
of fear, that is what they are going to say, he tells him. And they are going
to laugh at him in royal palaces, in town squares, in the markets, in villages,
everywhere. They are going to say shameful things about him, that he is a
coward, that he is afraid of Duryodhana. Krishna implies here, though he does
not say it, that people are going to say that the Pandavas endured all kinds of
humiliations by the Kauravas because they were cowards. People respect only one
thing – power – and when they see he has run away from battle, they would lose
all respect for him. The only way to live in dignity is to fight the war, that
is what Krishna tells hm. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This is motivation
through the fear of loss of esteem, through the fear of akeerti, infamy,
disgrace. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">O0O</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In our own personal
and professional life too, if we are basically rajasic and want to motivate ourselves,
it is to our esteem and belonging needs we will have to appeal to and in the
same way, if we want to motivate other rajasic people, say people working in
our office, industry or business, it is to their esteem and belonging needs we
will have to apply. Applying to rajasic people using physical and physiological
needs or safety and security needs may not be very effective: rajasic people do
not care much for those things. In fact, as far as safety and security are
concerned, rajasic people do not care much for them, they are great risk
takers, lovers of adventures and danger. The Mahabharata warriors who run
ecstatically into the battlefield to face danger and death are examples of
rajasic people – all kshatriyas are.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Similarly,
appealing to tamasic people using esteem and belonging needs also might fall on
deaf years. What they care for are creature comforts, physiological and
physical needs, and safety and security needs. True they cling to whatever they
have, as Dhritarashtra, highly tamasic, clings to power, but that is because
they associate loss of power with loss of safety and security. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In the same
way, to appeal to sattvic people, you will have to appeal to the highest needs
in Maslow’s revised need hierarchy: meaning needs, aesthetic needs, self-actualization
needs and self-transcendence needs.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Ancient India
understood motivation at a much deeper level than the west understands it today.
The main weakness of western theories is that they ignore individual
differences among people. No two people are the same, just as the same person
is not the same at all times. The gunas, which make us what we are, are very
dynamic and no two people have the same guna combination. Two sattvic people do
not have exactly the same amount of sattva in them, nor do all rajasic people
have the same amount of rajas or all tamasic people the same amount of tamas.
Each individual has a unique combination and that combination too changes from
moment to moment. On the whole, children are more sattvic, young people more
rajasic and old people predominantly tamasic. We are more sattvic in the
mornings, more rajasic during the day and more tamasic towards the evening. The
food that we eat, the thoughts we entertain in our minds, the people we
associate with, the surroundings we live in, the motions we experience from
moment to moment – all influence our gunas and their dynamism. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">O0O</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Krishna knows
Arjuna only too well to accept what he says at its face value and not to
understand his genuine concerns and needs. Arjuna is a rajasic person and all
rajasic people have the need to challenge themselves constantly, to have adventures,
to face dangers, to risk their lives. And a war, a war for dharma as the
Kurukshetra war in which Arjuna is standing now, provides all these. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">So, apart
from the fact that this war is essential to establish dharma for which Krishna
is born, it is the ideal situation that Arjuna wants. It is during battles that
Arjuna comes fully alive; he never feels as intensely alive as during a battle,
exactly as a teacher never feels so alive as when he teaches, a singer never
feels so alive except when he sings, a dancer never feels so alive as when she
dances, a leader never feels so alive as when he leads. Arjuna never forgets
himself, never goes beyond himself, never self-transcends, except in a battle
situation, surrounded by weapon wielding enemies, when death stares him in the
face, when one single moment of carelessness can mean instant death to him,
exactly as a dancer never forgets herself and goes beyond herself except in her
moments of dance, a teacher never except in his moments of teaching, a sportsman
never except in his moments of playing his favourite sport. Living a life
without danger staring at his face is a zombie’s life for Arjuna, a state worse
than death, life without facing danger is like vegetative existence for Arjuna.
So just as the war is a necessity for establishing dharma, particularly for
establishing dharma among the ruling class, among the leaders of the day, it is
essential personally for Arjuna too. For Arjuna, life away from danger is like
life out of water for a fish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">O0O</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">As I said in
an earlier article in this series, Krishna never abandons his friends, he never
gives up anyone. Krishna literature is full of stories of how he never gives up
his friends.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">When Krishna
hears of what happened to the Pandavas during the dice game, he comes running
to the forest where they had just begun their twelve years of exile. And
Krishna is angry at what was done to the Pandavas and especially at what was
done to Draupadi at the end of the game. He regrets that he did not know of the
game in advance, he was away from Dwaraka and was at Saubha fighting a battle
with the Saubha king. Had he known of it in advance he would have gone to
Hastinapura and requested Dhritarashtra not to hold the dice game and if he did
not listen to him, would have used force to prevent it from happening. If it
was necessary, says Krishna, he would have killed Duryodhana and all who stood
with him if they insisted on the dice game. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">And Krishna
would have without a doubt done that, such is Krishna’s commitment to his
friends, apart from his commitment to dharma. There is nothing he wouldn’t do
for his friends and devotees. Speaking of his friendship with Arjuna, Krishna
says in the Mahabharata that if needed he would pull out his own flesh and give
it for Arjuna’s sake. In the Gita, he assures Arjuna, and through Arjuna, all
humanity: “Know this, Arjuna, my devotee never perishes.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">KAUNTEYA
PRATIJAANEEHI NA ME BHAKTAH PRANASHYATI [BG 9.31]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I have put
the entire line in caps because so important is Krishna’s assurance. It is God
assuring man that his devotee never comes to a band end. Those words carry all
the power of God with them.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Once a
student in a top business school asked me if Hinduism has any scripture where
God speaks directly to man. These are words God speaks directly to man. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The entire
Bhagavad Gita is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A magnificent
poem in Malayalam written in the slow, stretched out, long, melodious tune of vanchippattu,
boatman’s songs, by Ramapurathu Variar about the friendship between Krishna and
Sudama [who is more widely known there as Kuchela, meaning Rags.] tells us that
Krishna wept only once in his life: seeing his<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>childhood friend Sudama coming to meet him<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in Dwaraka. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">antanane-kkandittu santosham kondo tasya </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">dainyam chintichchitt-ullil-undaaya santaapam kondo</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">entukondo shauri kannuneer-aninju </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">dheeranaaya
chentaamara-kkannan-undo karanjittulloo</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">As is widely
known, their friendship began in the gurukula where the two of them were
together, the Sandeepani Gurukula [Incidentally, the modern gurukula in which I
lived and studied for several years is named after this gurukula.]. Years
later, Sudama comes to meet Krishna in Dwaraka. By now he is extremely poor,
married with children, living in his decrepit house, with hardly any means to
feed his wife and children, his only strength his devotion to Krishna. His wife
Susheela repeatedly urges him to go and Visit Krishna so that their poverty would
be removed with his blessings. Just a side glance from his eyes is enough, his
wife tells him. And taking with him the only thing he had at home, some beaten
rice, and wrapping it in a piece of cloth, he proceeds to Dwaraka. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Here is the
poet describing what happens as he approaches Krishna’s fourteen-storey palace:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The lord who rules over the fourteen worlds</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Saw from his fourteen storey palace his friend</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">He was far down below and in the distance.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The loin cloth he wore and his upper cloth</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Were mere rags, dirty from travel</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In his armpit he had a book that never left him</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">And an offering for Krishna in a small bundle of cloth</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">On his forehead were sacred ashes</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">And a mark formed by repeated touching </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The ground with his forehead in surrender</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">He had a mala of rudraksha in his hand</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">And he constantly repeated Krishna’s name</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Walking slowly, with his mind fixed on </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Pure Consciousness enbodied in human form.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I do not know if it was from the joy </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">of seeing the brahmana</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Or from seeing his misery</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">But Krishna wept, his eyes full of tears – </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Krishna who has
never wept in his entire life.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We know the
rest of the story. Krishna comes climbing down the palace steps running, runs
towards the gate and gathers his childhood friend in his arms, dirty clothes,
perspiration and all. He is lovingly taken up the palace, given a royal
reception befitting a god. He is served a delicious meal by Rukmini. Krishna
asks him what he is hiding from him in his armpit, what he has in the cloth
bundle. Sudama is ashamed of his poverty, ashamed of what he has brought for
his friend who lives in a fourteen-storey palace, and tries to hide the bundle
still further, as though you can hide anything from the lord of the universe. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Akka Mahadevi
asks in one of her vachanas:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">When all the world is the eye of the lord, </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">onlooking everywhere, </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">what can you
cover and conceal? </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Krishna
snatches the bundle from him, opens it and greedily eats the beaten rice, as
though it was the sweetest thing he has ever eaten. Unknown to Sudama, he is
feeding the entire universe, the whole earth and heaven are being satiated.
Krishna eats one handful and then another and as he grabs a third handful,
Rukmini holds his hand and stops him. No more, she says; if you eat another
handful, it will be more blessings than he can bear, she signals to him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She knows, she is Goddess Lakshmi, the
goddess of prosperity. And Krishna stops.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Sudama stays
with Krishna for two full days but he forgets to ask Krishna what he had come
for, what his wife had sent him to Krishna for. He goes back bathed in bliss,
constant tears of ecstasy running down from his eyes. And he is puzzled when he
reaches his home – or what was his home before he left, the small hovel. In its
place stands a golden palace, and out comes running a woman he hardly recognized,
younger and more beautiful, dressed in the richest clothes and ornaments,
followed by his children, all smiling and shining in their new clothes.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">That is
Krishna’s friendship.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Friendship
with Krishna elevates you to heavenly heights. Exactly as friendship with the
wicked drags you down to the depths of hell.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Arjuna rises
to the heights of heaven through friendship with Krishna. And Karna falls again
and again through friendship with Duryodhana.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">O0O</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I have always
loved Krishna. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">One of the
most beautiful experiences of my life is my daughter Anagha as a baby suddenly
bursting out in tears as we were crossing the Yamuna by train on our way back
from Rishikesh. She was two and half years old then, her mother and I had taken
her to Rishikesh to keep a promise I had made to Mother Ganga before she was
born. I asked her why she was crying and she told me, because she couldn’t see
Radha and Krishna on the banks of the Yamuna. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Being able to
shed tears because you miss Krishna speaks of his grace. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">That is Krishna.
That is Krishna’s blessings. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Love for
Krishna is pure bliss.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">O0O</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">All of us may
not be able to love Krishna with all our heart, but one thing we can all do is live
by dharma and fight for dharma – waging dharmyam samgramam – as Krishna did all
his life, as Arjuna eventually learns to do. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">There are
endless opportunities to fight for dharma all around us all the time. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The recent Tamil
movie Aramm with Jyothika in the lead role shows her as a District Collector
who fights for the rights of the downtrodden masses against all kinds of odds,
including political and media corruption. Of course the Jyothika character is
in a position of power, but you do not have to be in a position of power to
fight for dharma. Each one of us can in his or her own way, wherever we are. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Power comes
from fighting for dharma. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Remember when
Mahatma Gandhi began his fight against the mightiest empire in the history of
the world, he was not a man of power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The fight made him the mightiest man on earth. Abraham Lincoln who fought
against black slavery in America was a cobbler’s son, and his fight made him
the mightiest man on earth in his days. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Fighting for
dharma is everybody’s duty. It is the best prayer you can offer Krishna who
fought for dharma all his life.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Trust in Krishna.
Have complete faith in him. And strength comes from him, power comes from him.
Such strength and power you hadn’t imagined existed in you.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">O0O </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Photo courtesy: Unknown artist</span></p>Satya Chaitanyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749603528440573740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2435755112654764920.post-63787196096713685952020-12-17T02:31:00.001-08:002020-12-17T02:31:21.244-08:00Living Bhagavad Gita 38: Abandoning Swadharma is Hell<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz8LqhciPdgxOHbcvS-p1BHV1bBueWU92nfLP5J50K1BL8HClQ7DYvzCTmbuP1OXXmmrE30c7nTm3K8nvMu3lt7JhxF3uyvPYZ64W5jbedlllvQGvjP0hYYZ1Ke56D5KmZGg_uOXVdC5LR/s300/krishna+adoring+the+feet+of+radha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz8LqhciPdgxOHbcvS-p1BHV1bBueWU92nfLP5J50K1BL8HClQ7DYvzCTmbuP1OXXmmrE30c7nTm3K8nvMu3lt7JhxF3uyvPYZ64W5jbedlllvQGvjP0hYYZ1Ke56D5KmZGg_uOXVdC5LR/s0/krishna+adoring+the+feet+of+radha.jpg" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">A series
of articles on the Bhagavad Gita for people living and working in our volatile,
uncertain, complex and ambiguous times filled with stress and fear. This
scripture born in a battlefield teaches us how to face our challenges, live our
life fully, achieve excellence in whatever we do and find happiness, peace and
contentment.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i><span style="font-family: arial;">[Continued from the previous post]<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">atha
chet twam imam dharmyam samgraamam na karishyasi <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">tatah swadharmam
keertim cha hitwaa paapam avaapsyasi ll 2.33 ll<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“But if you do not
fight this war for dharma, you will be abandoning your swadharma and keerti and
will incur sin.” 2.33<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Bhagavad Gita is moksha
shastra, a scripture whose subject is freedom from bondage. In that sense it is
a book of nivritti dealing with the spiritual path of withdrawing from the
outer world and focusing on the inner world. But at the same time, it is also a
book of wisdom for living in the world wisely even if your interest is not in
the final freedom it talks about. It teaches us how to excel in whatever we do,
how to remain calm and poised under all circumstances, how to keep our
turbulent minds under control, how to live in the world with a winning mindset,
how to respond rather than react to people and situations, how to deal with
wicked people, what happens to us and the world around us when we allow
wickedness to flourish in our hearts, how to sharpen our intellects and awaken
intelligence, how not to be a slave to our emotions, how to understand
ourselves and find our place in the world and the purpose of our life and a
thousand other things needed to live our lives wisely.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">One of the special
interests of the Gita is leadership – leadership of men and organizations. The
teacher of the book is a leader of the kind the world has rarely seen, the
greatest leader of the day, a leader of leaders and a kingmaker before whom
crowned kings bowed and who was offered worship as the greatest leader among
leaders in his days, who constantly lived in the world of leaders and knew
their lives and their problems intimately. And the student is a great prince, a
scion of a glorious dynasty as old as the sun, the greatest warrior of the day,
with impeccable morals and ethics, a partner with his brothers in ruling a vast
Indian kingdom to which tributes came from distant lands as far away as that of
the Vikings, the Chinas, the Romakas and the Yavanas, apart from every corner
of India such as the Keralaputras in the extreme south, the Pragjyotishas in
the east, the Gandhara and the lands beyond in the west and the Himalayan
kingdoms in the north and from all kingdoms lying between them. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">And Krishna
himself says the teachings of the Gita were originally meant for rajarshis –
the highest kind of leaders, the philosopher-kings, the saint-kings or the
king-saints. He says the teachings were
given in the beginning to King Vivaswan, who gave it to his son King Manu, who
gave it to his son King Ikshwaku, the founder of the royal dynasty in which the
greatest king India ever produced, Rama, was born. These teachings, says
Krishna, were lost over vast stretches of time, and it is exactly the same
teaching he is now giving to Arjuna – the yoga for rajarshis that teaches them how
to do good to the people using the power invested in them, how to live for
others, how to live for the common good, how to achieve glory as leaders and
how to transform their job as leaders into a means for growth and awakening.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">True, India has
always held that the ultimate aim for all men is spiritual freedom, moksha. But
India also repeatedly said that service to others could become a path leading
to moksha. As far as leaders are concerned, said India, what is right for the
common man is not right for them. For instance, India taught people in general
to practice contentment, santosha, but India said a king should never be
contented <span lang="EN-GB">with his dharma, with
his artha or kama,</span> he should never be contented with the amount of friends he has and the
amount of knowledge and intelligence he has: <span lang="EN-GB">na poorno’smeeti manyeta dharmatah
kamato’rthatah, buddhito mitratah chaapi satatam vasudhadhipah. [MB Shanti
Parva 92.12]. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: arial;">All people can transform
pravritti, worldly pursuits, into nivritti, inner pursuits, taught Krishna, and
added that as far as leaders responsible to the masses are concerned, rather than
pursuing nivritti, they should transform their job as leaders of men and
organizations itself into nivritti. Leaving no doubt about his stand he said
both sannyasa and karma yoga can yield nishshreyasa, the ultimate human goal,
and then added: of the two, karma yoga is superior to karma sannyasa, the
renunciation of action, the path of pure nivritti. [sannyaasah karmayogashcha
nisshreyasa-karaav-ubhau; tayos tu karma-sannyaasaat karma-yogo vishishyate.]
[BG 5.2]<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-GB">India also asks rhetorically
kim </span>tasya tapasa rajnah kim cha tasya adhvairapi,
supaalitaprajo yah syaat sarvadharmavideva sah: <span lang="EN-GB">“What </span>use is tapas to a
king, and what use are sacrifices? If he has looked after his subjects well, he
has already attained all that he can ever attain.” [MB Shanti 69.73]. To India,
service to his people was his religion to a king, his highest spirituality, his
highest dharma; it was his yajna, his yaga, his homa, his pooja, everything.
There is nothing that a king cannot attain by performing his duties in the
spirit of yoga, Krishna says, and he gives us the example of kings like Janaka
who attained the highest through this: karmanaa eva him samsiddhim aasthitaah
janakaadayah. [BG 3.20]<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">While nisshreyasa or mukti was always the highest human goal for India,
at a lower level, at the worldly level, keerti was considered a highly
desirable goal for all, both men and women. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It is this keerti as well as his swadharma that Krishna says Arjuna would
lose if he refuses to fight the war.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“But if you do not
fight this war for dharma, you will be abandoning your swadharma and keerti and
will incur sin.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The paths that
lead to keerti are many, said India.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Marutta was a king
who became a legend in his own times. He was the son of king Avikshit and the
grandson of King Khaaninetra, both celebrated rulers who served people with
devotion. Such was Marutta’’s glory that it eclipsed the glory of Indra,
the lord of the gods. The Indra that we
are speaking of is the Indra of the Puranas, a symbol of the ordinary human
mind full of lust and anger, power hungry, unprincipled, cunning and cheating,
with no hesitation to stoop to any level for saving his power, unlike the glorious
Vedic Indra who is the symbol of the enlightened mind: calm, serene, unaffected
by the winds of samsara, beyond success and failure, beyond raga and dvesha,
longing and hatred, beyond jealousy and anger, with nothing to achieve for
himself and working only for the good of others. So this Indra, the symbol of
the ordinary mind, says the story of Marutta, became jealous of the king. In
those days Brihaspati had not yet become the guru and priest of the gods but
was Marutta’s priest. When Marutta wanted to conduct a Vedic sacrifice with
Brihaspati as the chief priest, Indra approached the priest and gave him the
position of the chief priest of the gods and told him that since he was now the
priest of the gods, he should not serve Marutta, a mere mortal, as his priest.
Brihaspati agreed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">When Brihaspati
refused to be his priest for the sacrifice, Marutta approached his brother
Samvarta who was a greater priest than Brihaspati himself and was not obsessed
with power and position and loved roaming free of attachments like a homeless
avadhoota. After a lot of persuasion Samvarta agreed to be Marutta’s priest with just one condition:
the jealous Indra and Brihaspati are going to do all they can to stop the
sacrifice and at that time Marutta should not become afraid and abandon the
sacrifice in the middle, which is a great sin. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Marutta agreed to
this condition and refused to bow down to the thousand things Indra and
Brihaspati did to obstruct the sacrifice, including asking Agni not to go to
the sacrifice and as we all know, without Agni, fire, no sacrifice could be
conducted. Indra attacked the sacrifice with fierce thunder and lightning but
fearlessly Marutta went ahead with the sacrifice and eventually Indra bent
before Marutta’s determination and was forced to accept the king’s invitation
and come for his sacrifice.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Maruta’s sacrifice
became a glorious success. The lord of the gods himself was forced to bow down
before the unshakeable will of a human being and Marutta achieved immortal
keerti for his courage and unshakeable determination. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 2.85pt; margin-right: 2.85pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Shakuntala’s is the story of the
fearless independence of an abandoned girl brought up by a rishi who achieves
immortal fame on her own apart from being the mother of Bharata after whose
name this land of ours is known. She is woman as fire who represents the
highest in Indian womanhood. To quote from one of my articles available online
called <i>Shakuntala: Flaming Indian
Womanhood</i>, “Shakuntala stands for all that is beautiful in Indian
womanhood. She would risk her honour as a woman for the love of a man, and yet
she would not take one harsh word that goes against her dignity from that man.
She has the softness of the softest flower and yet she is as fierce as fire
itself. She is strength that knows how to bend. She is the courage to trust.
She is silence that knows how to be eloquent when the need arises.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 2.85pt; margin-right: 2.85pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">She gives herself to Dushyanta who
meets her in the ashram but after marrying her by the gandharva rites, he
abandons her in spite of his promise to send his people to escort her to the
palace when he reaches back there. Thirteen years later when she comes there on
her own with her son, he refuses to acknowledge her and insults her publicly in
the royal court. Shakuntala, abandoned by her mother and father at birth, now
abandoned by her husband, becomes an enraged snake and raising her voice in the
assembly fearlessly tells the king that culture demanded that a wife who has
come to her husband’s place for the first time needs to be honored; she needs
to be offered worship. “You err by not worshipping me as I stand here,” asserts
Shakuntala, demanding from her man the obeisance that is every woman’s right by
Indian culture. “I deserve to be worshipped. And you do not offer me worship
that is my due.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 2.85pt; margin-right: 2.85pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">She asserts that a wife is not a
man’s plaything – she is an equal half of his being, his best friend in the
journey of life, the root of his dharma, artha and kama [virtue, wealth and
pleasures]. And for a man who wants to cross the ocean of samsara and reach
moksha, she is his most powerful ship.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 2.85pt; margin-right: 2.85pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Not content, not caring that he is
a king and is surrounded by his courters, this woman who grew up in a ashram
and knows no fear tells Dushyanta that she has not come to him for his charity
– she does not need it. What she demands is justice – what is hers by right. In
fact, she herself does not need even that, she tells him. She is perfectly
willing to go back to the ashram from where she has come – she will always be
welcome there. She does not care for the comforts of the palace – such things
do not tempt her. She needs just one thing: that his child be acknowledged as
his. And she warns him of dire consequences if he ignored her. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 2.85pt; margin-right: 2.85pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Dushyanta calls her a liar for
claiming she is his wife and the child is his. He calls all women liars. And
Shakuntala’s voice booms in the royal court once again – with the power of
truth, as the voice of truth. No, she is not lying, she tells him. Truth is
sacred to her. “Truth,” she tells him, “is superior to a thousand ashwamedha
sacrifices; the study of all the Vedas, bathing in every sacred tirtha in the
world – nay, even these are not equal to the sixteenth part of the truth.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 2.85pt; margin-right: 2.85pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Shakuntala calls Dushyanta a fool
for rejecting her. And even under the tremendous stress she is in, she shows her culture by
apologizing to Dushyanta for doing so, in spite of Dushyanta’s use of the word
whore for her and her mother. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 2.85pt; margin-right: 2.85pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">As she turns around to leave, she
tells Dushyanta she did not bring her son to Dushyanta in the hope of his
inheriting the kingdom. No, he does not require it. For, her son will rule over
all the earth even without his help.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 2.85pt; margin-right: 2.85pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Gods and celestial sages interfere
here on Shakuntala’s behalf. They appear and testify that she is indeed
Dushyanta’s wife and Sarvadamana is his son and suggest that he should now be
renamed Bharata. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 2.85pt; margin-right: 2.85pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The women who people our epics are
shaktis: each one of them is endowed with power, sure of herself, sure of the
choices she makes, sure in her speech, protective, passionate, loving, giving,
hungry for life, filled with adventurousness, a fearless wanderer in life’s
vast fields. They inherit their spirit from our Vedic women: Independent,
assertive, strong winners, who took responsibility for themselves; authentic
women who participated in all fields of life as men’s equals, who debated on
the meaning of life with the best of philosophers, who explored the mysteries
of existence just as the men of their times did, who composed poems, sacred and
mundane, poems of the soul and of the flesh, singing of spiritual ecstasy and
sexual longing, that survive to this day.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 2.85pt; margin-right: 2.85pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Shakuntala’s is keerti achieved
through fearlessness, through assertiveness, by her refusal to accept that
women are less than men, by her refusal to bow down before a king’s unrelenting
might.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 2.85pt; margin-right: 2.85pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 2.85pt; margin-right: 2.85pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Our next story of keerti too is of
a woman fearlessly walking into a royal court and demanding justice from the
king: that of Kannaki [Kannagi], the heroine of the greatest ever south Indian
classic, told in Tamil at least two thousand years ago by Prince Ilanko Adigal
who became a Jain monk: the story of an unfortunate woman who refuses to bow
down to misfortune, whose righteous anger raises her to the level of a goddess
worshipped by millions and is today identified with Goddess Kali, the
embodiment of righteous, divine anger.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 2.85pt; margin-right: 2.85pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Because of the treachery of a
greedy goldsmith, Kannaki’s husband Kovalan is accused of stealing the queen’s
anklet and is condemned to death by the Pandya king of Madurai. When Kannaki
hears of this, she reaches the court while it is in session and openly accuses
the king of murder – Kovalan is innocent and he had put to death Kovalan
without a proper enquiry. She tells the king and the court that the anklet
found with Kovalan was not the queen’s but hers, and she has the other anklet
of the pair with her. Kannaki asks the king what was inside the queen’s lost anklet
and he says pearls. She then raises the other anklet of hers, the one still
with her, and throws it on the floor of the court.Out springs from it rubies
that scatter all over the court floor, proving that the anklet confiscated from
Kovalan was not the queen’s.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 2.85pt; margin-right: 2.85pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The king famous for justice is
shocked by what he has done unknowingly and blaming himself for gross injustice
falls down dead, hearing which the queen too dies. But still in a rage, Kannaki
walks out of the court into the city of Madurai, her eyes spitting fire.
Standing at the heart of the city, she plucks out one of her breasts and flings
it on the ground. A roaring fire blazes up from where the breast fell and
engulfs the city of Madurai, reducing it to ashes, thus punishing the whole
city for the sin of its king.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 2.85pt; margin-right: 2.85pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Legends in Kerala tell us that
Kannaki, her anger still unappeased, walked all the way to Kerala from Madurai.
She stopped at a place called Attukal where local women received her and fed
her. In memory of this event, a temple has been built for her at Attukal, where
a festival called ponkala is celebrated every year when women gather in what
has become the world largest women’s only gathering with around five million women
participating in the festival annually. They cook food by themselves on the
spot and offer it to Attukal Amma, Kannaki, commemorating the original event.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 2.85pt; margin-right: 2.85pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Kannaki proceeded further to the
ancient city of Kadungalloor in Kerala where she is identified with Goddess
Kali. Her temple there draws huge crowds for the festivals every year,
festivals that are unlike any other in the world, with thousands of women
dancing ecstatically in ritual intoxication with Devi’s swords in their hands.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 2.85pt; margin-right: 2.85pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Kannaki is a symbol of marital constancy.
She achieves immortal keerti for standing with her husband in thick and thin
and avenging his unjust killing by the king. Subsequent culture, as we saw,
raises her to the status of a goddess worshipped by millions, including in the
largest all-women gathering in the world, as certified by Guinness Book of
World Records. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 2.85pt; margin-right: 2.85pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 2.85pt; margin-right: 2.85pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 2.85pt; margin-right: 2.85pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Rama had immense keerti even before
he was crowned the prince regent of Ayodhya. People praised his virtues and his
conduct in the highest possible terms. For Rama truth and dharma are the
highest, they said. He is like the moon in
showering happiness on the people, they said, like the earth in forbearance,
like the guru of the gods in intelligence, and like Indra in valour. He knows
fully what the right thing to do is under all circumstances for all including
himself; his character and integrity are of the highest order, he is beyond the
touch of jealousy, always ready to forgive, consoles everyone in times of
distress, gentle, full of gratitude even for the smallest things done for him
and a master of his senses. He is soft in speech and in his dealings with
people, has a steady, unwavering mind, is serene, knows how to speak sweetly
keeping the good of the people in mind even when he has to tell them harsh
truths, He has served learned and wise men and learnt from them sitting at
their feet. He is a master of the weapons of the gods and the asuras, apart
from being a master of the weapons of men. He is a master of different sciences
and of the Vedas along the subsidiaries of the six Vedas, they said.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 2.85pt; margin-right: 2.85pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">And then he does something and with
that single act of his, his keerti soars into the skies and he becomes the
maryada purushottama of Indian culture, the ideal man of principles for all
times to come: He refuses to cling to power and willingly leaves the throne to
is younger brother to keep his father’s word, in spite of the fact that all his
life he had been readying himself to become a king who will set standards for
kings for all times to come.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 2.85pt; margin-right: 2.85pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">When he does that Rama was not only
showing his commitment to truth, but also to his dharma as a son, his putra
dharma. His immortal keerti rests not just on these two but on many more:
ethical integrity, renunciation, fearlessness, rootedness in dharma,
generosity, treating all as equals, forgiveness...the list is long. Krishna in
the Gita calls Rama the greatest warrior ever: raamas shastrabhrtaam varah. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 2.85pt; margin-right: 2.85pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 2.85pt; margin-right: 2.85pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">As we saw, there are many ways of
achieving keerti and kshatriyas sought it
through battle, especially battles fought for dharma. The Mahabharata says
there is nothing more shameful for a kshatriya than dying of old age and
disease in his bed. It is this opportunity for keerti through a war fought for
dharma that Arjuna would be abandoning if he refuses to fight and runs away
from battle. That is why Krishna tells him that if he does not fight this war
for dharma, he would be abandoning his swadharma and keerti and incurring sin.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Before we conclude
the discussion of this verse, a word about sin. The old definition of sin is
doing something forbidden or not doing something you are enjoined to do.
Tradition also said that sin is something you carry with you into your future
existence when you leave this body and the consequence of sin is suffering.
India gives us an endless list of sins and the suffering that follows as the
punishment for each, including the hells to which you go to undergo punishment
– hells like tamisra, andhatamisra, raurava, maharaurava, kumbhipaka and so on.
These hells are described like ‘geographical’ places, though in other
dimensions of existence to which the living have no access, specially created
to meet out punishments for sinners.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">As we know, sin is
not in the action, but in the feeling and intention behind the action. Lying is
sin, but if it is done to save a life, it is not. Killing is sin, but killing
an enemy soldier in battle is not. Adultery is sin but not when it is done as
noyoga. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">When Bodhidharma reached
China, the Chinese emperor told him that he has been feeding thousands of Buddhist monks and looking after numerous
monasteries. He then asked the master if he would go to heaven when he died.
Bodhidharma told him there was not a chance of that, heaven is not the reward
for greed. When asked to explain himself, the Zen master told him he has been
doing all his charity as a bargain, so that he can go to heaven when he dies.
By giving a small part of his wealth to monks and monasteries, he wanted to get
heaven – that was greed and heaven is not the reward for greed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">But just as heaven
need not be after death, hell too need not be after death and punishments for
our sins need not necessarily come after we die. Modern understanding, which I find
very sensible, is that we are punished not <i><u>for</u></i>
our sins, but <i>by</i> <u>our</u> sins. An
evil act is its own punishment, an evil thought is its own punishment. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: arial;">Hatred, anger, jealousy,
intolerance, vengeance, greed, lust – these are their own punishments. They
make those who harbour them in their hearts suffer, apart from causing
suffering to others. A man whose heart is filled with anger, with hatred, with
jealousy, vengeance, greed or lust knows no peace of mind. These feelings are
like fire that consumes the wood that it gives birth to it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-GB">Hell is not out there and
after death, but it is in our heart and now, as anyone who has lived through
hatred or other asuri sampada knows. A man filled with vengeance is always
remembering the past and plotting the future. His mind is never in the present.
And all joy is in the present.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">When Krishna says
Arjuna will incur sin for not fighting the war for dharma as he is supposed to
do as a kshatriya, Krishna could be understood as saying Arjuna will suffer
hell in his heart – the guilt, the shame, the sense of failure and other
feelings that will follow his desertion and torment him like furies the rest of
his life.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">If swadharma is
heaven, abandoning swadharma is hell.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">And so is akeerti.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">O0O</span></span><div><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Photo courtesy: Unknown artist </span></span></div>Satya Chaitanyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749603528440573740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2435755112654764920.post-168698658924126862020-12-14T21:52:00.003-08:002020-12-14T21:52:51.873-08:00Living Bhagavad Gita 37: Swadharma, the Door to Heaven<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">A series of articles on the Bhagavad
</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLGeCf_4ImPz6Aqa_j3-oePdkYeE-brLx6CGKkowdSprESrECSwo9Rpy19zQI5Um5wVggXGhe3BCbjyqmhAuniw2bRXXr08ZL-43AcuKe_NByNGzpxtOjvy6-QtcylviOV54Bs-TxAufWe/s300/krishna+adoring+the+feet+of+radha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLGeCf_4ImPz6Aqa_j3-oePdkYeE-brLx6CGKkowdSprESrECSwo9Rpy19zQI5Um5wVggXGhe3BCbjyqmhAuniw2bRXXr08ZL-43AcuKe_NByNGzpxtOjvy6-QtcylviOV54Bs-TxAufWe/s0/krishna+adoring+the+feet+of+radha.jpg" /></a></div><br />Gita for people living and working in our volatile, uncertain, complex and
ambiguous times filled with stress and fear. This scripture born in a
battlefield teaches us how to face our challenges, live our life fully, achieve
excellence in whatever we do and find happiness, peace and contentment.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">[Continued from the previous article]<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">yadrcchayaa chopapannam swargadwaaram apaavrtam </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">sukhinah
kshatriyaah paartha labhante yuddham eedrsham ll 2.32 ll</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Happy are the
kshatriyas called upon to fight a war of this kind unsought, Arjuna. Open doors
of heaven are beckoning them.” </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">O0O</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">I have taught
young people in four of the top business schools of the country: Indian
Institute of Management Lucknow, Xavier Institute of Management and Research Mumbai,
XLRI School of Business Jamshedpur and Xavier School of Business Bhubaneswar,
in the last two of which I had students from all over the world. I have been
with executives of several hundred leading corporate houses of the country
giving them training sessions on various subjects related to their professional
life like leadership, emotional intelligence, stress management, communication,
conflict management, achievement motivation, team building, influencing skills and
so on. The MD of one leading corporate house of the country told me that I was
the only corporate trainer who has trained all their officers. I have been with
several groups of doctors and engineers and I have been with IAS, IPS, IRS and
IFS officers, senior bureaucrats and businessmen, apart from training several
thousand professionals in the educational field. In my capacity as a teacher
and as a trainer I have come across all kinds of people – happy, satisfied,
unhappy, frustrated, people who are ecstatic with their jobs and life, people
who feel they have been trapped in their miserable lives and jobs and were
going insane, all. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Among the
people I have come across, the people happiest with their professions and their
lives were those who were born to do what they were doing. What you were born
to do is what India calls swadharma, swa meaning one’s own and dharma meaning
nature, the two words together meaning the life you were born to live as
decided by your nature, the work you were born to do as decided by your nature.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A painter painting is doing his
swadharma, a singer singing is doing her swadharma, a dancer dancing is doing
her swadharma, a writer writing is doing her swadharma, a teacher teaching is
doing her swadharma; a farmer farming, a salesman selling, a driver driving, a
leader leading, a soldier fighting, a cook cooking, a gardener gardening, a
social worker serving people are all doing their swadharma – if they were born
to do that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if they are doing their
swadharma, they would be people happy with what they are doing, with the lives
they are living. To modify something Einstein said, a fish will be happy swimming
in water, but it cannot be happy climbing trees. To live in water is the
swadharma of the fish, climbing trees is not.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">That is why
Krishna says:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">yadrcchayaa chopapannam swargadwaaram apaavrtam </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">sukhinah
kshatriyaah paartha labhante yuddham eedrisham ll 2.32 ll</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Happy are the
kshatriyas called upon to fight a war of this kind unsought, Arjuna. Open doors
of heaven are beckoning them.” </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Truly an
opportunity to live a life according to your swadharma, to study a subject
according to your swadharma, to follow a profession according to your
swadharma, to get a spouse according to your swadharma and to be able to do
what you are truly passionate about, to do what you were born to do, is indeed
a great good fortune.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When that happens,
the open doors of heaven are beckoning you. And imagine that happening
yadrchhaya, on its own, unsought, brought by the powers of the universe and
offered to you on a platter! </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">That is what
Krishna is speaking about. Arjuna’s swadharma is calling him and the call of
swadharma is always an invitation to heaven. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">O0O</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Philosophical
enquiry in India is as old as this sacred land, as old as our amazing culture.
There has never been a time when India was not interested in philosophy. One of
the earliest Upanishads, the Kena Upanishad, begins with these questions: </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">keneshitam patati preshitam manah? </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">kena praanah prathamah praiti yuktah?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">keneshitaam vaacham imaam vadanti?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">chakshuh
shrotram ka u devo unakti?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">“By whose
command does the mind reach out to the world? By whose command does the breath
of life, the primal power, do its work? Directed by whom does speech do the
speaking it does? And what is the power that unites the eyes and the ears with
their objects?”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">India,
devoted to the study of life from the beginning, understanding that to live
meaningfully life should be understood. We discovered the basic truth about
swadharma at a very early stage of its philosophical progress and insisted that
man should live the life he is born to live and do the work he is born to do. Our
swadharma speaks of the driving passion of our life, India said, and conversely
our driving passion speaks of our swadharma too. And we designed our entire
life around this understanding so that man could live his life in tune with his
swadharma – in ritam with his basic and passions, with his inborn drives. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Ritam is widely
considered to be the most important Vedic principle. It is the word from which the
English word rhythm comes – a word that means harmony, music, cadence, flow,
etc. Ritam speaks of life in harmony with nature, in harmony with the flow of
life, with changing nights and day, with changing seasons, with our own
changing ages such as childhood, adolescence, youth and so on, so that the
whole life becomes a beautiful poem. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
principle of ritam speaks of the need for man to live not only with the outer
rhythms of nature around us of which we are a part, but also with his own inner
rhythms, with his inner nature, with his swadharma. The varna system, which
subsequently deteriorated, decayed and putrefied into the highly exploitative caste
system and the biggest curse on India, and the ashrama system in which life
began with brahmacharya and ended in sannyasa, were both originally results of the
Indian understanding that man has a need to live in harmony with his inner rhythms,
or the ritam within him. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Just as water
has a need to find its level and hence always keeps flowing until it finds that
level, just as fire has a constant need to burn and consume things that feed
it, living with our driving passions is a basic need for man, said India. And
ancient India’s greatness in numerous fields including science, mathematics,
astronomy, economics, literature, music, dance, architecture, medicine and so
on from the time of the Vedas, the oldest books in the world, through several
successive millennia was a result of this living in tune with man’s swadharma.
We left the philosophers and intellectuals to be philosophers and intellectuals
questing the meaning of life. We left the people preoccupied with power and
managing people and society to live a life in harmony with their needs. We left
those with a hunger for wealth to live producing and acquiring wealth. And we
left the remaining people, the vast majority who wanted to live simple lives and
had no great ambitions, to live the simple lives as they wished for, being
useful to the society in their own ways and finding joy in what they wanted to
do. Since the first three classes were considered ‘special’ people who would
make great contributions to human progress, they were given lots of
privileges.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first class, the
intellectuals, for instance, was given privileges akin to those given to
research scholars in universities today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">So long as
swadharma was based on our gunas, our psycho-spiritual nature, drives and
passions, everything was beautiful and India remained glorious. But soon a time
came when swadharma ceased to be understood as based on gunas but on birth, and
that too exclusively on birth with no connection with gunas. And people of the
first three classes started calling themselves upper castes and began making
claims on others based on it and demanding privileges for themselves. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">With that
India fell from its glory.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Though
nurture does have a role in what we eventually become, though the surroundings
in which we grow up and the profession of our family do have a role in deciding
what we become, certain things just cannot be inherited through birth – for
instance, your child does not inherit your spiritual nature. That is something each
one of us brings into our life through our karmas and it cannot be transferred
from one generation to the next through tour genes and chromosomes. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">A few years
back a movie was made in Tamil based on the life of the great Zen master
Bodhidharma, the 28<sup>th</sup> Indian patriarch of Zen Buddhism. It was he
who took Zen to China some fifteen hundred years ago, from where it spread to
Korea, Japan and numerous other countries. He thus became the first patriarch
of Chinese Zen or Chan Buddhism. This prince of Tanjavur in Tamil Nadu is one
of the greatest spiritual masters the world has known, in his own way as
influential as the Buddha himself if not more. It was not only Zen he took to
China but also Indian martial arts and healing systems where they both
flourished. He truly changed the history of the world – there are thousands of
temples built for him in China, Japan and other Buddhist countries, though he
is practically unknown in India. This Tamil movie, known by different names
such as Ezham Arivu, The 7<sup>th</sup> Sense, Chennai vs Chaina and so on, is
based on the highly misleading assumption that wisdom and knowledge are
transferred through the genes. So to counter an evil Chinese plan, they search
out the contemporary descendent of Bodhidharma across one thousand five hundred
years so that he can counter the Chinese evil using the wisdom, knowledge and
skills he has inherited from Bodhidharma through his genes and chromosomes!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Ancient India
made the same blunder when it allowed children of the privileged classes to
have the same privileges because they were children of the privileged classes.
But with a big, difference. The 7<sup>th</sup> Sense is a movie, and though as
a movie it is influential, its influence is limited. But the consequences of
India’s blunder had terrible consequences for millions of people in hundreds of
generations across several millennia and we are still living that blunder.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Proverbs
frequently contain great wisdom. A Malayalam proverb rhetorically asks: If the
father rides an elephant, will the son get calluses? </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">O0O </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">But the
wisdom behind the true understanding of swadharma still remains intact in the
Gita and other works of wisdom that speak about it and can enrich our lives as
it enriched life in ancient India, make meaningful our work that has today
become for the vast majority of people in the world meaningless, leading to
depression, ulcers, heart attacks, broken families, social aggression and a
thousand other problems and to suicides the rate of which is growing by the day.
Just this one understanding can change the world, transform it to heaven from
hell.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Unhappy
people create hell.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Paapi
chennedam paataalam, so goes a Malayalam saying. Hell is wherever the sinners
reach. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">It is not
that some people go to hell; wherever they reach they make hell.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">While there
are other reasons for it, our workplaces have become hell for a huge section of
people working there today because they do not follow their swadharma in their
professions. If you follow your swadharma, work will be a pleasure, a joy, as
singing is for a singer, dancing is for a dancer. You will lose yourself in
what you are doing and will work with a feeling of festivity. The Mahabharata
shows us millions of warriors fighting in the spirit of festivity without even
caring for death because war is their passion, what they live for, what they
enjoy more than anything else, what they talk about all day among friends, what
they dream about. It shows warriors in the throes ecstasies as they battle
their enemies and face death or loss of limbs. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Whether you
are born to be a painter or a dancer, or a writer or photographer, as the movie
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Three Idiots</i> shows, and you end up in
an engineering or medical college, or in a business school, you are not
following the path of your swadharma. And that is a sure way that leads to
dissatisfaction and unhappiness, to depression and grief, unless of course you
subsequently discover passion for your subject and transform it into your
swadharma. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">I remember
seeing a beautiful advertisement on TV sometime back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A young girl wants to be a social worker and
her dad tells her to become a doctor and serve people as a doctor. She tells
him she wants to be a writer and he tells her to become a doctor and write
prescriptions!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">What is
happening with our education is true about our professions too. We have hardly
any choice today when it comes to jobs because of the high unemployment rates
and lack of opportunities. So the painter ends up as an engineer or a doctor,
the singer ends up as a doctor or an engineer, the sportsman ends up as a
doctor or an engineer, the writer ends up as a doctor or an engineer, the
wildlife photographer ends up as a doctor or an engineer – the two most
favoured professions today. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Recognizing
what your swadharma is not very difficult. Watch yourself and find out what you
enjoy doing most, that is your swadharma. Watch children and observe what they
enjoy doing most, that is their swadharma. Find out what is that work in which
you lose yourself, that is your swadharma. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">For when you
lose yourself in something, you cease to be what you are not. You become what
you truly are. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Anagha, my
daughter who works as a journalist with one of the leading newspapers in the
country, sent me a strip cartoon some time back. The cartoon shows a little boy
sitting in a chair and reading a book. A long time passes, his back must be
tired, so he changes his position and throwing his legs over the back of the
chair he continues reading lying on the seat of the chair. Next when we see
him, he is still lying in the chair but his legs are now thrown over the left
hand of the chair. Next we see him with his legs thrown over the right hand of
the chair. Then he is back to his original position – but all the while he
never once stops reading. That boy’s passion is obviously books or something
related to reading – writing, study, editing, or something like that. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Anagha sent
me this strip cartoon because she herself has always been like that. She was
always passionate about reading as she is even today. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Choose a
profession in sync with your passion and you will always enjoy it and grow
through it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Make happiness
your guiding light.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">O0O</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Living
swadharma does many wonderful things for us. It gives us immense job
satisfaction, it makes performance excellence easy and it helps us grow through
work. Apart from all these, it also heals us from our stress related ailments
as well as our traumas. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Janet Frame
is a famous writer from New Zealand who was twice considered as a possible
winner of the Nobel Prize for literature. We do not know the exact reasons for
her psychological problems, but some of the reasons definitely were the constant
tension and violent outbursts between her father and her brother, which
necessitated her spending a long time in mental asylums. The brilliant writer
eventually healed herself through her writing, which had always been her basic passion,
her swadharma.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Stress is the
demon ruling the world today, particularly the world of work, in spite of the
fact that in a not so far away past most work all over the world used to be
done in utsava bhava, in festive spirit, joyfully, traces of which can still be
found if you go to India’s paddy fields spread throughout the country or to
kitchens and backyards where women grind spices, pound grains or do other
household jobs. They continuously sing beautiful songs – years back I had made
a collection of songs they sang while they did this and also wrote a few
articles based on them, like Kaikeyi: Ram Ka Mangeela Banbas published on
boloji.com. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">There are
several dimensions to stress management – the neurobiological dimension, the dimension
of stillness, the dimension of movement, the breath dimension, the dimension of
being, the relationship dimension and so on. One of the most powerful
dimensions of stress management is the work dimension – work based on your
swadharma, work that you enjoy thoroughly, work that helps you forget yourself
and your world of worries and tensions, work that takes you beyond your ego
into time transcendence and ego transcendence. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">I used to
know a senior executive from the corporate world who loved to forget every now
and then that he was an executive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Deep
in his heart he was a farmer, that is what he wanted to become, a farmer’s job
is what he enjoyed more than anything, but circumstances made him an executive.
So what he did was change every now and then into his farmer’s clothes and work
on his small piece of land with his farming tools. That rejuvenated him and
every time he did that, he came back happy and charged with energy.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Another
friend of mine finds her swadharma in pottery. Pottery is what she wanted to do
but social pressures led her to a very different profession, but this is where
she truly relaxes and finds herself by losing herself in what she is doing. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Someone very
close to me has a different story to tell about swadharma. When she completed
her schooling, her father insisted that she should do her further studies in
science but she insisted that she did not want to study science, she wanted to
study humanities, she wanted to become a writer. Her father did all he could to
change her mind, tearing her school certificates into tiny bits and flinging
them away in anger being the least of them. “If everybody becomes a writer, who
will read?” he shouted at her fuming. But she refused to bend before his
violence and stuck to her stand. Today she is an authority on world literature
and world cinema, addresses national and international seminars on these
subjects and is a nationally known writer and critic who has a long list of
published books under her name, all highly admired.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">In one of my
articles available online, called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A
Little Corner for Yourself</i>, I refer to the example of a surgeon whose story
one of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Chicken Soup for the Soul</i>
books quote. The essay is by Jim Cathcard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">“When my
second daughter was born, it was an emergency caesarean operation. We were very
worried and I was there at the hospital. I remember prior to going into the
hospital talking with my wife’s doctor about what I did for a living. The
doctor confided in me and said, ‘I wish I had been a musician because I love to
play concert piano.’</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">“Later, after
my wife had the delivery, the doctor came out with the good news that my wife
was fine and I had a brand new healthy baby girl. While we’re standing there
and I was receiving the good news, another doctor walked up to the physician
who had just delivered my child and said, ‘Excuse me, Doctor, I just wanted to
tell you that you performed brilliantly in there, and it was an honour to have
assisted you.’ The doctor thanked his colleague and the colleague left.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">“I just turned
to the doctor and said, ‘Now tell the truth. You have just brought a new life
into the world, saved another life, and you’ve had one of your colleagues tell
you it’s an honour to be in your presence – for heaven’s sake, can you honestly
say you wish you had been a musician?’</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">The doctor
grinned, nodded his head and said, ‘I was pretty good in there.’ We both chuckled
and then the doctor said, ‘I know exactly why, too – because this morning, I
got up early and, for one hour, I played Chopin at the piano.’<br />
<br />
So there it is. The doctor could not choose the profession that was his
swadharma. But he does something beautiful. He finds a little corner for his
swadharma in his life. He finds a little corner for himself in his life. And
that corner enriches his entire life. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">I believe the
reason why Van Gogh went insane and had to spend years in an asylum was because
he could not paint, which was his swadharma. He had so much talent, was so
passionate about painting, but could not afford even paint and canvas, so poor
was he, which drove him insane. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Some climb Mt
Everest facing all kinds of dangers. Some raft down turbulent torrents. Some
climb steep rocks where missing one single step could mean certain death. Each
one of them is obeying the command of his swadharma. And the happiness they
experience in what they do has no equal because they are listening to the call
of swadharma. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Swadharma
really opens the door to heaven. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">While we are still
alive.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Which is why
Krishna says: sukhinah kshatriyaah paartha labhante yuddham eedrsham. “Happy
are the kshatriyas called upon to fight a war of this kind unsought, Arjuna.
Open doors of heaven are beckoning them.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">O0O </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Photo courtesy: Unknown Artist</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><br /></p>Satya Chaitanyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749603528440573740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2435755112654764920.post-49313658704148428392020-12-14T21:44:00.002-08:002020-12-14T21:47:17.505-08:00Living Bhagavad Gita 36: Krishna Never Abandons Anyone<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaFMIjV5x-hXDxfiqq0i89YjW06V3Yl2YXIQ00n1nVM7qSIEHYOJspFhpY2ziuwACJ8trxVIVCkQ-FLgWlkH9jeqRF8sC0h0_OHc2yyffC5rJKgmIiAew9HKG2NB_wQXdpiTPtBsKYPzp4/s750/radha-krishna-ID58_l+applying+alta.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="749" data-original-width="750" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaFMIjV5x-hXDxfiqq0i89YjW06V3Yl2YXIQ00n1nVM7qSIEHYOJspFhpY2ziuwACJ8trxVIVCkQ-FLgWlkH9jeqRF8sC0h0_OHc2yyffC5rJKgmIiAew9HKG2NB_wQXdpiTPtBsKYPzp4/s320/radha-krishna-ID58_l+applying+alta.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoBodyText"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">A series
of short articles on the Bhagavad Gita for people living and working in our
volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times filled with stress and fear.
This scripture born in a battlefield teaches us how to face our challenges,
live our life fully, achieve excellence in whatever we do and find happiness,
peace and contentment.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">[Continued
from the last post.]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">dehee nityam avadhyo'yam dehe sarvasya bhaarata </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">tasmaat sarvaani bhootani na twam shochitum arhasi </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">swadharmam api chaavekshya na vikampitum arhasi </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">dharmyaaddhi
yuddhaachhreyo'nyat kshatriyasya na vidyate ll 2.30-31 ll</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">“What lives
in the body is eternal and unslayable. For that reason, Arjuna, you should not
grieve over the death of any being. <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Even
considering your swadharma, you should not waver because for a kshatriya there
is nothing superior to a war for dharma.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">O0O</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">While the
bodies in which beings live die, no creature ever dies, Krishna once again
reminds Arjuna and tells him that, for that reason, he should not worry over
the death of any being. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Krishna’s
purpose here is not to tell Arjuna that killing is all right, but that this declared
war between two armies has to be fought for the sake of dharma which alone can
sustain the society. Indian culture has always said that ahimsa – non-violence,
non-killing – is the highest dharma: ahimsaa paramo dharmah. India considered
ahimsa so important that it said that even if you have to do something you
should not do in order to prevent the death of someone, you should go ahead and
do that. To kill is wrong, India said categorically. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Yet sometimes
it becomes necessary to kill – as in the case of the declared war where two
vast armies are standing facing each other to fight on terms agreed upon by all.
In this war, Krishna wants the side of dharma to win and the side of adharma to
lose so that good prevails in the society and wickedness is destroyed, which is
the reason why he reluctantly agreed to the war when he found all other means
have failed and the forces of evil cannot be stopped except through the war. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Krishna has
been accused of being a war monger because Arjuna wanted to run away from the
war and Krishna insisted that he should not run away, but should stand and
fight it. However, those who accuse Krishna of being a war monger forget that
there is nothing he did not do before he finally agreed to the war. Message
after message was sent to Hastinapura by him and the Pandavas so that an
amicable settlement could be found to the problem but Duryodhana remained
absolutely intransigent. Then Krishna himself went to Hastinapura to find a
peaceful solution to the problem and begged Dhritarashtra to find some way that
war could be avoided. Dhritarashtra said he was helpless, Duryodhana is
obdurate and Krishna should talk directly to him. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Krishna did
that too, but the adamant Duryodhana refused to listen to his pleading and
advice and kept asking repeatedly who has more power, he or the Pandavas. For
every argument Krishna, every advice he gave, and every please for peace he
made, Duryodhana’s answer was the same: “but who has more power – they or me?”.
Duryodhana understood only one language: the language of power. He tried to
capture Krishna and throw him into a dungeon – an act so heinous that it should
not be done even to ordinary messengers. Krishna then decided to show what
power really was and showed his cosmic form, the vishwarupa, even which had no
effect on Duryodhana. He stuck to his obdurate stand: forget about giving back
the Pandavas their kingdom usurped through the dice game, forget about giving
them five villages, not so much land will be given to them as the tip of a
needle<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Krishna then abandoned him
mission in the Kuru assembly, took Karna aside and tried to persuade him to
join the Pandava side in a final attempt to avoid the war. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">For the sake
of peace, Krishna here stoops really low, because there is nothing Krishna
would not do to avoid the war and the killings. He asks Karna to betray his
friend Duryodhana and join the Pandava side. He not only offers the entire kingdom
to Karna, he even promises Draupadi would have him as her husband, knowing that
Karna had a weakness for Draupadi. That is to the extent to which Krishna would
stoop to avoid the war – for Krishna his name and fame did not matter, his ego
did not matter, that coming ages would accuse him of stooping low did not
matter, that they would accuse him of trying to divide two friends did not
matter. The only thing that mattered for Krishna was avoiding the war.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">When Krishna
offered the kingdom to Karna, he knew that he was offering it to someone who
really did not deserve it. From their childhood, all their life, Karna had been
a fried of Duryodhana – his only real friend. And in all Duryodhana’s evil
plans Karna was as much a part as Shakuni was, whether it was poisoning young
Bhima at Pramanakoti or the numerous subsequent attempts he made to poison him
during their childhood, including attempts using the deadly kalakoota poison.
Failing that when Duryodhana makes more attempts to kill child Bhima by other
means, Karna is with him. When he plots to kill all the five Pandavas along
with their mother at Varanavata by setting fire to the lacquer house, Karna is
again part of the three member team that plotted it. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Krishna knew
that he had no ethical right to tell Karna without Draupadi’s permission that
she would accept him as her sixth husband, yet he does that. For all we know,
Draupadi hated Karna – she had every reason to, in spite of certain modern
romantically inclined writers in their Mahabharata-based fiction saying that
Draupadi used to secretly fantasize about Karna. The Mahabharata gives us no
reason to believe anything like that. This fiction, insulting to a chaste woman
like Draupadi, was originally inspired by the modern idea that she was a
nymphomaniac no content with five husbands and lusted for more men. True in her
previous life as Nalayani she shows an insatiable desire for sex with her
husband Maudgalya, but in her current life the epic gives us no reason to
believe this was true – even the five husbands were really forced upon her
against her will, for which the Mahabharata gives as the main reason the lust
for her Kunti saw in all her five sons, including the two stepsons.. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">There were
several reasons why the war became inevitable but perhaps the most central of
them all was the attempt to disrobe Draupadi publicly at the end of the dice
game, perhaps the most shameful incident in all of Indian history – and it was
ordered not by Duryodhana or anyone else but by Karna. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">And it was
knowing all this and the implications of all this that Krishna offered Karna the
kingdom and Draupadi on condition that he joined the Pandavas, such was his
keenness to avoid the war!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">But fortunately
Karna shows the decency to tell Krishna that he wouldn’t accept his offers for
which he gives the main reason as Duryodhana’s evilness. Karna tells Krishna not
to make such an offer because if the kingdom was given to him, such was his
friendship with Duryodhana that he would straight away give it to his friend
and he, Duryodhana, did not deserve to be king!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Krishna
certainly was not a war monger. But war too was an option to him if nothing
else worked and if the cause was sufficiently big enough – a declared war
between two armies fought according to strict laws of war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>India speaks of four upayas: sama, dana,
bheda and danda. Krishna was open to all four, in that order.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">And now that
the war has become inevitable, he wants to boost Arjuna’s mental strength by
telling him that death really never happens, that nothing that has come into
existence ever ceases to be. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">O0O</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">India
discusses dharma at numerous levels and one of those levels is the apad [aapad]
level, the crisis level. The Mahabharata the central theme of which is dharma
devotes an entire sectionof the epic to convince us that what is wrong under
normal conditions becomes right under certain special – critical – conditions.
This is called apad-dharma and the parva that explores apad dharma is called
Apad-dharma Parva. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Under normal
conditions union with one’s husband’s brother is a strong taboo. And yet special
circumstances, with lots of rigid restrictions, and gives it a name: niyoga,[an
act subsequently forbidden by the shastras for the Kali age]. Both the man and
the woman uniting had to practice severe penances for a long time, the union
should be sanctioned – in practice, ordered – by the elders, it should not be
for pleasure but strictly for begetting an offspring, if the husband is alive
but not capable of producing an offspring it should be as desired by the
husband, and so on were some of the conditions. The evidence we have suggests
that this was a practice confined to royal families and it was usually practiced
only or begetting royal heirs who were necessary to inherit the royal throne and
to continue the royal family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">So we find in
the Mahabharata Sage Vyasa ordered by his mother Queen Satyavati to beget
children in Ambika and Ambalika, the wives of his half-brother Vichitravirya
who had died without children and leaving no heir the Bharata throne. Later we
find Pandu requesting his wife Kunti to have children by union with some
brahmana since he himself was incapable of having children. A very reluctant
Kunti eventually agrees after a lot of persuasion but tells Pandu about the
boon she has through which she could have children with gods – that is how the
first three Pandavas were born. Subsequently Madri too gives birth to Nakula
and Sahadeva through union with the gods through niyoga.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">In the epic
we also find King Kalmashapada ordering his wife Queen Madayanti to receive in
her bed Sage Vasishtha because the king himself cannot beget children. The
founders of the kingdoms Anga, Vanga [Banga or modern Bengal], Kalinga and
Poundra were also born through niyoga, says the epic – niyoga by the sage
Dirghatamas. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">There is no
absolute right or wrong, said India. Under certain circumstances the union of
the brother-in-law and the sister-in-law, a great taboo, becomes the right
thing to do. In general parastree-gamana, sex with a woman who is not your wife,
is considered a sin, but under the niyoga situation, it becomes not only all
right, but one’s duty. Similarly sex with someone other than your husband is
considered a sin for a woman, but under niyoga conditions, it becomes her duty.
A brahmana should never be killed, said ancient India, it is brahmahatya, one
of the greatest sins. And yet India also said under certain special
circumstances a brahmana <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">could</i> not
only be killed but should be killed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Bhavatyadharmo dharmo hi dharma-adharmau
ubhaavapi karanaat deshakaalasya, said india: <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Dharma [right] becomes adharma [wrong] and adharma becomes dharma
depending on the place and time, says this famous verse in the Mahabharata
Shanti Parva [78.32]. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Truth is ordinarily dharma, but under circumstances
wherein truth kills and a lie protects, the lie becomes dharma and telling the
truth adharma.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">It is Krishna himself who tells the story of
an ascetic called Kaushika in the Mahabharata, explaining what dharma is. Kaushika
had taken a vow of always telling the truth. One day while he was in his
hermitage, a group of travelers came to him, running for their life. They were
being chased by a band of highwaymen and they requested Kaushika not to tell
the highwaymen that he had seen them and which way they went. A few minutes later
the brutes who were chasing them reached Kaushika and asked him if he had seen
the men. When Kaushika said yes, he had, they asked him which way they had gone
and he told them the truth, as a result of which the robbers caught them and
killed them. Krishna concludes the story by saying for the only sin he
committed in his life, Kaushika was denied heaven: the sin of telling the truth
that caused the death of the travelers.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">For Krishna, as for India, doing good was
always more important than being right. According to him, you should never let
your morals stand in the way of your doing good to others. To do good to
others, to do good to the world, and not to do good to oneself, India approves
of, under rare conditions, transcending ethical principles. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">This is what Bhishma failed to do all his
life, including in the dice hall. All his life Bhishma had a need to be right,
exactly as Arjuna feels a need to be right as he stands facing Bhishma, Drona
and other near and dear ones in the battlefield. In Bhishma’s case, it was not
just a need to be right, but a fierce compulsion. As we all know, Bhishma
refused to break his vows under any conditions even when those vows had become
meaningless, even when the very person for whose sake he had taken those vows,
Satyavati, requested him to break them. The words in which he communicated that
refusal are scary. He said:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“I shall
give up the three worlds, I shall give up the empire of the gods, and if there
is anything greater than these, I shall give up that too, but I shall not give
up my truth. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“Let the
five elements give up their nature, but I shall not give up my truth. The earth
may give up fragrance, but I shall not give up my word. Water may give up
taste, but I shall not give up my word. Light may give up the forms it reveals,
but I shall not give up my word. Air may give up the sense of touch and space
its capacity for sound, but I shall not give up my word. The sun may give up
its splendour, the moon its coolness, but I shall not give up my truth. Indra,
the slayer of Vritra, may give up his valour and Yama, the lord of justice,
give up justice itself, but I shall not give up my truth.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“Let the
world end in dissolution, let everything go up in flames, but I shall not go
back on my word. Immortality holds no temptations for me, nor overlordship of
the three worlds.”</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[My free
translation from Sanskrit.]<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">So according to him, the world can end in
dissolution, everything can go up in flames, but he will not break his vows. He
wanted to be called a man who never broke his vows. He wanted to be right
rather than do good. And that is what exactly prevented him from doing anything
to save Draupadi’s honour in the dice hall. While Dusshasana was pulling away
her clothes, he was looking into whether she had really become a slave to the
Kauravas according to the laws of the day and tradition and whether they had a
right to do what they were doing to her. He forgot this was a special situation:
a woman – that too the bride of the family of which he is the eldest – was being
so shamefully disgraced and under the special situation he should have just
stopped it without caring for technicalities. Because he was a kshatriya – the
most powerful kshatriya present – who had vowed to save the honour of women
everywhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Bhishma fails to protect Draupadi and the
Pandavas in the Kuru Sabha, and in the long run he fails to protect the Kuru
family itself and the thousands of warriors who died in the Kurukshetra war,
barring just a few, because he fails to rise above ordinary ethics as the
situation demanded.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">And that is what Arjuna is called upon to do
too – rise above ordinary ethics and do what the situation calls for. It is for
that that Krishna is empowering him by telling him death is no final end, we
are all immortals who will be born again and again, what he is called upon to
do<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in the battlefield is not adharma but
dharma and it is his dharma to fight the war and win victory for dharma.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">India has
discussed dharma everywhere. The entire Mahabharata is, as the Bharata Savitri
verse says, about dharma. The Ramayana, the other epic of India, too is about
dharma – Rama is called maryada purushottama, the word maryada standing for
ethical boundaries. Hundreds upon hundreds of books have been written on dharma
in India, maybe thousands though most of them have been lost. We have a branch
of literature called dharma shastras, books on the science of dharma, the most
famous of which is the Manu Dharma Shastra, also known as Mannu Smriti, today
reviled by a large section of Indians for the stand it takes on people of the
lower varnas and on women. Then there are dharma shastras named after
Apastamba, Bharadwaja, Daksha, Devala, Samakha, Vasishta, Gautama, Samavarata,
Vishnu, Harita, Shatanika, Vyasa, Likhita, Shatotraya, Yajnavalkya, Parashara,
Sahunaka and Yama, all discussing what dharma is and what the dharmas of
different people are. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">This can
be very confusing – because of the intellectual freedom India enjoyed each
author held his own views about what dharma is and what adharma is. But the
Mahabharata takes the stand that </span>whatever protects is dharma. It defines
dharma as whatever protects people, or whatever protects all beings in general.
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">dhaaranaat dharmam iti aahuh
dharmena vidhrtaa prajaah; yah syaad dharana-samyuktah sa dharma iti
nishchayah. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“Dharma is called so because it sustains.
Beings are protected by dharma. Therefore dharma without a doubt is whatever
has the power to protect. [Mahabharata Shanti Parva 109.11].<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">So sometimes a war becomes dharma,
particularly for a kshatriya and particularly a war for dharma. To fight for
dharma is the swadharma of a kshatriya and that is what Krishna means when he
says in Gita verse 2.31:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“Even considering your swadharma, you should
not waver because for a kshatriya there is nothing superior to a war for
dharma.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">I am leaving the word swadharma here
untranslated because no translation can bring out the full meaning of the
original word. The word swadharma and the word dharma have carry within them so
much meaning that entire volumes can be written about them. If one single word can
summarize the entire Indian culture, it is the word dharma, a word with
hundreds of meanings. So we have endless dharmas discussed, like rajadharma,
the dharma of the king, patidharma, the dharma of the husband, patnidharma, the
dharma of the wife, purusha dharma, the dharma of the man, stree dharma, the
dharma of the woman, pitr-dharma the dharma of the father, and so on.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">As we shall see in greater detail when we
come to the verses pertaining to it, one of the several dharmas that that Gita
discusses is kshatriya dharma. The eighteenth chapter of the Gita explains
kshatriya dharma as: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">shauryam tejo dhrtir daakshyam yuddhe cha-apy-apalaayanam </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">daanam eeshwara-bhaavashcha
kshaatram karma swabhaavajam ll18.43 ll </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">“The dharmas
natural to kshatriyas are: velour, tejas, firmness, dexterity, generosity,
leadership competencies and not fleeing from battle.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Kshatriyas
are royal people, daring and heroic, fearless, who love conflicts and
confrontations and are steadfast in their resolves. They do not run away from
battles, they do not desert wars. That is their dharma, their nature. And it is
this dharma that Arjuna is abandoning when he says he shall desert and live
begging for alms if necessary but will not fight the war of Kurukshetra. It is
for this that Krishna attacked him earlier with whipping words, calling him a
eunuch, and now Krishna is putting the same thing in positive terms: </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“Even considering your swadharma, you should
not waver because for a kshatriya there is nothing superior to a war for
dharma.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Arjuna sees
the war he is in as adharma because he has to fight against and kill his own
guru and his grandsire along with so many other near and dear ones. But Krishna
has no doubts: this is a dharma yuddha, a war for dharma, to establish which he
has taken incarnation, along with Arjuna. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">There is
nothing superior to a kshatriya than a dharma yuddha. It is his swadharma, and
yet Arjuna is trying to do exactly the opposite of what India says is his
dharma. Instead of apalayanam, what he is trying to do is palayanam. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Deserting
shames a warrior, it starves his soul, dries it up. By refusing to fight,
Arjuna would be wasting an entire lifetime.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">In each
lifetime we have a central purpose. Some of us learn it quite early, some of us
take time to understand it and some of us never learn it. In Arjuna’s case it
was clear from the beginning: he was born to be a dharma yoddha, a warrior for
dharma, the best warrior for dharma in the land. That was his single passion
all his life: he wanted to excel as a warrior, who will fight only for dharma. It
is that purpose that Arjuna would be betraying by refusing to fight. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">By refusing
to fight the Mahabharata War, Arjuna would be betraying the purpose of his life,
the purpose for which he was born. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">And Krishna,
his friend, wouldn’t have it. That would be abandoning Arjuna.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Krishna never
abandons you. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Krishna never
abandons anyone.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">O0O</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Photo courtesy: unknown artist </p>Satya Chaitanyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749603528440573740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2435755112654764920.post-20202384153626718342020-12-12T22:01:00.000-08:002020-12-12T22:01:06.001-08:00Living Bhagavad Gita 35: The Path to Immortality<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZwCibUheU3LciFb5OKl8SuXHbh9vsKiszNwGk7EP7iFpmGNAdGbILGoYybHzUStnnI0qluzmkSXuD1BRdYMLvWWnK-Gbpyvt23U7SXosOmOAGewWqfdjUXQl88b-_ZBlpQZYiV9ndqjT0/s750/radha-krishna-ID58_l+applying+alta.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="749" data-original-width="750" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZwCibUheU3LciFb5OKl8SuXHbh9vsKiszNwGk7EP7iFpmGNAdGbILGoYybHzUStnnI0qluzmkSXuD1BRdYMLvWWnK-Gbpyvt23U7SXosOmOAGewWqfdjUXQl88b-_ZBlpQZYiV9ndqjT0/s320/radha-krishna-ID58_l+applying+alta.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoBodyText"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">A series
of short articles on the Bhagavad Gita for people living and working in our
volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times filled with stress and fear.
This scripture born in a battlefield teaches us how to face our challenges,
live our life fully, achieve excellence in whatever we do and find happiness,
peace and contentment.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">[Continued from the previous page.]<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">avyaktaadeeni
bhootani vyakta-madhyaani bhaarata<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">avyakta-nidhanaany-eva tatra kaa paridevanaa
ll 2.28 ll<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">aashcharyavat
pashyati kashchid enam<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">aashcharyavad
vadati tathaiva chaanyah<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">aashcharyavac-chainam
anyah shrnoti<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">shrutwaapyenam veda na chaiva kaschit ll 2.29 ll
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">All beings come from the invisible beyond,
live in this visible world, and disappear into the invisible. Why then weep and
wail about them? It is a wonder that some people see this, the true self! It is
a wonder that some others speak of it and again it is a wonder that some others
hear of it! But alas!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some do not know
it even when they hear of it! 2.28-29<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The Indian tradition in teaching is to begin at the highest level and
then gradually come down to the lower levels and end at the lowest level. The
Gita too follows the same tradition as even a casual reading of the Song of
Krishna shows. Thus the second chapter of the Gita where Krishna begins his
teachings contains the highest truths India discovered through the search of
the rishis over thousands of years – that we are deathless, immortal,
indestructible, imperishable, nothing can touch us. And in the eighteenth
chapter we have the most mundane things talked about – different kinds of food,
different kinds of charity, different kinds of action, how speech should be
such that it does not make others anxious, how we should always speak the truth
and how that truth should be spoken in such a way that not only does it benefit
[hita] others but also is pleasant to hear [priya] and so on. Within the second
chapter itself, we find this progression from the higher to the lower wisdom
[though towards the end Krishna once again soars into great heights]. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">As we saw, Krishna began his teaching in the second chapter by
discussing our deathless nature and now he has come down to the common man’s
wisdom, wisdom that is useful in consoling Arjuna and calming his mind that has
been hijacked by his emotions. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">When the mind is hijacked, not only does it become impossible to learn
the higher truths, even ordinary day to day functioning of the mind becomes
near impossible. Arjuna’s mind is in utter confusion at the moment and a confused
mind is not ready for the absolute truth, so Krishna has to climb down to the
world of lower truths where Arjuna is. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">A person deep in the life of samsara has first to be made to realize
the true nature of samsara before he can take the journey out of samsara. So
long as he is fascinated by samsara, enthralled by it, considers it as the only
truth, he is not ready for what is beyond samsara. That is why the rishis say
pareekshya lokaan nirvedam aayaan braahmano nasty akrtah krtena tad vijnaanaartham
sa gurumeva abhigachchhed samitpaanih shrotriyam brahmanishtham: “After living
the life of samsara, examining it and developing dispassion towards it, after
realizing the uncreated cannot be attained through actions, must a brahmana humbly
approach for the higher knowledge, with samit in hand, a guru who has studied
the scriptures and is rooted in Brahman.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The higher truth – para vidya – is not a theory, not something that can
be understood intellectually. It is knowledge that can only be gained through direct
personal experience, the experience we call aparoksha anubhooti.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And to have that experience, we need a still
mind. That is why Krishna is trying to calm Arjuna’s mind by giving him all
kinds of arguments, including some very mundane ones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Indian wisdom speaks of three dimensions of truth – paramarthika satya,
vyavaharika satya, and pratibhasika satya. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Pratibhasika [praatibhaasika] satya is comparatively easy to understand
for what it is and to free oneself from. It is the rope we mistake for a snake
in semidarkness, the shapes we see in the clouds in the sky, the mirage we see
in the desert, the mass of sizzling water we see on the dry road ahead of us on
a hot day. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Paramarthika [paaramaarthika] satya comes from the word paramartha. Paramartha
means the absolute truth, truth as it is, truth that remains the same at all
times, the trikala-abadhita satya – truth that is unaffected by the three
tines, truth that remains the same in the past, present and future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the truth of the rishis, of Krishna, of
Mahavira and Buddha, of Jesus, Rumi, Hafis, Al Hallaj Mansoor, Bayazid Bastami
and Rubia al-Adaviyya. This is the truth all meditators realize in kensho,
satori, samadhi and nirvana, though they speak of it differently: ekam sat
vipraa bahudhaa vadanti – truth is one, though the wise speak of it
differently. Honestly, this is the only truth. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">We are all one in this truth, you and I are not different, neither you
nor I am ever born, none of us ever dies, we are not different from existence, we
are the truth that sets the universe in motion, the sun and the moon rise
because of us, the innumerable milky ways all exist within us, night and day
happen because of us, we are every dust particle in the universe, every grain
of sand and every drop of water, we are the ananda which every beings seeks, we
are all joys and sorrows, we are all successes and all failures. And we are
beyond all these, as the Purusha Sukta of the Rig Veda says: after stretching
through everything, it still spreads beyond, atyatishthad dashaangulam. This is
what the ancient Sukta means when it says: purusha evedam sarvam yad bhootam
yachcha bhavyam sanaatanam. This is the Cosmic Purtusha from whose mind the
moon was born, from whose eyes the sun was born, from whose mouth the gods
Indra and Agni were born, from whose prana Vayu was born, from whose naval
regions the space between heaven and earth was born, from whose head the heaven
was born, from whose ears the directions were born and from whose feet the
earth was born. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">chandramaa manaso jaatah chakshoh sooryo ajaayata<br />
mukhaad indrashchagnishcha praannaad vaayur ajaayata <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">naabhyaa aaseed antariksham sheershnnoh dyauh samavartata <br />
padbhyaam bhoomir dishah shrotraat [Purusha Sukta 13-14]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">But at a lower level we have the vyavaharika satya, truth at the
transactional level, the level at which you and I live, which truth according
the rishis is no more real than a dream. You and I are different from each
other here, we are born at a particular time and will die at a particular
time,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>we have a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>particular name and a particular form; some of
us are tall, some short; some are ugly and some beautiful; some are men and
some women, some rich, some poor. Our joys and sorrows touch us, our victories
and failures touch us, our pains and pleasures touch us, we weep and wail and
sing and dance, we fight and make up, we kill and are killed, we become hungry
and thirsty, we pass through the six stages that ancient wisdom speaks in such
words as asti, jayate, vardhate, viparinamate, apaksheeyate and vinashyati
[exists, is born, grows, reproduces, declines, perishes]. As the Mahabharata
says, each one of us has had a thousand fathers and a thousand mothers in the
past, a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>thousand wives, a thousand
husbands and a thousand children in the past, and each of us has been born a
thousand times, has lived a thousand lives and have died a thousand deaths. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">All this is true only at the vyavaharika level and none of these is true
at the paramarthika level, says ancient wisdom, according to which experiences
here are like our experiences in dream – they are all true so long as the dream
lasts, but once we wake up, we realize they have all been projections of our
mind. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Indian wisdom says that everyone is under the spell of a cosmic power
that shows the real as unreal, that shows the one as many, a power that we call
Maya, which is also called by another name: prakriti, a word that means the
power that creates the many, though in truth there is only one. The word
prakriti gives us the feeling that the creation is real and the word Maya gives
the feeling that it is illusory, but both Maya and prakriti are the same power:
maayaam tu prakrtim viddhi, as the scriptures say – understand Maya as
prakriti.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In a famous teaching story in the Bhagavata, the eternal, deathless
sage Narada – whose name is explained as ‘naaram, brahmavidyaam, dadaati iti naaradah’,
the giver of the highest knowledge – was once with Krishna. Narada told Krishna
that he wants to know what Maya is and Krishna told the sage he will do so
shortly and suggested they relax under the shade of a tree for while since it
was very hot. As they were relaxing under the cool shade of the tree, Krishna
asked Nerada if he would mind getting him a little water to drink and Narada
straight away went to fetch water for Krishna. He walked sprightly – both
because of the burning sun and because he had to hurry since Krishna was
thirsty.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Unfortunately for a long while Narada could find no water – no ponds or
pools nearby, no rivers, no wells. And he was now perspiring profusely and was
himself very thirsty. It was then that he spotted the signs of a village
nearby.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">He knocked on the door of the first house in the village and it was
opened by the most beautiful girl he had ever seen! She looked like an
incarnation of womanhood itself – of medium height, slim, of dark complexion, with
beautiful teeth, rich lips, thick, dark, curly hair, slender arms, an exquisite
nose and glorious eyes that took your breath away. She was the classic beauty,
with a slender middle, well-shaped hips and budding breasts.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">And when she smiled and spoke, Narada felt he would melt. All his
thirst was forgotten, the hot sun outside was forgotten, Krishna was forgotten,
everything was forgotten. The words that came out of the muni were not “Can I
have some water/” but “Will you be my wife?” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The young woman took a step forward and fell into his hands, her head
resting on his chest. The scent of her hair intoxicated him, transported him
into worlds he had never known before. He breathed in the scent deeply and time
was forgotten, his own existence was forgotten; a strange kind of lightness and
happiness filled him, he was now in a world where no cares existed, where he
felt all his senses were alive for the first time, where he felt he is fully
alive for the first time. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Soon Narada was a family man – wealthy, with a beautiful wife whom he
adored, and children of their own. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">It was then that the terrible flood came – a huge flood that inundated
everything: fields, homes, cattle, the entire village. The roaring flood picked
up his wife and children and carried them away shrieking and screaming, his own
voice choked in pain as he had never known before. In his despair he collapsed
on the ground and just one word came out of the depths of being – “Krishna!” a
word that he repeated again and again <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“Yes, Narada, I’m here,” came Krishna’s voice. He was still sitting
under the tree. “ But aren’t you going to get the water?” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">That’s when Narada realized he hadn’t moved one step from where he was
standing when Krishna had asked for water and the village he had seen, the girl
he had married, the children he had and the terrible flood had never existed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">That is Maya and the life we live is of Maya, It is very real so long
we experience it. It creates for us what has never existed. Wise men speak of Maya
as aghatita-ghatanaa pateeyasee – the power that gives birth to what has no
existence – in the past, the present, or the future.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Just as on Narada, the effect of Maya on us can be so powerful that it
can take over our whole life. Under the delusions it creates, we believe in the
impossible and run after illusions all our life. In fact, all the life we live
until we wake up, all the chasing after name and fame and success and
possessions we do, is Maya’s play. She tells us, “Do this and you will be happy
and at peace with yourself, get this and you will be happy and at peace with
yourself,” and we start the chase, just as a kitten chases a shadow in the hope
of capturing it. And just as all our chases are because of Maya, all our fears,
all our lust and anger, all our hatred and hostility, all our lust and greed
are also Maya’s work. Such is her power that even the wise do not easily escape
her.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">jnaaninaam <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">api chetaamsi
devee</span> bhagavatee hi saa balad aakrshya mohaaya mahaamaaya prayachati<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“She, the Goddess Mahamaya, draws by force into her illusions even the
minds of wise men.” [Saptashloki Durga]<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Robin Sharma in his celebrated book The Monk Who
Sold His Ferrari speaks of an advocate named with Julian Mantle obsessed with
success and kept working for it tirelessly. “</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HI; mso-fareast-font-family: Batang; mso-fareast-language: KO;">For the first few years,” writes
Robin Sharma about him, “he justified his long hours by saying that he was ‘doing
it for the good of the firm’, and that he planned to take a month off and go to
the Caymans <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">‘next </span>winter for
sure.’ As time passed, however, Julian’s reputation for brilliance spread and
his workload continued to increase. The cases just kept on getting bigger and
better, and Julian, never one to back down from a good challenge, continued to
push himself harder and harder. In his rare moments of quiet, he confided that
he could no longer sleep for more than a couple of hours without waking up
feeling guilty that he was not working on a file. It soon became clear to me
that he was being consumed by the hunger for more: more prestige, more glory
and more money.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HI; mso-fareast-font-family: Batang; mso-fareast-language: KO;">As
an individual Julian suffers – he loses his sense of humour, his wit, even his
brilliance and he starts aging prematurely. His family life suffers – “his
marriage failed, he no longer spoke with his father, and though he had every
material possession anyone could want, he still had not found whatever it was
that he was looking for.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HI; mso-fareast-font-family: Batang; mso-fareast-language: KO;">“And
then it happened,” concludes Robin Sharma. “This massive heart attack that
brought the brilliant Julian Mantle back down to earth and reconnected him to
his mortality. Right in the middle of courtroom number seven on a Monday
morning, the same courtroom where we had won the Mother of All Murder Trials.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HI; mso-fareast-font-family: Batang; mso-fareast-language: KO;">That
is Maya.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">All our struggles, all our joys and sorrows, all our gains and losses
are within the world of Maya, whether it is the joys and sorrows of family
life, the successes and failures and the stress and strain of the professional
life or the lying and cheating and backstabbing and betrayals of political
life. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">And this Maya is difficult to wake up from. Our tradition says that it
is only through divine grace that we can wake up from it. Krishna says in the
Gita:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">daivee hyeshaa
gunamayee mama maayaa duratyayaa <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">maam
eva ye prapadyante maayaam etaam taranti te ll BG 7.14 ll<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“This Maya of mine is divine and difficult to cross over. Only those
who take refuge in me crosses over this Maya.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">But to take refuge in Krishna, to stop the chasing after the world, to
awaken to the higher truth, our mind has to become quiet, at least relatively
quiet, at peace with itself. And at the moment Arjuna’s mind is restless. And
it is to quiet Arjuna’s mind that Krishna says:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">avyaktaadeeni
bhootani vyaktamadhyaani bhaarata<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">avyakta nidhanaanyeva tatra kaa paridevanaa ll
2.28 ll<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Krishna is telling Arjuna that even if he
does not believe that we are all eternal, and instead believes we have a
beginning and end, he still does not have any reason to worry about the death
of Bhishma etc. “</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">All beings come from the invisible beyond,
live in this visible world, and disappear into the invisible. Why then weep and
wail about them?”</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> asks Krishna.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Admittedly not a very strong argument,
Krishna knows, but he is willing to try even that. </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">And now Krishna, the master of Maya, adds to
his argument a beautiful shloka here more like a soliloquy than something
addressed to Arjuna.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“It is a wonder that some people see the true
self! It is a wonder that some others speak of it and again it is a wonder that
some others hear of it! Alas!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some do
not know it even when they hear of it!” ll 2.29 ll <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">We are created in such a way that there is no way we can see it. We are
so completely deluded by Maya that ordinarily there is no way we can see our
true nature. Paraanchi khaani vyatrnat swayambhooh, tasmaad paraang pashyati
nantaratman, says the Katha Upanishad: “The creator created the sense organs
facing outward and therefore man sees whatever is outside, not his own inner
self.” And the Upanishad adds that it is a rare intelligent person – kaschid
dheerah – who closes his eyes and sees the inner self, motivated by the desire
to attain immortality.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">So it is in the nature of things that we do not see our inner self, we
do not even suspect that there is an inner self to us. As far as most of us are
concerned, we are the body. If the body is tall, we are tall, if it is short we
are short, if it is beautiful, we are beautiful. I am an Indian, I am an Asian,
I am a European, a Chinese, and an African – we say these because that is what our
bodies are. The body decides whether I am a man or a woman. So completely
identified with the body are we, we have forgotten<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that each one of us has lived innumerable
lifetimes in the past – bahooni me vyateetaani jan,maani tava charjuna, as
Krishna tells Arjuna in the Gita itself, some as men and some as women, some as
rich and some as poor, some as beautiful and some as ugly. Maataa-pitr-sahasraani<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>putra-daara-shataani cha,
samsaareshv-anubhootaani yaati yaasyanti chaapare, says Sage Vyasa in the
Bharata Savitri verse in the concluding part of the Mahabharata – “Each one of
us have already had numerous mothers and fathers, numerous wives and children
in this world, and we are going to have numerous more.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Again, to understand that there is something beyond the mind, we need
inner stillness. And inner stillness is possible only when we live untouched by
what we call samsara. But unfortunately, as the Katha Upanishad teaches us, in
the words of Yama, the lord of death and Nachiketa’s teacher in the Upanishad:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="bodytahoma" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">na saamparaayaḥ pratibhaati baalam pramaadyantam vittamohena
mooḍham;<br />
ayam loko naasti para iti maanee, punaḥ punar vasham aapadyate me.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="bodytahoma" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“What is beyond the senses does not appear to the ‘child’
deluded and fooled by desire for wealth. He considers this is the entire world,
this alone, and there is nothing beyond this – and comes into my grips again
and again” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="bodytahoma" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">When riches and all that riches can provide you become our life
goal, we become blind to everything that is beyond them. So indeed it is a
wonder that even a rare person sees the self that no eyes can see, no ears can
hear, no tongue can taste, no nose can smell and no touch can reveal because it
is ashabdam, soundless, asparsham, beyond touch, aroopam, beyond forms,
avyayam, changeless, arasam, tasteless, nityam, eternal, agandham, odorless,
anaadyanta, without a beginning and an end. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="bodytahoma" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">So very few people indeed even hear of it, and even among those
who hear of it, the vast majority does not understand it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Logic does not lead you to that – na tarkena
matir-aapaneyaaa, it can only be understood when told by someone who has known
it – known not from books buy from their own personal experience. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The wise way of living then, says Krishna, is
to live knowing that you, the indweller of the body, the dehi, is nitya,
eternal and avadhya, unslayable, deathless. And not live a body-centered life.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">As the Gita teaches us, trust the wise, trust the teaching of masters
like Krishna, and live and act in the world in such a way that we awaken to the
reality of our true nature as immortals, what we have to do, make it an
offering to the Highest and perform it without attachment and if you do so, you
will be untouched by sins, by negative karmas, by negative life scripts. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Play your role in the cosmic drama, knowing it is only a drama. Be an
actor – an excellent actor. After all, as Krishna says in the Gita, yoga is
excellence in action: yogah karmasu kaushalam. Be a nimitta, an instrument in
the hands of the Total, as Krishna asks Arjuna to be: nimitta-matram bhava
savyasachin. Be a tool for dharma, a warrior for dharma, a fearless warrior
asKrishna wants Arjuna to be. And Krishna’s guarantee is there with all of us:
those who do good never come to a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>bad
end: na hi kalyaanakrit kaschid durgatim taata gachchati.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Krishna calls dharma his son. So when you fight for dharma, you are
fighting for Krishna. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">We live in a world where adharma abounds, whether it is in the world of
business, of politics, of administration. Even the medical and pharmaceutical
world, which should be the most human-friendly since it is a world dedicated to
saving lives, abound in corruption. So opportunities for fighting for dharma is
everywhere. What Krishna is asking us, through Arjuna, is join hands with him
in his battle against adharma. It does not matter whether you are an Indian or
an American, a man or a woman, young or old, if you do that you will be
worshipping Krishna. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In the Gita Krishna says patram pushpam phalam toyam yo me bhaktyaa
prayachchati tad aham bhaktyupahrdam ashnaami prayataatmanah: “Whatever you
offer me with devotion, whether it is a leaf, a flower, a fruit, or water, if
it is offered with devotion, I accept it.” [BG 9.26]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Krishna is not particular what you offer him, anything is fine, so long
as the offering is done with devotion. What can be a better offering to him
than joining him in his battle for dharma? Oppose adharma wherever you find it.
Oppose corruption wherever you find it. Oppose ugliness, darkness, wickedness,
exploitation, ignorance and other forms of evil wherever you find it. Be a
dharma-warrior where you are. That is the highest offering you can make to
Krishna, the highest form of worshipping him. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The ancient sages call us children of immortality. “Listen
ye children of immortality,” they tell us. And what they tell us is that there
is no other life worth living, there is no other path worth traveling: na anyah
panthaa vidyate ayanaaya.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Transforming our life into constant worship of
Krishna through our actions is an unerring path that leads to immortality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">O0O<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Photo courtesy: Unknown artist </span></p>Satya Chaitanyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749603528440573740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2435755112654764920.post-9908211155235096952020-12-12T21:51:00.002-08:002020-12-12T21:53:25.688-08:00Living Bhagavad Gita 34: The Only Way to Live<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNeWZJIkIF4K0iS1Dwf2-x4yQGho7fYAT_isf2VhAqjWqFwyssbykf_UF8dg6RbitwmhJN6uX0FwXWR-wQq2AqSs40iDRr1pmZvfIXALzTZZza6chJYbdPeAYdrfs68vbnJm3XeK-iR6A7/s750/radha-krishna-ID58_l+applying+alta.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="749" data-original-width="750" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNeWZJIkIF4K0iS1Dwf2-x4yQGho7fYAT_isf2VhAqjWqFwyssbykf_UF8dg6RbitwmhJN6uX0FwXWR-wQq2AqSs40iDRr1pmZvfIXALzTZZza6chJYbdPeAYdrfs68vbnJm3XeK-iR6A7/s320/radha-krishna-ID58_l+applying+alta.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">A series of short articles on the
Bhagavad Gita for people living and working in our volatile, uncertain, complex
and ambiguous times filled with stress and fear. This scripture born in a
battlefield teaches us how to face our challenges, live our life fully, achieve
excellence in whatever we do and find happiness, peace and contentment.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">[Continued from the previous page.]<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">nainam chhindanti shastraani nainam dahati paavakah </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">na chainam kledayantyaapo na shoshayati maarutah // 2.23 //</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">acchedyo'yam adaahyo'yam akledyo'shoshya eva cha </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">nityah sarvagatah sthaanur achalo'yam sanaatanah // 2.24 //</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">avyakto'yam achintyo'yam avikaaryo'yam uchyate </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">tasmaad evam viditwainam naanushochitum arhasi // 2.25 //</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">atha chainam nityajaatam nityam vaa manyase mritam </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">tathaapi twam mahaabaaho nainam shochitum arhasi // 2.26 //</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">jaatasya hi dhruvo mrityur dhruvam janma mritasya cha </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;">tasmaad
aparihaarye'rthe natwam shochitum arhasi // 2.27 //<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span face=""TimesNewRoman\,Italic"" style="mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“Weapons cannot cut it, fire cannot burn it, water
cannot wet it, wind cannot dry it. It cannot be cut or burnt, pierced or dried
up. It is eternal, all-pervading, changeless, unmoving, ever-new and existed
before the world came into being. It is beyond thought and beyond all changes,
so say the wise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How can you then grieve
over it, Arjuna, knowing this is its nature?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span face=""TimesNewRoman\,Italic"" style="mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“And even if you think of it as something that is
born again and again and dies again and again you should not grieve over it.
Death is sure to happen to whoever is born and birth is equally sure to happen
to whoever dies. So you should not grieve over something that is inevitable. ” BG
2.23-27<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">One of the scariest stories I have ever read
as an adult is Camera Obscura by Basil Copper, which I originally read it in a
collection of stories edited by Alfred Hitchcock called Stories that Scared Even
Me and have since come across elsewhere too. Camera Obscura tells the story of a
heartless money lender called Mr Sharsted trapped for eternity in ‘lost and
damned time’ in a part of his town and is condemned to wander forever its
streets never reaching his home. He comes out of the house of one Mr Gingold
whom he had gone to see and after walking away from his place for a long time,
finds again near Mr Gingold’s premises. He walks away taking a different route
this time only to find him once again near Mr Gingold’s premises. This goes on
and on endlessly. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The story is scary in itself, but what made
it truly scary was associating it what India says about reincarnation. We are
born again and again endlessly, forever trapped in samsara, until we attain
jnana or knowledge of our true nature through our personal experience –
experiential knowledge, and not book knowledge as a lot of us understand. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Mrityoh sa mrityum apnoti, as the Katha
Upanishad tells us: He wanders from death <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to death.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">There are thousands of books written about
reincarnation in the modern west, each one of them telling of people born again
and again, each time a different person, frequently changing their gender, but
essentially repeating the same life pattern, because we are prisoners to our
mind, to our psychology. Just as in this lifetime we repeat our life patterns,
some people always becoming victims of abuse, some bullies, some winners, some
losers, some lonely, some surrounded by loving people, we repeat our life
patters across lifetimes too.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">At one level what we can do is
create positive</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> life pattern so
that we do not end up living negative lives repeatedly. Speaking of people
obsessed with negativity, with asuri sampada, Krishna says in the sixteenth chapter
of the Gita that they shall be born again and again in evil wombs. This is not
a punishment given to them by Krishna or by anyone else, but is the nature of
things. Just as those with positive tendencies are born again and again in
noble families living noble lives, those with evil tendencies are born again
and again in evil circumstances. Our births, the Upanishads make it clear, are
chosen by us, exactly as we chose where to stay and what to do on a vacation.
So if it is jealousy and anger and hatred that rule our lives today, the same feelings
will keep ruling our lives in our post-death existence too and when we decide
to take birth again, they will guide us in our choices. It is something like
which hotel you go to eat at during the vacation – provided we have the
necessary resources, we have multiple choices, like a south Indian hotel or a
north Indian one, a vegetarian hotel or a non-vegetarian one, Chinese or
Continental and so on. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The Kumbhakonam edition of the Sanskrit Mahabharata
tells us the story of a woman obsessed with sexuality called Nalayani. Her
story is told in Chapter 212 and 213 of the Adi Parva of the epic. The epic
tells us her story soon after Arjuna wins Draupadi and before all the five
Pandava brothers wed her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is sage Vyasa
who tells her story, explaining it is this Nalayani that is reborn as Draupadi
in her current life time. He tells this story in order to convince Drupada why his
daughter should marry all the five brothers together. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Let me reproduce here my translation of the
conversation of Vyasa and Drupada from the Kumbhakonam edition of the epic. The
translation has been made from the original Sanskrit and to my knowledge this
is the only translation of her story availabble in English.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Please remember that what I am reproducing
below is an exact translation of the original Sanskrit and I have altered the
text in no way – I have neither added a single word of my own to the story nor
dropped a any. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">O0O<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Vyasa Said: Oh king, do not grieve over your
daughter becoming wife to all five Pandavas. Her mother had earlier prayed that
Draupadi should become the wife of five men. Yaja and Upayaja, constantly
engaged in dharma, made it possible through their tapas that she should have
five husbands and that is how Draupadi was attained by the five Pandavas as
their wife.<br />
<br />
“It is now time for your whole family to celebrate. For in the whole world
there is no one superior to you and you are now invincible – no one in the whole
world has the power to defeat you. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Let me explain further how she attained five
husbands. Listen to me, your heart free from sorrow.<br />
<br />
“In another lifetime, your daughter was called Nalayani, a woman of impeccable
virtue. She served her husband Maudgalya, an old leper, with great devotion.
The man was mere bones and skin, bitter by nature, lustful, jealous and prone
to quick rages. He stank terribly – his body emitted every foul smell. Advanced
in age, his skin was wrinkled, his whole body crooked. His head had grown bald
and his skin and nails had begun to wear off. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Nalayani served her husband who practiced
severe penances; she lived by eating his left over food. Then one day while he
was eating, his thumb fell off into the food. Without the least hesitation,
Nalayani removed it from the food and ate the leftover food. The man, who had
the power to do as he wished, was pleased with this. He asked her to ask for a
boon.<br />
<br />
““I am not old or evil-tempered, nor jealous or hot tempered,” he told her. “My
body does not smell, nor am I short in height or lust-filled. My blessings on
you, beloved one!. Now tell me how I can delight you and where you wish to live
and enjoy. I shall do all that you wish, tell me whatever is in your mind.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“When he repeatedly asked her to ask for a
boon, she asked for one.<br />
<br />
“Maudgalya was a man of pure actions and he was now pleased with her. He had
the power to give boons and he gave all one wished. So Nalayani of blameless
beauty told her husband: “O lord, unthinkable are your powers. May you attain
great fame in the world by dividing yourself into five and pleasuring me in all
those five forms! And after that I want you to become one again and continue to
pleasure me.”<br />
<br />
““Let it be so!” the great seer Maudgalya of surpassing spiritual power told
Nalayani of beautiful hair and alluring smile. He then turned himself into five
and pleasured her in those five forms in every imaginable way.<br />
<br />
“He spent time in the ashrams of sages worshipped by them, moving from one
ashram to another, assuming any form he desired. He went to the world of the
gods and there moved among the celestial sages taking her with him. He lived as
a guest in the palace of Indra, worshipped by Shachi, his food the ambrosia of
the gods.<br />
<br />
“Desiring to enjoy pleasures with Nalayani, also known as Mahendrasena, he, the
great lord, boarded the divine chariot of the sun god and moved around with
her. He then went to Mt Meru and started living on the mountain. He dived into
the celestial Ganga with her. He lived in the rays of the moon as the
never-ceasing wind does.<br />
<br />
“When the great sage took on the shape of a mountain range, because of his
ascetic powers she became a great river in the middle of the mountains. When
the sage transformed himself into a saal tree full of flowers, she attained the
form of a creeper and wound herself around him. Every time he assumed a body,
she traveled with her husband assuming a similar body. And so living, her love
for him and his love for her increased in equal measures. The great sage continuously
reveled with her using his yogic powers and she, as divine will would have it,
gave him pleasures in turn.<br />
<br />
“All this time, she remained the sage’s single wife, like Arundhati to
Vasishtha and Sita to Rama, and like them entirely devoted to her husband. In
this respect, she became nobler than Damayanti’s mother. Her mind became
totally engrossed in the great brahmana Maudgalya, as though her soul itself
had merged with him, and it never wavered from him.<br />
<br />
“This, oh great king, is the truth and for that reason, never think of it in
other ways. It is this Nalayani who is born as your daughter Krishnaa from the
sacrificial pit, as some divine plan would have it.<br />
<br />
“Drupada said: Great brahmana, best knower of all scriptures, tell me the
reason why the auspicious Nalayani took birth in my sacrifice.<br />
<br />
“Vyasa said: Listen to me, King, of how Lord Rudra gave her a boon and why the
glorious one was born in your house. Let me tell you more of Krishnaa’s former
life story.<br />
<br />
“Famous by the name Indrasena, the noble Nalayani travelled around with her
husband Maudgalya, no worries in her mind. For Maudgalya, those years of
reveling with her passed like moments. And then one day, after years of
enjoying them, the sage lost interest in pleasures. Desiring the highest
dharma, his mind was now turned towards brahma-yoga. The great sage, now keen
on austerities, abandoned her.<br />
<br />
“Abandoned by him, oh great king, Nalayani fell to the earth. As she fell,
addressing Maudgalya, she said: “Do not abandon me, great sage. I have been
enjoying pleasures as my heart desired, and I am still not satisfied with the
enjoyment.”<br />
<br />
“And Maudgalya told her: “You speak to me without any compunctions about things
that should not be spoken of. And you are causing obstacles on my path of tapas.
So listen to what I say. You shall be born on the earth as a princess and will
attain great repute. You shall be the daughter of the noble-hearted king of
Panchala. You shall then have five renowned men for your husbands. With those
handsome men, you shall long enjoy the pleasures of sex.<br />
<br />
“Vaishampayana said: Cursed thus, the glorious Nalayani became miserable and
went to a forest. Still discontented with the enjoyment of pleasures, she
worshipped the Lord of the Gods through tapas. She gave up hopes and
expectations, fasted with only the air as her food, and following the diurnal
course of the sun, began practicing the tapas of the five fires – with the
burning sun above her and four burning fires surrounding her. Rudra, the Lord
of Beasts, Pashupati, the Great Monarch of all the worlds, the Great God, was
pleased with her severe penance and gave her a boon. “You will be reborn again
and in that birth you shall be a lustrous woman; and you shall have five
renowned men for your husbands. They will all have bodies like that of Indra
and in valour too they shall be like Indra. And there you shall achieve for the
gods their great work.”<br />
<br />
“Hearing this, the woman said: “I requested you for one husband. Why have you
given me these five husbands? A woman shall have one man. How can a woman
belong to many men?”<br />
<br />
“And the Great Lord said: “You told me five times, repeatedly, to give you a
husband. Noble woman, you shall have five husbands and you shall find happiness
with all of them.”<br />
<br />
“The woman replied: “It has been decided long ago that it is the dharma of a
woman to have only one husband, whereas it is the dharma of a man, as practiced
by many, to have several wives. This is the dharma for women that the sages
decided in the past. And it has also been said that a single woman would be the
partner of man in religious rituals. And we also see in the world that a woman
has a single husband, just as she has a single virginity – once ended, it never
comes back. The smritis allow a second husband to a woman for the purpose of
conceiving through niyoga in an exigency. If she goes to a third woman, that is
considered a sin and when she has a fourth man, she falls and becomes a
prostitute. This is the path of dharma and for that reason I cannot accept many
husbands. That is something not seen practiced in the world and how could I be
absolved from the sin of corruption if that happens?”<br />
<br />
“The Great Lord said: “In the past women lived a free life sexually and were
considered pure after their monthly periods. It was not just once that you
asked me [for a husband]. But having many husbands shall not be against dharma
for you.”<br />
<br />
“The woman replied: “If I am to have many husbands, and if I desire sex [rati]
with them all, I request you to grant me that I shall remain a virgin after my
unions with each of my husbands. In the past I attained spiritual merit
[siddhi] through service to my husband. I also attained desire for sexual
pleasures through that service. Grant me that I attain <br />
both in my coming birth too.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“The Great Lord said: “Listen to me,
auspicious woman. Rati [sexual pleasure/the goddess of sexual pleasure] and
Siddhi [spiritual progress/the goddess of spiritual progress] do not enjoy each
other’s company. In your next birth too, endowed with great beauty and good fortune,
enjoying with your five husbands after regaining your virginity repeatedly, you
shall attain great glory. Go now!”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">0o0<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So we see here Nalayani’s unsatiated longing
for sex leads to her birth as Draupadi, wife of the five Pandavas, a woman of
such a powerful aura of sexuality around her that at least two men attempt to
molest her – Kichaka’s ḍeath in Virata happened because he desired her sexually
and Jayadratha, Dusshala’s husband and hence her brother-in-law one step
removed, carried her away to make her his own while she was living in the
forest with the Pandavas. There are high sexual overtones to what was done to
her in the Kuru Sabha at the end of the dice game, including Duryodhana’s
bearing his left thigh and asking her to come and sit there and Karna’s order
to Dusshasana to remove even the single clothe she was wearing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">O00<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In the real life story of Gail Bartley in
Rosemary Ellen Guiley’s Tales of Reincarnation [already mentioned briefly
earlier in an article of this series] <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>too we find how the same obsessions and
compulsions leads her and her partner lifetime after life time for two thousand
years and numerous rebirths, including their latest one in contemporary New
York.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In her
current life time in New York, soon after her marriage ended in divorce, Gail
fell in love with a man called Roger. As an advertising executive she had ample
opportunities for meeting other attractive young men, she did not really like
Roger, her mother took an instant dislike for him and a voice in Gail’s head
kept screaming all the time, “Get away. He hates you. He is trying to destroy
you!” In spite of all this, Gail felt irresistibly drawn toward Roger. And he
abused her constantly, hurt her emotionally and did not hesitate to beat her up
occasionally; once he even tried to choke her to death during one of the fairly
frequent violent outbursts between them. The relationship had wrecked her
personal life, drained her emotionally and destroyed her self-esteem. However,
in spite of all this, Gail found herself unable to get away from the man – and
she completely failed to understand her love-hate relationship with this man,
as did others around her. <br />
<br />
It was this riddle of her relationship with Roger that eventually sent her to a
past life regressionist. Upon regression and reaching her first past life
experience, Gail found herself standing in a bedroom with high ceilings. She
was now a twenty-three year old woman called Joyce in the 1920s. The
experience, completely new to Joyce, was strange and eerie: she was at once the
woman Joyce and Gail, who was watching her. Gail experienced that Joyce was
shaking with fear, fear caused by a man who was with her in the room, lying on
their bed – and that man was none other than Joyce’ s husband and the man Gail
knew as Roger. <br />
<br />
And then Gail experienced the man getting up from their bed and walking towards
her. Joyce was now shaking in terror and Gail’s breath changed as she watched
it, and she began to hyperventilate. The regressionist asked Gail what was
happening and she told her the man was strangling her. Joyce fell on her knees
at the violence of the attack and then collapsed on the ground as the man
continued to throttle her. However, Joyce did not die. Before that could
happen, the man released her throat and walked away, leaving her on the ground,
struggling to breathe. <br />
<br />
In a later part of the regression, Gail once again felt Joyce’s terror. Joyce
was in their room again, that same night, and she hears him approaching her,
climbing the stairs leading to their room. As he comes near, she sees he has
something in his hand, which he is hiding behind him. His eyes are cold and she
breathes in the hatred that emanates from him. <br />
<br />
He rips open her gown with the knife he was hiding behind him, and brutally
stabs her with it. Gail feels choked, her breath escapes her and she realizes
she is experiencing the last moments of her life as Joyce. Coming out her body
and hovering in a corner of the room, Joyce watches what is happening. One of
the things she witnesses is her husband’s utter shock at what he has done, his
complete disbelief and intense remorse. <br />
<br />
Further regressions reveal a sad tale of revenge and guilt spanning across life
times, centuries and continents. It all started in ancient Rome where Roger and
Gail in a long ago lifetime lived as brothers. The two of them loved each other
deeply and thoroughly enjoyed their life as Roman citizens. In her regression,
Gail sees herself as the younger brother, a blond young man filled with raw
energy and impatience to win a chariot race that is about to begin. The race
begins and his chariot takes off like a storm, another chariot keeping abreast
with him. And then the tragedy takes place. His chariot swerves violently, hits
the other chariot, the man driving that chariot is thrown off his balance and
falls, his head hitting his own chariot wheel, causing an instant death. In the
middle of his shock he realizes the saddest truth: the man killed by his
mistake is none other than his beloved brother.<br />
<br />
This life follows a series of lifetimes revealed by the regression, in each the
elder brother is violent and vengeful, and the younger brother, Gail of this
lifetime, is his victim. In one of these, Gail is a boy of seventeen, George,
who lived in the Old West of America with his ill tempered, hateful,
domineering father and his mother who was terrified of him. On one occasion his
father catches George with his girlfriend, a girl who had grown up with him as
his playmate. The two were together in the barn and they were kissing and
feeling each other. The father orders George back into the house and then he
rapes George’s girlfriend. One night the boy is asleep in his tent while
camping out with his father in the wilderness. He wakes up hearing repeated
dull thuds and realizes his father is digging something in the night. His
father has been furious with him that evening about some small thing, maybe he
hadn’t tied up the horses properly. Sudden realization comes: his father is
digging a grave for him! And then the father hits him on the head with a shovel
and he is dead and out of his body. He sees his father dragging his body to the
pit he had dug and burying him in it.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The guilt that the younger brother who is now
Gail felt and the need for vengeance that the older brother who is now Roger
felt have lived within them life after life making both of them suffer for two
thousand years, such is the power of our feelings and emotions which Krishna
groups as asuri sampada and daivi sampada. While both positive feelings and
negative feelings stay with us across lifetimes, it is the negative sampada
that punishes us like furies that avenge. It is for this reason that Krishna
tells us that those who nourish asuri sampada within them suffer hell life
after life and asks us to cultivate daivi sampada, positive emotions and
feelings, positive ambitions and passions and not to be slaves to negativity.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Keep away from cruelty, anger, vengeance and
other dark powers. Live by daivi sampada like kindness, compassion, love for
all, forgiveness and so on. That is the only wise thing to do, which is the
reason why Krishna teaches us about these two types of sampadas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Gita is meant for living by – not for
memorizing, not to become scholars of, not for winning debates and arguments. We
must remember <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that while our soul is
deathless and immortal, leaving the body behind, the rest of us travel from
birth to birth and as we make this journey, it is these sampada that guide us,
fuel our journey. Just as everyone born must die, everyone who dies must also
be born again. So long as this wheel continues, the only wise thing to do is to
live by daivi sampada.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And of course, the final solution to end it
all is, as India alone has pointed out, to end this cycle, to end our slavery
to this cycle, a process India calls multi or moksha, which is the other choice
we have. And to achieve that, there is only way: awakening to out true nature,
as eternal beings, as immortals, whom w</span><span face=""TimesNewRoman\,Italic"" style="mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">eapons cannot cut, fire cannot burn, water cannot
wet, wind cannot dry; as the eternal being who cannot be cut or burnt, pierced
or dried up, as the all-pervading, changeless, unmoving, ever-new reality
behind the world that existed before the world came into being, as
sat-chid-ananda. This awakening is what India calls jnana, direct experience
beyond the senses where the knower, the process of knowing and the known all become
one, what the rishis called the aparoksha anubhooti, for want of a better name.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Default" style="margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span color="windowtext" face=""TimesNewRoman\,Italic"" style="mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The negative passions in our heart block all possibilities to this
awakening. He who bears no ill will to anyone, who is friendly to all and full
of compassion, who does not cling to things, people or possessions,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>who is not a slave to his ego, who remains
even-minded in pain and pleasure and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>thus keeps his mind still, who forgives even great acts of anger and
violence committed against him, who is e</span><span face=""TimesNewRoman\,Italic"" style="mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">ver
content, who has great self-mastery, practices regular meditation and has for
his aim this ultimate freedom, he alone attains it, as Krishna tells us in
Chapter 12 of the Gita.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Default" style="margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span color="windowtext" face=""TimesNewRoman\,Italic"" style="mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">He by whom the world is not agitated and who cannot be agitated by the
world, who is free from joy, anger, envy, fear and anxiety – it is only he who
is qualified for this awakening, others live as prisoners to their negativity,
obedient to it, blindly taking orders from them and executing them, as the SS
commanders obeyed the evil orders of Hitler, as<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>zombies obey the zombie master, sleep walking through life, considering
themselves men of great power while they are mere slaves to powers of darkness.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Default" style="margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span face=""TimesNewRoman\,Italic"" style="mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">And living
for awakening is the only life worth living – na anyah panthaa ayanaya vidyate,
as the Shwetashwaratara Upanishad tells us.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Default" style="margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span face=""TimesNewRoman\,Italic"" style="mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Awakened
living alone is living. All other living is death. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Default" style="margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span face=""TimesNewRoman\,Italic"" style="mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="Default" style="margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span face=""TimesNewRoman\,Italic"" style="mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Photo courtesy: Unknown artist </span></p>Satya Chaitanyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749603528440573740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2435755112654764920.post-52328699983244753482020-12-12T21:29:00.004-08:002020-12-12T21:38:51.008-08:00Living Bhagavad Gita 33: No More than Discarding Used Clothes<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyusxI9yOk-kR-Q7yHxLVDN5hmiZfYyqyT-WGPERGTYE9yAnaBUjVSjmRZ2_QnWQN831LoZYzVy43sXh98QULln2cVxk8RVU0EbfSbvh9U0YnMaJbDCwJCu1QDQC5guDOHbqcXuUUrj3Zw/s750/radha-krishna-ID58_l+applying+alta.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="749" data-original-width="750" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyusxI9yOk-kR-Q7yHxLVDN5hmiZfYyqyT-WGPERGTYE9yAnaBUjVSjmRZ2_QnWQN831LoZYzVy43sXh98QULln2cVxk8RVU0EbfSbvh9U0YnMaJbDCwJCu1QDQC5guDOHbqcXuUUrj3Zw/s320/radha-krishna-ID58_l+applying+alta.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">A series of short articles on the
Bhagavad Gita for people living and working in our volatile, uncertain, complex
and ambiguous times filled with stress and fear. This scripture born in a battlefield
teaches us how to face our challenges, live our life fully, achieve excellence
in whatever we do and find happiness, peace and contentment.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><o:p> </o:p>[Continued
from the previous post.]</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">na jaayate mriyate vaa kadaachin </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">naayam bhootwaa bhavitaa vaa na bhooyah </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">ajo nityah shaashwato'yam puraano </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">na hanyate hanyamaane shareere // 2.20 //</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">vedaavinaashinam nityam ya enam ajam avyayam </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">katham sa purushah paartha kam ghaatayati hanti kam // 2.21 //</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">vaasaamsi jeernaani yathaa vihaaya </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">navaani grihnaati naro'paraani </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">tathaa shareeraani vihaaya jeernaany</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">anyaani
samyaati navaani dehee // 2.22 //</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;">“It was never
born nor will it ever die; having come into existence, it does not ever cease
to be. Birthless, eternal, changeless and ancient, it is not killed when the
body dies. Knowing it to be indestructible, eternal, unborn and immutable, how
can you, Arjuna, kill it or be the cause of its death? Just as a man casts off used
clothes and puts on new ones, so does the self cast off used bodies and enter
new ones.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>BG 2.20-22</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;">O0O</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">The great declaration of India: Death is no more than
casting off used clothes. Krishna says it, Buddha says it, Mahavira says it,
Guru Nanak says it, Kabir says it, Gorakhnath says it, Adi Shankaracharya says
it, Vyasa says it, a thousand rishis of yore have said it, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>all based on their own personal experiences.
As when Krishna tells Arjuna, “Many times I have been born, and so have you.
All those lives I remember, but not you.” As the more than 500 birth stories of
the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Buddha, the Jataka Tales, tell us. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">As far as the true you are considered, death cannot
touch you. You are never born nor do you ever die. You are unborn, eternal,
changeless and beyond time. Time was yet to be born when you came into being.
And you exist in dimensions where time does not exist. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">This is a truth you can experience yourself. It is
not something you have to learn from others, nor from books. And you are not
something subject to powers greater than yourself, for there are no powers greater
than yourself. You are the greatest power in existence. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">That is why Rumi says he is the wind and the surf,
that he is the mast, the rudder, the helmsman and keel, that he is the tree
with a parrot perched on its branches, that he is the rose and the nightingale
lost in its fragrance, that he is silence and thought and voice, that he is all
orders of being, that he is the galaxy, that he is all that is and is what
isn’t. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">That is why Vagambhrini of the Rig Veda says she moves
with the Rudras and the Vasus, that she walks with the sun and Varuna and Indra
and the Ashwins, that she is the one who gives wealth to the nations, she is
the first among those to whom sacrifices are offered, that when Rudra pulls his
bow it is she who stretches it for him, that she exists throughout the
universe, that she has given birth to the progenitor of the universe. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">And that is why Truishanku the thrice-cursed ancient
man who turned into a seer could say his fame is as tall as the peak of the
mountain, that it is he who gives life to the tree of the universe. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;">We are that
which is not killed when the body is killed. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;">At the same
time each one of us lives in a body that is subject to birth and growth, that
gives birth to other bodies, that ages and dies. But that death is not the
final end. It is not the final end to anything other than the body itself.
Everything else continues to be, continues to exist even after what we call
death, as every man andwoman who has ever existed has experienced, though they
may not remember that.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;">Dr Brian
Weiss had graduated magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Columbia University
and had received his medical degree from the Yale University School of
Medicine. He had been a professor at several prestigious university medical
schools and had had published over forty scientific papers in the fields of
psychopharmacology, brain chemistry, sleep disorders, depression, anxiety
states, substance abuse disorders and Alzheimer’s disease when his life changed
completely through his fist encounter with a past life experience of one of his
patients.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;">Dr Weiss was
treating a patient of his in her late twenties called Catherine who<span style="font-family: LiberationSerif; font-size: 15pt; mso-bidi-font-family: LiberationSerif;">
</span>suffered from fears, phobias, paralyzing panic attacks, depression, and
recurrent nightmares. Her symptoms had been life-long and the doctor observed
they were worsening in spite of treatments. In one of her hypnotherapy
sessions, Dr Weiss gave her the suggestion to go back to the time from which
her symptoms arose and, instead of going back to her childhood as she usually
did, she went back to a lifetime of hers long, long ago. In Dr Weiss’s words, “she
flipped back about four thousand years into an ancient near-Eastern lifetime,
one in which she had a different face and body, different hair, a different
name. She remembered details of topography, clothes, and everyday items from
that time. She recalled events in that lifetime until ultimately she drowned in
a flood or tidal wave, as her baby was torn from her arms by the force of the
water.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;">It is this
experience with Catherine that piqued Dr Weiss’s interest in past life
regression to such an extent that he became the world’s foremost authority on
past life regression and the author of such bestsellers as Many Lives, Many
Masters and Through Time into Healing.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;">The Tibetan
Book of the Dead, originally called Bardo Thodal, is a roughly twelve hundred
year old book by Tibet’s greatest yogi Padmasambhava that was first translated
into English by W. Y. Evans-Wentz in 1924. In his Foreword to the English
translation by Donald S. Lopez, Jr., later added to the book, Lopez says:
“Buddhism, like several other Indian traditions, does not see death as the
cessation of consciousness. Instead, death marks the dissolution of the
physical elements of the person. The mental elements, generally referred to as
consciousness, persist, to once again take physical form through the process of
rebirth. The question arose in Indian Buddhism as to whether consciousness
moves immediately to a new lifetime after death, or whether there is some
intervening period. Certain schools postulated the existence of an intermediate
state between the moment of death and moment of conception in the next
lifetime; according to some formulations the intermediate state could last as
little as an instant or as long as forty-nine days.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is this intermediate state or states that
is<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>known as the bardo or the bardos and
Bardo Thodal is about what happens in the Bardos and what the intelligent thing
to do is in the bardos, a Tibetan word meaning in between or between two. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;">The bardo or
the bardos are thus our experiences in the bodiless state and these experiences
are decided by our mental life while we are in the body, that is to say by life
as we know it. The quality of life after death is thus decided by our life
before death. If we have lived a life based on daivi sampada, positive virtues,
then our life after death and after our rebirth will be pleasant and happy and
if we live a life dominated by asuri sampada, negative qualities, then these
will be hellish. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;">In fact talking
of asuri people, Krishna says, “These cruel haters, the worst among men in the
world, I hurl them forever into evil wombs.’ Krishna does not mean he selects
such people for hellish lives and the good people for heavenly life. What he
means is that evil people are led to evil life, both present and future, by
their karmas/ life scripts, and good people are lad to good life, present and
future, by their good karmas or daivi sampada. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;">Daivi
sampada, the qualities that lead to happy life according to Krishna, are: <span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Fearlessness, absence of
anger, absence of crookedness, absence of covetousness, absence of hatred and absence
of pride; harmlessness, purity of heart, steadfastness in knowledge,
steadfastness in yoga, charity, control of the senses, the attitude of
sacrifice, study of scriptures, austerity, truthfulness , renunciation,
peacefulness, compassion towards all beings, gentleness, modesty, vigor,
forgiveness, fortitude and purity of the heart and body. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In contrast to these are
the asuri sampada. negative qualities that make our life hell while living,
after death and in our future lifetimes. In his list of asuri sampada in
Chapter 16 of the Gita, Krishna mentions only a few qualities:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>hypocrisy, arrogance, self-conceit, anger,
harshness and ignorance, but his discussion of asuri sampada is very thorough. After
listing the asuri sampada, Krishna continues by saying that they lead to
bondage. He says the asuri people know neither pravritti nor nivritti – they
know neither the path of action nor the path of withdrawal from action. The
path of action is the path leading to worldly good and the path of withdrawal
is the path that leads to inner growth, to spirituality and mastery over
oneself, over one’s mind, and to awakening. They know not how to make true
achievements in the world, nor how to make spiritual progress. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The unique teaching of
Krishna is the combining of the worldly with the spiritual. He combines
pravritti and nivritti, blends the two into one. He teaches how the path
leading to worldly achievements itself can lead to spiritual achievements,
provided pravritti itself is practiced with spiritual awakening as your goal.
Swakarmana tam abhyarchya siddhim vindati maanavah, teaches Krishna:. by
worshipping Him through one’s actions, man attains the supreme. Our actions can
be the path leading to fasting the ego and feasting the soul, the path leading
to starving the ego and feeding the soul, teaches he. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">But instead of fasting the
ego and feasting the soul, instead of starving the ego and feeding the soul, the
asuri people do the opposite. They starve the soul and feed their ego, making
their own life hell and also making hell for everyone around them. For the
asuri people, we are the body; born of the sexual union of the male and the female,
and the mind and consciousness are by products of the body. For them we exist
neither before birth nor after death – life begins in the mother’s womb and
ends in the cremation ground. Bhasmee-bhootasya dehasya<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>punar aagamanam kutah, they ask rhetorically:
Where does the body return from once it has been reduced to ashes?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For them nothing exists beyond the grave. So
they live lives that lead to their own destruction and to the destruction of
the world – the life of nourishing the ego, and starving the soul. Kaamam
aashritya dushpooram dambha-maana-madaanvitaah mohaad griheetvaa asad-graahaan
pravartante‘huchivrataah, Krishna says about them: “They are full of insatiable
desires and hypocrisy and filled with pride and arrogance; holding on to evil
ideas through delusion, they tread the path of evil, since their desires are
evil.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Our desires are important.
The nature of our desires is important. “As a man's desire is, so is his
destiny. For as his desire is, so is his will; and as his will is, so is his
deed; and as his deed is, so is his reward, whether good or bad,’ says the
Brihad-aranyaka Upanishad, one of the oldest <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and the largest of Upanishads. The Upanishad
adds, “' A man acts according to the desires to which he clings. After death he
goes to the next world bearing in his mind the subtle impressions of his deeds;
and, after reaping there the harvest of his deeds, he returns again to this
world of action.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The subtle impressions the
Upanishad speaks of is what India calls karmas and modern western psychology
calls life scripts. Our current and future life is determined by these
impressions, they give direction to our life, they steer us in this world and
the next world. So what desires we entertain and how we react to the incidents
life brings us is vitally important for us.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">It is for this reason that
the ancient acharyas ask us to live our life intelligently. Desires are fine,
but don’t be a slave to them, they tell us. For Krishna, desires are sacred, so
long as they are not against<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>dharma, the
common good, the good of others: dharma-aviruddho bhooteshu kaamosmi
bharatarshabha, he tells Arjuna in the Gita, speaking of himself as divinity, as
God: “I am desire in all – desire that is not against dharma.” Wealth is fine,
they tell us, they even tell us to make us as much wealth as possible, and they
teach us to worship wealth as the most beautiful of goddesses – Lakshmi, Shri. And
they tell us power is good, so long as that power is not used against
lokasngraha, the common good. <span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Instead of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>living<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>in happiness and contentment with the wealth and power we have, instead
of sharing them with others joyously in the spirit of sacrifice spreading joy
all around, the asuri people live lives of more acquisitions, of competing with
others, of destroying others, finding pleasure in harming others, in giving
them pain. What motivates them is greed and power hunger. And just as good
people find pleasure in giving away wealth and in using their power in doing
good to others, the wicked ones find pleasure in the display of wealth and in
oppressing others through their power. They say, in the words of Krishna, “I
have destroyed this enemy and also I shall slay the others too. I am a lord. I
enjoy thoroughly the pleasures of the world. I am perfect in every way. I am
powerful. I am happy. I am rich. Who is equal to me? I perform grand
sacrifices. I give away great wealth in charity. Who is as happy as I am?” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Deluded fools, Krishna
calls them. Accursed to live hell here on earth and hereafter, Krishna calls
them. Bound to suffer anger, jealousy, greed, lust and other insatiable passions
life after life, Krishna tells about them. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In the language of the
Harry potter books, possessed by the dementors,condemned to live in worlds of
darkness. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">They too do have their
moments of joy – when others suffer, when others praise them... when they have
many followers on the social media! But what they are denied is the joyfulness
that is<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>our nature, the ocean of ananda
that is in our heart, the kind of joyfulness that makes great masters sing
nandati nandati nandatyeva – he rejoices, rejoices, and rejoices,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Give up the constant desire
for more and more wealth, says Shankaracharya. Instead enjoy the wealth that
comes through your work. Shift the focus, says the acharya, from acquiring more
and more wealth <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to enjoying the wealth
we already have. Many of us become so obsessed with wealth, that we have no
time for enjoying it. Our life itself becomes for collecting more and more
wealth, mountains of wealth. There is no life more useless than the one spent
in acquiring wealth. Na vittena tarpaneeyo manushyah, says Indian wisdom,
wealth can never satisfy you. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
anala, something for which nothing is ever enough. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Producing wealth is good,
but living for acquiring wealth that you do not use is an accused life. Greed
is not good. Wealth should be used – for oneself, for one’s family, for the
good of others.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Chogyam Trungpa in his classic <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior</i>
speaks about two differing lifestyles – one guided by the vision of the great
eastern sun and the other guided by the vision of the setting sun, one guided
by the vision that life is everlasting, death is no end to living, life
continues even after death and every death is followed by rebirth; and the
other guided by the erroneous belief that death is the end of everything, that
there is only one lifetime, ‘we live only once’ and whatever we want to do we
have to do fast, in this lifetime itself, we have to be constantly in a hurry, like
a tourist on a conducted tour who is given a limited time for each place to
visit, and a list of things to achieve within each day. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">According to this latter vision, we have to
make choices in life, decide what is important each moment, and ignore what is
not important.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since life is a constant
journey from one destination to another, our focus should always be on the next
destination, and we should never waste time on the sights on the way, should
rush from one destination to the next. Hurry, hurry is the constant watchword. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">When the Industrial Revolution began in the
west, futurologists of the day predicted the age of leisure will arrive soon
since machines will take over all production. They also predicted that soon
words like hurry and haste would disappear from our languages. But we all know
what happened – we are living now in a world of unprecedented haste and hurry,
with no leisure available to us, people forced to work more hours than ever
before. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The Japanese have a new word in their
language now, a recent addition – karoshi, which means death from overwork. Instead
of haste and hurry, the words that have disappeared from life are words like
leisure and idle hours. I believe it is Carl Honore, the author of In Praise of
Slowness, who pointed it out that his son’s first words in life were “hurry up!”
We are living in the age of leisure and the predictions were words like hurry
and haste would disappe</span><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">ar from language and his son’s first words in life were ‘hurry up’, the
words he hears most in his home!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">That is the way of the setting
sun, the philosophy that guides the west. To west every moment unoccupied is a
waste, every moment spent in leisure is a waste. Successful people have to show
that they are constantly busy, even when they are not! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">So in our train
compartments we do not see people sitting idle, watching the sights you pass
through. I once took a series of photographs during a train journey and called
it India by the railside. Most of India is fascinatingly beautiful as seen from
a train, be it the thickets of wild bamboo, my favourite, or the paddy fields,
palm clusters, the thick jungles or whatever. I remember watching an entire
evening of sunset as the train<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>sped for
miles and miles at high speed across vast plains of North Karnataka, where red
chilies were either growing and spread out to dry! I was on my first trip to
Hubli in Karnataka, travelling all alone some half a century ago and I still
remember the magical spell of the occasion.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">But today you don’t see
children or young people, or even old people doing that – everyone is busy with
one electronic gadget or the other in their hand. The world outside, the
wonderful places they are passing through, the vast empty plains of India and
the crowded cities and towns, the sleepy villages, the mountains and rivers each
of which has a thousand of legend and myths to tell us, do not exist to them
anymore. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">That is the life of the
setting sun.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In the vision of the
eastern sun, traffic delays are not delays but opportunities life provides us
to enjoy the roadside views. And side trips are not distractions, not wastes of
time, but invitations from the unknown to hitherto unknown realities,
frequently of splendor and magic. If we look back leisurely we find that most
of the beautiful things that happened to us happened on these side trips, we
have never regretted a single side trip we made. In the vision of the rising
sun we enjoy the journey itself; destinations are important, but not so
important as to ignore the journeys.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">One of the most beautiful
movies I have seen in many years is the 2005 Malayalam movie Charlie. The two
central characters in the movie, Tessa and Charlie, live from moment to moment,
meeting life’s challenges as they come, enjoying the beauty of every moment,
going where the winds of life take them – and their lives are filled with pure
magic. They meet by pure chance, fall in love with each other by pure chance
and become each other’s by pure chance. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At
the beginning of the movie Tessa is asked by her brother, “What is your plan?”
and she replies, “My current plan is to see how to live without any plans.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Yes it is a risky way of
living, and not all of us is ready for that. But that is the way of living by
the vision of the eastern sun. That is the way Krishna taught, that is the way
the Buddha and Mahavira taught, that is the way Jesus taught, that is the way
Bodhidharma and Laozi taught, that is the way Zarathhustra and Meera and Andal
taught, the way Adi Shankara taught when he sang in the 18<sup>th</sup> shloka
of Bhaja Govindam:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">sura-mandira-taru-moola-nivaasah’
shayyaa bhootalam ajinam vaasah; sarva-parigraha-bhoga-tyaagah, kasya sukham na
karoti viraagah <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“Life under a temple tree,
the earth for your bed, barks of trees for clothes, giving up all possessions
and all sensory pleasures – this is vairagya and who does it not give pleasure
to?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Bhagavan Shankara does not
mean you have to give up your home and only then you will be happy. He does not
mean that to be happy you have to live under a tree, give up your comfortable
bed and sleep on the earth, wear bark clothes, walk away from all your
possessions and pleasures. If you can be happy only under these conditions,
then you are bound by them, your happiness s dependent on these; it is not
absolute happiness, happiness that is your nature, it is something you achieve
under some conditions and not others. As Bhagavan Shankara himself points out
in Jivan-muktananda-lahari, the external conditions do not matter. The wise
man, the enlightened man, is equally happy in the forest and the palace, in the
city and on river bank, in the company of the rich and of the poor, in the
company of the wise and of fools, in the middle of crowds and in solitude. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Just as Bhagavan Shankara
teaches us, what Krishna teaches too, both through his life and the Gita, is
that we can be in the middle of these things and yet be unattached to these
things, not cling to these things. We can possess a house and yet not be
possessed by it, we can possess wealth and yet not be possessed by wealth,
possess a wife or husband and children but yet not be possessed by these. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">For Krishna the ideal is
the lotus leaf in water – padma-patram iva ambhasaa. Be in water like a lotus
leaf and yet be untouched by water. Krishna calls this anasakti yoga.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is what India has always called sannyasa,
but came to be misunderstood later. So Krishna clarifies beyond any doubt that
a true sannyasi is not one who physically gives up possessions and actions, na
niragnir na cha akriyah, but performs all his life calls him to do and yet
remains unattached. Krishna takes the name of Janaka, a king surrounded by all
kinds of power, possessions, comforts and pleasures and yet remains unattached
to all these, as an example for a sannyasi. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Death is inevitable, all of
us are bound to die, there is no escape from that, and it is no more than
discarding worn out clothes and getting new ones. And as inevitable as death is
rebirth – tatha deha-antara-praapti, attaining a new body. Therefore live
intelligently knowing this truth, says our timeless wisdom.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Do not be obsessed with
wealth – give up the constant desire for more and more wealth, jaheehi
dhana-agama-trshnaam. And enjoy whatever comes to you through your honest work
– yal-labhase nija karmopaattam vittam tena vinodaya chitttam. Do not be
obsessed with sensuality – enjoy them but do not be a slave to them. The
beautiful body of a woman, her full breasts and deep naval, seeing these do not
become slaves to them – naaree-stana-bhara-naabhee-desham<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>drshtvaa maa gaa mohaavesham. Or the handsome
male body, for that matter. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Do not be a slave to any
sense object – the pleasure you get from enjoying them is actually your own
ananda, your own essential nature. You desire these and the desire makes your
mind restless and you lose the stillness of your mind, lose contact with your
own nature. You get those things, enjoy them, for a few minutes your mind
becomes still again and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the still mind
reflects the ananda that is your true nature – that is all there is to sensory pleasures
and all else we pursue in life. We are like the dog that picks up a dry bone
and chews it. The bone wounds its mouth, blood oozes out and the dog enjoys it
thinking the bone is giving it pleasure, whereas the truth is that <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>it is its own blood the dog enjoys.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Realizing this truth and
living in the world as a master is wisdom. A master means not a slave to our
desires, not a slave to external events. That is what Krishna means when he
says such a one is a man is rooted in consciousness, a sthitah-prajna, who does
not run after the desires in his mind but is happy with himself, whose mind is
not shaken by situations of grief or happiness; who is without raga, bhaya, or
krodha, without longings, fears, or anger, who is content with himself. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span face=""TimesNewRoman\,Bold"" style="mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Bold"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Wisdom is living what you are, being what you are, untouched by whatever
life<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>brings to you; accepting all with
gratitude but at the same time remaining rooted in your own nature. Like a tree
on the hilltop, a mighty tree with branches reaching out to the sky, dancing
with the wind, subject to the change of seasons, but at the same its root sunk
deep in the womb of earth, drawing its nourishment from that earth, not letting
anything that goes on outside touch its heart, its soul, transforming the very
seasons into opportunities for its growth, transforming thundershowers and
burning sun and freezing cold and the violent storms as opportunities for
growth. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span face=""TimesNewRoman\,Bold"" style="mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Bold"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Be part of nature and yet live above it, live untouched by it, singing your
own song, dancing your own dance. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span face=""TimesNewRoman\,Bold"" style="mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Bold"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Though you are a tree that grows on the earth, that draws its nourishment
from the earth, you are in fact a tree whose roots are elsewhere, somewhere far
above, in some other dimension: oordhva-moolam adhah-shaakham ashwattham which
ancients called avyayam, changeless while changing, growing and perishing while
remaining imperishable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span face=""TimesNewRoman\,Bold"" style="mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Bold"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">For years in the ashram where I lived, our lunch every day began with
this shloka that opens the fifteenth chapter of the Gita. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span face=""TimesNewRoman\,Bold"" style="mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Bold"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">What an amazing shloka in an amazing book by an amazing teacher!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span face=""TimesNewRoman\,Bold"" style="mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Bold"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">O0O <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span face=""TimesNewRoman\,Bold"" style="mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Bold"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Photo courtesy: Unknown artist</span></p>Satya Chaitanyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749603528440573740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2435755112654764920.post-37333959529226151692020-12-12T07:53:00.000-08:002020-12-12T07:53:41.409-08:00Living Bhagavad Gita 32: The Self neither Slays nor Is Slain<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgninmvZVIXhgY-t0VsaTLvh8Tfxi_q6dKxZa025oOdmNqoPIqdzq86hxeoiJBcU9gltQO17_WI9Aql3eGGvryEw835SHt18M4C6XL4FdJfEXXfVj5pWfUhjLkxB2pLqoVKfzrphtAo2p8B/s400/Flying+RAdha+Krishna.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="275" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgninmvZVIXhgY-t0VsaTLvh8Tfxi_q6dKxZa025oOdmNqoPIqdzq86hxeoiJBcU9gltQO17_WI9Aql3eGGvryEw835SHt18M4C6XL4FdJfEXXfVj5pWfUhjLkxB2pLqoVKfzrphtAo2p8B/s320/Flying+RAdha+Krishna.jpeg" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">A series of short articles on the
Bhagavad Gita for people living and working in our volatile, uncertain, complex
and ambiguous times filled with stress and fear. This scripture born in a
battlefield teaches us how to face our challenges, live our life fully, achieve
excellence in whatever we do and find happiness, peace and contentment.</span></p><p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">[Continued from the previous post]<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i>naasato vidyate bhaavo naabhaavo vidyate satah </i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i>ubhayorapi drishto’ntas twanayos tattwadarshibhih // 2.16 //</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i>avinaashi tu tad viddhi yena sarvam idam tatam </i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i>vinaasham avyayasya asya na kaschit kartum arhati // 2.17 //</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i>antavanta ime dehaa nityasyoktaah shareerinah </i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i>anaashino'prameyasya tasmaad yudhyaswa bhaarata // 2.18 //</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i>ya enam vetti hantaaram yashchainam manyate hatam </i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i>ubhau tau na
vijaaneeto naayam hanti na hanyate // 2.19 //</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Those
who have seen the truth know this: the unreal has no existence, and the real can
never cease to exist. Understand that that by which all this is pervaded is
indestructible; no one can cause the destruction of that imperishable. The wise
say that bodies come to an end but the embodied self that is beyond the grasp
of the mind is deathless and eternal. Fight therefore, Arjuna, fight! He who
thinks of the self as the slayer and he who thinks of it as the slain, neither
of them truly understands. For the self neither slays nor is slain.” BG
2.16-19<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“Fight,
Arjuna, fight!” [yuddhyasva bhaarata] is something we<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>will hear again and again in the Gita from Krishna.
Krishna is keen that Arjuna should fight the war for the good of the world; for
the sake of dharma now that all efforts for avoiding the war have failed. He
had tried with Duryodhana sama [negotiations as equals], dana [give and take],
bheda [dividing the enemies] and all of them had failed and now the only path
open was that of danda – the path of force, fighting it out. And since the
cause is so important – survival of dharma, ending the unethical ways of the
rulers of the day and reestablishing righteous ways among them – he is ready
even for that. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">For
Krishna the Mahabharata war was of course so that the Pandavas got their
kingdom back from Duryodhana, but that was not just because they were his friends
but because they were righteous people. Krishna’s main purpose was establishing
dharma in this our land then known as Bharatavarsha – the land that consisted
of all of modern India and much more, spreading right from the Himalayas in the
north to modern Kanyakumari in the south and from Gandhara [modern Afghanistan]
and Bahlika [ancient Bactria] in the west to Brahmadesha, modern Myanmar, in
the east. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">And
for that eliminating Duryodhana was essential. Duryodhana was evil right from
the beginning. His basic hunger was for power – and he would go to any length
to appease that hunger. He would poison his enemies, set fire to their house,
and would do anything else necessary to destroy them. Politicians all over the
world today are known for their power hunger – and he was a representative of
such people. Perhaps this is the reason why the epic tells us Duryodhana was an
incarnation of the Age of Kali. No ethics, no morals, no values stood in his
pursuit of power. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Yatha
raja tatha pratha, said ancient Indian wisdom: As the king, so the people. Modern
leadership studies tell us people model their behaviour after their heroes. The
Gita too says: “yad yad aacharati shreshthah, tat tad eva itaro janah. sa yat
pramaanam kurute lokah tad anuvartate.” “Whatever a great man does, that is
what others do. Whatever he considers as the ideal, the others follow.” So if
the king does not walk the path of values, the people will not either. And when
neither the king nor the common people follow the path of dharma, the entire
country will plunge into abysses of darkness. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Dharma
is what makes life worth living, dharma is what sustains life and society,
dharma is what helps joyfulness flower in life. So dharma has to be sustained
and if for that no other path is available, then the wicked king himself has to
be eliminated. This was Krishna’s mission throughout his life, what he kept
doing right from his years. He was only around thirteen when he eliminated his
own uncle Kamsa, the wicked king of Mathura who had grabbed power by throwing
his own father Ugrasena into the dungeons. If men who should model righteous
ways of living themselves should follow corrupt ways, common men and women
would follow them and dharma will have no place in the world. So dharma had to
be protected – dharma which protected people if it was protected, as the epic
puts it: dharmo rakshati rakshitah. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In the
Mahabharata, as is well known, Yudhishthira represents dharma and Duryodhana
adharma. When Duryodhana says he will not give Yudhishthira as much land as the
tip of a needle, he was in effect saying dharma will not get so much land in
his kingdom as the tip of a needle. That is why it become necessary for Krishna
to eliminate him – if a war is the only means through which it can be done,
then through it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In the
Gita Krishna makes crystal clear what he is: God himself, incarnated to
eliminate adharma and to reestablish dharma. He declares to Arjuna in thrilling
words that has kept all of this land spellbound for millennia:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Bold"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Bold"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">yadaa yadaa hi dharmasya glaanir bhavati bhaarata<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Bold"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Bold"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">abhyutthaanam adharmasya tadaa'tmaanam srijaamyaham <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Bold"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Bold"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">paritraanaaya saadhoonaam vinaashaaya cha dushkritam<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Bold"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Bold"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">dharma samsthaapanaarthaaya sambhavaami yuge yuge BG 4.7-8<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Whenever
there is a decline of dharma and rise of dharma, then I create myself. For the
protection of the good, for the destruction of the evil, and for the
establishment of righteousness, I take birth age after age. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">When
Krishna says he comes down to the earth, takes an avatara, he does not mean
just those few avataras our ancient scriptures mention, like Narasimha,
Parasurama, Rama and so on. As Krishna himself tells Uttanka in the
Mahabharata, incarnations are endless. In fact whenever someone fights against
adharma and tries to establish dharma, the divine is working through him. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Speaking
of India’s recent history, there was a time when our land had sunk into
pathetic darkness and at that time our society threw up masters like Raja Rammohan
Roy. One of the evil social customs of the day was sati in which widows were
forced to enter the funeral pyres of their husbands and ‘accompany them into
other worlds’. The society in those days did not approve of remarriage, even
when young girls were married off before the age of puberty to old dying men
and these men died soon after the marriage. The only options available to these
teenage widows were either to become ‘satis’ or to live lives of complete self
denial as widows the rest of their lives, saying no to all that made life good.
Rammohan Roy fought against both of these evil customs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">A
little later came Swami Vivekananda who lived and fought to restore the self
confidence of our youth at a time when that had taken a plunge into bottomless
worlds. Later during our freedom struggle masters like Mahatma Gandhi came up
whose successful battle against the empire in which the sun never set not only
ended our slavery to the British but also freed every nation on the earth from
the colonial yoke. The inspiration of Gandhiji put an end to centuries of
atrocities on enslaved populations all over the world by their ruthless
colonial masters, whether it was the insane cruelties of the Spanish in Latin
America, atrocities by the likes of King Leopold in Belgian Congo and elsewhere
in Africa, colonial atrocities of the British and the French throughout the
world. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">All
such leaders have the divine with them when they battle against adharma and try
to reestablish dharma. The divine manifests in them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Modern
literature and cinema, today’s mirrors of the society, tell us countless stories
of battles against adharma by modern heroes and heroines, both historical and
fictional. The Hollywood movie Erin Brockovich brilliantly starred by Julia
Roberts tells us the story of the real life Erin Brockovich, ‘an <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">American legal clerk, consumer advocate, and environmental
activist</span>, who, despite her lack of education in the law, was
instrumental in building a case against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company
(PG&E) of California in 1993” as Wikipedia describes her. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Numberless
movies have been made in different Indian language cinemas on the theme of
battles against one form of evil or the other. The vigilante movies are a class
of movies that tell stories of battles against evil – whether it is evil that
is widespread in the medical and pharmaceutical world, the horrid evil of women
trafficking, bureaucratic corruption, corruption in the world business and
industry, political coruption or any other form of corruption. Na maanushaad
param dharmah, said the Mahabharata: there is no dharma higher than maanusha, the
good of all. The highest dharma is the good of all and all that is against the
common good is adharma. All that benefits a few but harms others is adharma. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Krishna’s
message is clear: dharma is what sustains the individual, the society and the
world and anything that destroys dharma has to be destroyed. And Krishna
assures all: na hi kalyaanakrt kaschid durgatim taata gachchhati, those who do
good never come to evil ends. What Krishna is doing here is assuring everyone
who fights against adharma that he is with him or her. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Therefore
fight fearlessly, says Krishna. Tasmad uttishtha kaunteya yuddhaaya
krtanischayah: Therefore, Arjuna, decide to fight and stand up. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Awaken
the will to fight. For dharma. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">However,
Krishna wants us to make sure that we are battling for the common good, dharma.
And Krishna wants us to be calm, poised, centered and focused in these battles.
He wants us to fight these battles without feverishness and with our mind
focused on our ultimate goal: inner purification.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Purifying
the outer society is also a path to inner purification. It can become our yoga
– the yoga of action, karma yoga. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">When
Krishna asks us to fight our battles for inner purification, he is asking us to
become yogis in the battlefield for dharma. And he assures Arjuna, and through
Arjuna us, that battling for dharma in the spirit of yoga, you shall not incur
sin: naivam p</span><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">a</span><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">apam
av</span><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">a</span><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">apsyasi.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Because
he wants us to be fearless as we fight these battles. The path of spirituality
is the path of fearlessness, of abhayam. Where there is fear, there is no
spirituality and where there spirituality, there is no fear. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Man’s
greatest fear is of death. And yet when we look into the Mahabharata War at the
opening of which the Gita came into existence, what meets our eyes is a strange
sight: The warriors in general show no fear of death. They rush into the
battlefield as though intoxicated by death. And when they meet their death,
they embrace it as though they are embracing their beloveds in bed. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">To the
warriors of the epic, </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">battles
were peak experiences, accompanied by rapturous ecstasies. They lived for such
experiences and when an opportunity arose they accepted the challenge
exultantly, entered the battle ecstatically and fought as though in throes of
joy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Death was but a small price they
paid for such ecstatic experiences. It was something before which they did not
flinch, something they even courted as desirable. They considered death in bed
surrounded by relatives and friends a matter of shame. Glorious was the death
one achieved in the battlefield. To slaughter the enemy ruthlessly in
honourable battle was noble indeed in their eyes. And to be pierced by a
hundred arrows in every limb, to have one’s head chopped off with a single
stroke of the enemy’s sword or a well-shot arrow was equally noble. And equally
desirable. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: 90.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Warriors in the Mahabharata
came to the battlefield dressed in their best, as though for a festive
occasion. For instance, as they begin their march, the mood in the army of
Shalya, one of the first to start their journey to join the war, is one of
celebration. They have their weapons with them, of course. But they also wear
wonderful clothes and lovely necklaces and other beautiful ornaments. All the
other alankaras are on, too. It is indeed a festive occasion! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: 90.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">There is a general air of
festivity, of celebration, of sports, even to the fiercest of battles. Bheeshma
in the middle of a terrifying battle is several times described as ‘as though
playing’ – kreedanniva. Once the Mahabharata says that he looked as though he
was dancing in the battlefield – nrittyanniva – and at that time he was engaged
in one of the fiercest encounters in the eighteen-day war! And it is not just
individual soldiers that dances, but whole armies do so, too: “The two armies,
as they advanced to meet each other, seemed to dance,” says the epic.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: 90.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">As we read the epic we realize
that death did not matter to them. They embraced it with the same eagerness
with which they embraced life. And death too welcomed them with the same warmth
and passion as they had found in the arms of life. They had lived as masters of
the Earth and in dying, they were only resting on her breast. Describing the
death of Shalya, Sanjaya tells the blind king: “Stretching his arms, the ruler
of the Madras fell down on the Earth, with face directed towards king
Yudhishthira the just, like a tall banner erected to honour Indra falling down
on the ground. Like a dear wife advancing to receive her dear lord about to
fall on her breast, the Earth then seemed, from affection, to rise a little for
receiving that bull among men as he fell down with mangled limbs bathed in
blood. The invincible Shalya, having long enjoyed the Earth like a dear wife,
now seemed to sleep on her breast, embracing her with all his limbs.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: 90.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">We often get the feeling that
the kings and warriors who came to fight came not caring much for the cause for
which they fought. What mattered was the battle itself. They enjoyed a battle
and they did not want to be left out. The Mahabharata war was the most glorious
event in a long, long time, and they wanted to be part of it and celebrate it.
Who would want to miss the greatest mela on earth? Did it really matter on
whose side they fought, so long as they fought? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: 90.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Shalya is Madri’s brother and
so he is the uncle of the Pandavas. He is invited by the Pandavas to join their
side and fight for them. He begins his journey towards them along with his
maharathi sons and a vast army. However, Duryodhana goes forward and meets them
on the way, offering his splendid hospitality. Pleased by his hospitality,
Shalya decides to join the Kauravas! Which does not make him an enemy of the
Pandavas, though. He visits them, too, affectionately and gives them his
blessings! Eventually towards the end of the war, after the death of Karna,
Shalya becomes the commander-in-chief of the Kaurava army. He had started out
to fight against them!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: 90.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Relationships did count. But
the battle was bigger than all relationships. As the epic says, “There the son recognized
not the sire, the sire not the son of his loins, the brother not his brother,
the nephew not his uncle, the friend not the friend.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They just fought.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: 90.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Rukmi, Rukmini’s brother and Krishna’s
brother-in-law, first approached the Pandavas – Krishna was there and so
charged up was Rukmi that he was willing to forget the old enmity between them
and begin with him on a new footing, while also finding glory in the battle. He
had come with a full akshauhini just as Shalya had. But he committed the faux
pas of telling Arjuna, in the presence of his brothers, Krishna and other
kings, that if he, Arjuna, was afraid, he was there to help him in the war.
Smiling, Arjuna replied that he was born in the line of the Kurus, was the son
of Pandu, was a disciple of Drona, had Krishna as his helper and had the Gandiva
in his hand – how could he then say he was afraid? He told Rukmi he was free to
stay or go, as he pleased. An insulted Rukmi departed with his akshauhini and
approached Duryodhana and repeated his words there. Duryodhana did not consider
himself any more scared than Arjuna was, of course! And Rukmi returned to his
kingdom. The Mahabharata specially mentions that Rukmi and Balarama were the
only two great warriors to keep away from the war. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: 90.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Truly, what counted was that
you fought – not for whom or for what cause you fought in the sacrifice called
war – the rana-yajna. Many who fought on the Kaurava side were very close to
the Pandavas and some who fought for the Pandavas, close to the Kauravas. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: 90.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Of course, how you fought
counted. How valiantly you fought, how fearlessly you fought, how skillfully
you fought, how heroically you fought, how recklessly you fought – these
counted. You had to laugh at death. See beauty in flowing red blood. See beauty
in the writhing of severed arms. See beauty in the tumbling down of brave
heads. The most savage battle should delight you, should enthrall you. Then you
are a true Kshatriya, true blue blood.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: 90.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Why is this so? The mystery is
solved when we her Krishna’s words in the Gita: “The unreal has no real
existence. And the real never ceases to really exist. No one can cause the
destruction of the imperishable. Only the bodies that are the temporary homes
of the deathless die.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ya enam vetti
hantaaram, yashchainam manyate hatam, ubhau tau na vijaaneeto, naayam hanti na
hanyate: He who understands this [the indwelling spirit] to be the slayer and
he who sees this as the slain, neither of them knows right. For what lives in
the body neither kills nor is killed.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: 90.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The secret of the festivity
and the celebration of the warriors of the Mahabharata is that they knew they
are immortal, deathless, death is just another passage, as the passage from
childhood to youth and youth to old age. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: 90.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Everything Krishna teaches in
the Gita is not knew, much of it was common knowledge in his days. For we are
talking of India, of the land of the Upanishads – and the Upanishads had
declared thousands of years before Krishna that man is deathless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the groups of mantras that took me to
the gurukula in my youth to live there as an inmate for several years and study
sitting at the feet of my gurus is from the Taittiriya Upanishad. The mantras
say: bheeshaasmaad vaatah pavate, bheeshodeti sooryah; bheeshaasmaad agnishchendrash
cha, mrtyur dhaavati panchama it. What these mantras say is that we are that
out of fear for which the wind blows, out of fear of which the sun rises every
day, out of fear for which the fire burns and Indra performs his duties, out of
fear for which death stalks the world!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: 90.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The Upanishad is talking about
what I truly am. I am that out of fear for which death stalks the world! How
can I then be afraid of death? That was the attitude of the Mahabharata warrior
towards death.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: 90.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Man who covers under the fear
of death is very different from man unafraid of death. And Krishna wants to
take his friend Arjuna into those worlds where the fear of death does not
exist. And through the bahaana of Arjuna, Krishna wants to take each and every
one of us into those worlds where we do not fear death and if anything, death
fears us. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: 90.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: 90.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">What Arjuna has to do in the
war is to slaughter his enemies who are fighting for adharma in the battlefield
and that is what Krishna is asking Arjuna to do. He is not asking his friend to
mindlessly kill innocent people, as a terrorist does. The Mahabharata war is a
declared war between two armies, fought based on conditions both parties agreed
to, for a cause for which no other option was available. Just as for us today
the military option is the last option, for the Pandavas too the war had become
the last option. But in spite of that, the highly sensitive Arjuna still cannot
make up his mind to do that because among the people to be killed in battle are
his grandfather and his guru and many other dear and near ones. So Krishna tells
him some high truths, some ultimate truths, truths that are very difficult to
accept, truths we would like to ignore, close our eyes to in the belief that if
we close our eyes to them, those truths will cease to exist, cease to be true.
But are true all the same: they have been ‘seen’ by tens of thousands of yogis.
Krishna tells Arjuna those who have seen the truth know this</span><i><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">: the unreal has no existence,
and the real can never cease to exist. The body is perishable and the spirit
cannot be touched by time, cannot be touched by death. We are imperishable
souls living in perishable bodies. And that soul neither slays nor can be
slain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: 90.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The soul does not say because
it neither does anything nor causes others to do anything: naiva kurvan na
kaarayan – neither doing anything nor causing anything being done. It is
akarta, abhokta. In the language of India’s highest wisdom, it is the non-doer
behind all doings, the non-actor behind all actions, and the non-enjoyer behind
all enjoying. Even the shadow of death cannot fall on it<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So Krishna wants Arjuna to go ahead and play
role in this grand cosmic drama that is being unfolded before his eyes, whether
he likes it or not. From the standpoint of the cosmic drama, from the stand
point of samashti karma, from the standpoint of God, from the standpoint of
Krishna, the people standing in the battlefield are already dead: mayaivete
nihataa poorvam ava [Gita 11.33]. All Arjuna has to do is to become an
instrument in the hands of that cosmic power: nimittamatram bhava savyasachin.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: 90.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Here are the powerful words of
Krishna, the knower of past, present and future, the knower of everything, the
cause behind all that happens, from whom arises the universe, in whom exists
the universe, and unto whom the universe will go back at the time of dissolution,
declaring that cosmic truth: “Verily by me have they already been slain; you be
a mere instrument, Arjuna!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do slay
Drona, Bhishma, Jayadratha, Karna and other great warriors who have already
been slain by Me and gain glory!”<span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: 90.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: 90.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Sometimes we have to accept
the inevitable and do what we have no choice but to do. In such cases the best
we can do is to do what Existence wants us to do and offer our work at the feet
of the Divinity accepting the results as his grace, his prasada. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: 90.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">This is equally true about our
personal life as a member of our family or the community and about our
professional life in the business or corporate world. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: 90.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">But we must make sure that we
are not putting the blame for doing what we want to do, what our egos want us
to do, on powers beyond us. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: 90.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">That is why Krishna concluded
his teachings of the Gita by saying this knowledge is rajavidya and rajaguhyam,
the highest knowledge and the highest secret and should never be given to those
who have not performed austerities, those who have no devotion in the Supreme,
those who are willing to sit at the feet of the guru and serve him, and those
who are closed to higher truths and consider the life of the word as the
beginning and the end of everything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Default" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">idam te na atapaskaaya
na abhaktaaya kadaachana <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Default" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">na
cha ashushrooshave vaachyam na cha maam yo'bhyasooyati. BG 18.67<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Default" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The
wisdom that Krishna teaches Arjuna through the Gita is no ordinary knowledge
and should be given only to those who are ready for it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; tab-stops: 90.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>Satya Chaitanyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749603528440573740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2435755112654764920.post-56511699256403807412020-12-12T05:06:00.008-08:002020-12-12T05:09:31.661-08:00Media Career: A Journalist Speaks <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH3nHk6Zqe55aP2ygjVJboKvQV7ygpuqfr-JSjZzoCwH0F05fmEJEHsXy46uFup5FSFHL2fGcjUstpXyopS6if2WxfTmQm6mpNKdFIp94MDBy1MfE9wekFI7cJscV4NtYXuuXVjFfizupX/s554/anagha+in+Rajasthan+2018.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="554" data-original-width="410" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH3nHk6Zqe55aP2ygjVJboKvQV7ygpuqfr-JSjZzoCwH0F05fmEJEHsXy46uFup5FSFHL2fGcjUstpXyopS6if2WxfTmQm6mpNKdFIp94MDBy1MfE9wekFI7cJscV4NtYXuuXVjFfizupX/s320/anagha+in+Rajasthan+2018.png" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="t14" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 2.15pt; margin-right: 2.15pt; margin-top: 5.0pt; margin: 5pt 2.15pt;"><span style="color: white; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-themecolor: background1;">[This is an unusual interview: A father interviewing his daughter.
My daughter Anagha interviews people all the time as a journalist, so I thought
why not put her on the other side and interview her about her career. Here is
what came out. I must say, there were many revelations for me about the
fascinating world of journalism as it is practiced today. I was also inspired
by her highly positive attitude towards her work and life in general. There is
joyfulness in all her responses which I loved.]<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="t14" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 2.15pt; margin-right: 2.15pt; margin-top: 5.0pt; margin: 5pt 2.15pt; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: white; mso-themecolor: background1;">— <em>How
often do you interview people for your newspaper?</em><br />
<br />
I work for a weekly supplement – Indulge. It comes out every Friday with The
New Indian Express. Since it is a weekly, I usually interview about three to
four people every week for the print edition. And apart from that we also work
on our website. So that makes it about 3 or 4 more people per week.<br />
<br />
— <em>What are some of your most memorable interviews?</em><br />
<br />
There have been many memorable interviews over the years. Even before my job at
this newspaper. I used to work at The Students Magazine many years ago that was
geared towards student readers, as you can guess from the name. We were all
very young in the team but it was a learning experience to be there. I remember
I interviewed both you and mummy for it! That was fun.<br />
<br />
My next job was at Explocity where I wrote exclusively about food, a topic you
know that I love. Here I spoke to many international chefs and it really helped
me expand my boundaries. One that stands out is Chef Atul Kochhar, a pioneer of
Indian food in London and he is also from Jamshedpur [Anagha’s home city].<br />
<br />
And of course, at The New Indian Express I really had a chance to interview
some big names. While I conduct a lot of my interviews over email, they have
all been memorable to write and research - musicians such as Bryan Adams, James
Blunt, authors like Suketu Mehta and many more. Another memorable one I did
last year was Anushka Shankar, who is celebrating her dad Pandit Ravi Shankar's
centenary this year.<br />
<br />
— <em>Who are some of the most interesting people you have interviewed?</em><br />
<br />
While celebrities are always interesting people to interview. I also get a
chance to interview a lot of people who are doing new and interesting work
within the cultural space. Every week is a new musician, or restaurateur that
is trying to do something new, even in covid times like these.<br />
<br />
I recently interviewed a British comedian Romesh Ranganathan, who travelled all
over the world for a TV show, and he is a vegetarian. So, he told us about how
difficult or easy it was to travel. I also wrote about the last play written by
Girish Karnad and interviewed the people who were staging it posthumously for
him. Another interview I did was that of the inventor of the Rubik’s Cube a few
months ago. As we speak I’m interviewing Bruce Lee’s daughter who has written a
book about her father! Fingers crossed* hope it works out.<br />
<br />
These are just from the past few months! Many more are there…<br />
<br />
— <em>You also cover events for the newspaper. What kind of events do you
cover?</em><br />
<br />
Yes I cover events, and one of the biggest opportunities I get due to that is
travelling to places I would never get to travel to otherwise. I cover music
events, literature festivals, poetry festivals and food events in the city and
outside.<br />
<br />
— <em>Would you like to share with us a few interesting incidents during
covering these events?</em><br />
<br />
By far the most fun was my trip to Bhutan. I went to cover the Mountain Echoes
Literature Festival. Not only did I get to attend the festival and meet its
speakers (who ranged from Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah, to a man who
has spent his whole life researching the Yeti!) but also I got a glimpse into
the culture of another country, which was also invaluable. The stand out and
once in a lifetime incident would HAVE to be when we saw Mount Everest from our
flight. Breathtaking and also felt so surreal to be seeing it from an even
greater height.<br />
<br />
— <em>The places you have visited?</em><br />
<br />
Like I said Bhutan is the top of the list. Apart from that I have had a chance
to visit Udaipur, Delhi, Mumbai, Chettinad, Pune, Nasik, Wayanad (where we
stayed in a tree house!) and so many more places in the country.<br />
<br />
— <em>What prompted you to work for a newspaper and that too in the
entertainment / infotainment / lifestyle area?</em><br />
<br />
Honestly, I don’t think I sought it out with a goal in my mind. Both you and
mummy are writers and it just came naturally for me. There are very few outlets
or jobs for writers as such, and a lifestyle supplement comes closest to a
place where you can express your creativity. I am lucky that I enjoy it so much
and I also work in this field.<br />
<br />
— <em>What are some of the challenges in your area of work?</em><br />
<br />
My personal challenge has always in life been overcoming my anxiety and shyness
while dealing with other people and in social situations. And ironically this
is a job that is all about meeting new people! So that is what I have to push
myself with the most. Over the years it has become more and more easy, but it
still is a factor. Thankfully technology has progressed a lot that it's not
always face to face, and that also helps me a lot.<br />
<br />
Apart from that, there are the usual challenges that come with every job –
office matters, long working hours, clash of ideas, etc. But I think everyone
is used to that!<br />
<br />
— <em>To what kind of young people would you recommend your line of
journalism?</em><br />
<br />
This is one field that you have to have your heart in fully if you want to work
in it. You cannot be in it for the money or just for the fame or the fun. I am
blessed enough that I get to work here and money is not too big a factor for
us. But many do not have the privilege of doing so, especially if they have to
earn more and support a family. In that case it is not easy. I see all my peers
earning more than me and even my boss!<br />
<br />
Like I said before, I am also lucky that I have found a talent and I get to
enjoy my work. Again a privilege that so few have because many people do not
know what they want to do in life, which is fine! But for this job you need to
give it your all and expect very little in return.<br />
<br />
—<em> What do you enjoy best in your work? And least?</em><br />
<br />
The best part is learning about new people and new things. And the invaluable
experiences. Going to restaurants I could never afford to, travelling to
places. And it's never the same every week. Each week we write about something
new. So the monotony is less.<br />
<br />
I also enjoy designing the actual pages every week. Seeing which page looks
better on print. Which font size, how much text goes where – the visual aspect
of it. By the looks of things print journalism is not going to be around for
much longer so it’s a dying art and I'm glad I get to do it!<br />
<br />
Least is the more technical aspect of work - emails, and back-end work for our
website. Most of the day goes in doing this. Uploading on the website,
coordinating with other people. Writing is actually only a small part of it –
the rest is hard work! But it's part of the job.<br />
<br />
— <em>What exactly do you need to be successful in your kind of
journalism?</em><br />
<br />
As with any other career I think your drive is the most important thing. To be
fearless and just do your job, it's easier said than done I know. Multiple
times a day, and night (especially when we are in office late at night) you
feel why I am doing this at all. But your drive to do this work will sustain
you. And as I mentioned print seems to be in its last legs, its all online now.
Which is a whole different beast. Writing for online and the headlines that
work for online are very different than for print. So, you also have to be
prepared to learn this new and emerging field and adapt to the changes.<br />
<br />
More tangibly speaking, knowing what’s going on in town, knowing what is going
on in your field is a much-needed thing. It is also very important to have a
strong network. Always be in touch with people. Know whom to contact for which
article and try to make your network bigger and bigger – another thing that's
made easier thanks to technology!<br />
<br />
— <em>How important have your colleagues been to you?</em><br />
<br />
Immensely. Day to day work, productivity and motivation ultimately boils down
to the people you have around you. If the work environment is not good it is
impossible to sustain yourself. I’m very happy with my colleagues who have been
there for me - for professional as well as personal crises in my life. It’s not
always been smooth sailing, but over the years we have all become friends.<br />
<br />
— <em>Any incident that gives you goose bumps?</em><br />
<br />
Being in the newsroom is an experience in itself. Even though I don’t work with
the main newspaper covering breaking news, I still work in the same office as
them and it’s a thrill. People often say journalists get addicted to the buzz
of a newsroom and you can never be satisfied in another job – perhaps true!<br />
<br />
Just being in the room when breaking news events are happening is a thrill.
Watching them break the news about demonetization, the lockdown, and elections
as they’re happening all stand out in my mind.<br />
<br />
— <em>Any work that you look forward to in your field?</em><br />
<br />
Honestly, after the few years, and then this year with the pandemic, I think we
are just looking forward to seeing how long we can keep print going. It has its
own benefits over online journalism, but no one reads actual papers anymore
(Not even you and I!) so I hope it lasts many more years to come as I still
like to believe that print holds more lasting value over online.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: white; mso-themecolor: background1;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Satya Chaitanyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749603528440573740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2435755112654764920.post-12315037351055102132020-12-11T20:57:00.002-08:002020-12-11T20:57:16.408-08:00Living Bhagavad Gita 31: No Happiness in Small Things<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh73Fhzs62N_2J2Qr5lPpgirD7vghB1bTnwGuybkPB2ybm2FdfkV0L3kudKGECU5vus4DGgGdQ_0zjsQwsL4qhY7crmOOP1ENmW-hdCi0LpTsJAkNi2NMl-7U9FWgXPfgFgI10sRP8R2UAm/s400/Flying+RAdha+Krishna.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="275" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh73Fhzs62N_2J2Qr5lPpgirD7vghB1bTnwGuybkPB2ybm2FdfkV0L3kudKGECU5vus4DGgGdQ_0zjsQwsL4qhY7crmOOP1ENmW-hdCi0LpTsJAkNi2NMl-7U9FWgXPfgFgI10sRP8R2UAm/s320/Flying+RAdha+Krishna.jpeg" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoBodyText"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A series of short articles on the Bhagavad Gita for
people living and working in our volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous
times filled with stress and fear. This scripture born in a battlefield teaches
us how to face our challenges, live our life fully, achieve excellence in
whatever we do and find happiness, peace and contentment.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">[Continued from the previous post]<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Maatraa-sparshaastu kaunteya sheetoshn- sukha-dukhadaah </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Agama-apaayino’nityaas taams-titikshaswa bhaarata //2.14 //</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">yam hi na vyathayantyete purusham purusharshabha</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>samaduhkha sukham dheeram so’mritatwaaya
kalpate // 2.15 //<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“Our contacts with objects outside, Arjuna, cause
heat and cold, pleasure and pain. But they have a beginning and an end. Endure
them bravely. Only the brave man who remains unaffected by these but stays calm
in pain and pleasure is qualified for immortality.” Gita </span><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Bold"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Bold"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">2.14-15</span><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The sultan was leaving the great
Sufi after spending some time with him and wanted a parting gift from him. The
Sufi gave him a ring with a locket on it and told him not to open the locket
until his condition was truly wretched and he could find no way out. Years
passed and the king found himself in such a condition. </span></i>The people he
trusted most had plotted against him, his enemies had surrounded him, his
health was failing, all strength had deserted him and his faith in himself was
fading. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">And then with
trembling hands he opened the locket, his heart beating wildly. What could be
inside it? </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">There was a
short message from the Sufi inside. It said: “THIS TOO SHALL PASS.” </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">The sultan
kept looking at the locket, the message playing in his mind again and again, and
then slowly his breath calmed down, his body calmed down, his pulses calmed
down, and coolness started spreading inside his head that was earlier ready to
burst. A smile appeared on his relaxed face and he got up, ready to face
whatever happens, telling himself: “THIS TOO SHALL PASS.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">EVERYTHING
PASSES. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">O0O </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The
Mahabharata tells us that Krishna and Arjuna are eternal companions. They have
been together in lifetime after lifetime, performing austerities in the
Himalayas. Each of the eighteen books of the Mahabharata begins by offering
salutations to them. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">naaraayaṇam
namaskrtya naram chaiva narottamam</span></i><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br />
</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">deveem
sarasvateem natvaa tato jayam udeerayet</span></i><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“Bow
down to Narayana and to Nara, the best of men. Bow down to Goddess Saraswati.
Then begin the recitation of Jaya.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Jaya
is the original name of the Mahabharata.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Jaya
means victory. But true victory is not victory over enemies out there, but over
the enemies within us. Our true enemies are the asuri pravrittis within us, our
negative urges, emotions, feelings, drives and ambitions – the lust, anger,
jealousy and so on within us, which are in constant war with the positive
feelings within us. Minus these negative tendencies, we are divine in nature,
daivi. We do not have to do anything to achieve the daivi nature of goodness,
nobility, kindness, compassion, love, fearlessness and so on. As beings born of
the divine, these are natural to us. That is what we truly are. The asuri
tendencies in us are like dirt collected on a vessel. When we wash them off,
the vessel becomes clean again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or like
water that has remained stagnant for a long time – when the water starts
flowing, it becomes clean again. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">While
the daivi tendencies belong to us, to our true nature, the asuri tendencies
belong to our ego, what is called ahamkara in Sanskrit, the notional “I”. And
the stronger the ahankara is, the more the negative qualities are. So people
with powerful ahankaras, like those who want to rule over vast populations or enslave
the whole earth to satisfy their egos, people like Hitler and Stalin, are chockfull
of asuri tendencies. And these asuri tendencies deny them joyfulness because
there can be no joy in a heart filled with asuri tendencies. Joyfulness and
asuri tendencies cannot co-exist. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">It is
a strange, vicious circle. Because they are filled with asuri tendencies, they
are denied of all happiness and since they are denied of all happiness, they
are constantly in search of happiness. Unfortunately they know of only one way of
searching happiness: through their asuri nature, through asuri activities, by
acquiring things outside, by making achievements out there, by enslaving
others, attempts which further deny them all happiness. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In an
earlier essay we saw how Saint Rabia through her search for a lost needle under
a street lamp taught people to seek happiness within themselves and not outside.
In an essay called The Secret of Happiness, Thich Nhat Hanh, the world famous
Vietnamese monk and Nobel Prize winner, one of the most respected teachers of
meditation in the world today, says: “</span>If we are able to quiet the
cravings within us, we see that our true desire is not wealth or fame but
happiness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because we want happiness, we
search for power outside of ourselves. But as long as we seek power and
happiness in fame, money, and sex, we will not find it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only by coming back to ourselves and
purifying our minds can we experience true, lasting happiness.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">In the same
essay Hanh says, “Is it possible for those of us who are poor, who are unknown,
to have happiness? Many of us think that if we have no money and no fame, we
have no power and therefore cannot be truly happy. Of course, our basic
material needs for food, water, shelter, clothing, physical safety, and
livelihood must be met for us to be happy. Abject poverty leads to suffering,
disease, and violence. So I am speaking here of the desire to have money above
and beyond our material needs.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">The error we
make is in assuming the more pleasures we have, the more wealth and fame we
have, we more power we have, the happier we will be. And motivated by this
erroneous assumption, we run after them. As Hanh pointed out, we do have our
basic needs, certain things are essential for happy living, but it is not true
that the more we have of these things, the happier we will be. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">There is
beautiful description of absolute bliss experienced by a poor farmer in one of Robert
Silverberg’s books. There is a character in the book who can experience what
other people are experiencing and it is through the ‘eyes’ of this person,
David, that we get to see the happiness in the soul of a farmer: “<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">David … slides down through dense layers of
unintelligible Deutsch ruminations, and strikes bottom in the basement of the
farmer’s soul, the place where his essence lives. Astonishment: old Schiele is
a mystic, an ecstatic! No dourness here. No dark Lutheran vindictiveness. This
is pure Buddhism: Schiele stands in the rich soil of his fields, leaning on his
hoe, feet firmly planted, communing with the universe. God floods his soul. He
touches the unity of all things. Sky, trees, earth, sun, plants, brook,
insects, birds—everything is one, part of a seamless whole, and Schiele
resonates in perfect harmony with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>How can this be? How can such a bleak, inaccessible man entertain such
raptures in his depths?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Feel his joy!
Sensations drench him! Birdsong, sunlight, the scent of flowers and clods of
upturned earth, the rustling of the sharp-bladed green cornstalks, the trickle
of sweat down the reddened deep-channeled neck, the curve of the planet, the
fleecy premature outline of the full moon—a thousand delights enfold this man.
David shares his pleasure. He kneels in his mind, reverent, awed. The world is
a mighty hymn. Schiele breaks from his stasis, raises his hoe, brings it down;
heavy muscles go taut and metal digs into earth, and everything is as it should
be, all conforms to the divine plan.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">This of course is fiction, science fiction, and
I am quoting it for the beauty of the experience described here. But there are thousands
of real life stories too about enlightened masters that tell us that it is
possible to live our entire life in the kind of bliss that Schiele is experiencing.
And for all we know that is what the Ananda Mimamsa, enquiry into happiness, in
the Taittiriya Upanishad speaks of when it describes the happiness possible to
the man not enslaved by desire. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The Mimamsa asks us to visualize a young man
in the prime of his youth, who is cultured, educated, who is in perfect health
and has strong limbs, whose death is nowhere near, who owns the entire earth
with all its wealth. The Mimamsa asks us to further assume that the highest
happiness possible to him as a single unit of human happiness. And then it tells
us that the happiness of a man not tormented by desires is the same as this
man’s. The Mimamsa next tells us of still greater happiness experienced by
beings more evolved, and says that the man who is not enslaved by desires
experiences the same happiness. Finally the Mimamsa speaks of the happiness
experienced by Brahma, the creator, which is endless times the highest possible
human happiness and says that when a man is not a slave to desires, his ananda
is equal to that of this limitless happiness of Brahma. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">What the Upanishad means is that if you are
not a slave to your passions, your happiness is boundless, you experience
absolute bliss without limits. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The path to ananda is through passionlessness,
desirelessness, not through desire and passion. In the absolute stillness of
the mind that is not disturbed by waves of lust, passion and desires we
experience absolute bliss. It is this ananda we seek constantly through all we
do. Every search we make, whether it is through wealth, pleasures, fame or
whatever, is actually an attempt to get back to our true nature, for union with
our true nature, which happens when the mind is quieted. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Krishna
is reminding Arjuna, his eternal companion, that he should not give much
importance to external events and keep his mind still, undisturbed, not just
because only then is true happiness possible but also because awakening is
possible only with a still mind. Matra-sparshas is the word Krtishna uses for
experiences in the outer world – a word that means contact of the senses with
objects outside. And he reminds Arjuna that the results of all such contacts
are impermanent: whether it is pleasure of pain, heat of cold, success or
failure, loss or gain, or anything else. Krishna asks his disciple Arjuna to
endure them with fortitude. And he gives the reason why such vacillating
conditions should be bravely endured: because only those men of courage,
dheeraah, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>who are unaffected by them,
who are not tormented by them, people who get no vyatha from these, who remain
the same in sukha and duhkha, sama-duhkha-sukham, are entitled by immortality. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The
word immortality here stands for a lot of other things too. It is with inner
awakening, through waking up to our true nature, that we go beyond death,
become immortals. The word become is not right there, what Indian wisdom means
is that it is only through awakening to our true nature that we realize we are
immortal, that we have always been immortal, that we are never born, that we never
die. When we awaken, we also realize that we have already achieved all we have
been seeking throughout our life, throughout all our past lifetimes: bliss.
When we awaken we realize that we are beyond all changes, beyond all
limitations; that we are all-knowing, all-powerful, present everywhere:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.
Mortality and all the things that accompany mortality are a dream we have been
dreaming. Like Shuangzi’s dream – in which he dreamt that he was a butterfly.
It is like a man who has eaten too much and is unable to sleep dreaming he is
hungry, hasn’t eaten for days. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">But
this waking up is possible only when our mind becomes still. That is what
Patanjali speaks of as the aim of yoga – yogah chittavritti nirodhah, yoga is
making the mind still. Once our mind becomes still, we have nothing more to
achieve. All our sorrows, all our sufferings, all our wants, all that we run
after, are because of our mind that is not still. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bhagavan Shankaracharya’s Vivekachudamani puts
it brilliantly when he says in a single verse:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">na
hyasty-avidya manaso’tirikta<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">maho hyavidya
bhava-bandha-hetuh<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">tasmin
vinasthe sakalam vinashtam<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">vijrimbhite’smin
sakalam vijrimbhate. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“There
is no avidya other than the mind; the mind itself is avidya, the cause of
bondage to samsara. When it is destroyed, everything is destroyed; and when it
manifests, everything becomes manifest. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Avidya
is primal ignorance that is the cause of samsara, the world where nothing is
permanent, everything is a constant flex, where we feel we are limited, where
we suffer and constantly seek happiness in the world outside.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Awakening
is waking up from this avidya, primal ignorance. That waking up happens not
through the study of scriptures, not through memorizing books, not through
anything else than by making the mind still. Just as when we wake up from a
dream the entire dream world disappears with all its content: with its joys and
sorrows, with its successes and failures, with its losses and gains, with its
fame and infamy, with its powers and powerlessness, with its heat and cold, and
all other dualities. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">That
is what Krishna means when he says only those who are sama-duhkha-sukha, the
same in duhkha and sukha, the same in happiness and sorrow and are not
tormented by these are entitled for immortality. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Krishna
wants Arjuna to fight the war for the sake of dharma. But he also wants Arjuna,
his friend, to wake up to his true nature, about which he will be speaking more
in the verses that follow these.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">You
can fight for dharma even after waking up to your true nature, even after
enlightenment. That is what Krishna is doing, it is for that that he took this
avatara, this incarnation. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Enlightened
masters come down to our dimension, to our world, for the good of the world,
for lokasangraha. When an enlightened master comes down to our world, it is
always for lokasangraha, the good of the world. He has no purposes to achieve
for himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Keeping
the mind calm is important for other reasons too. Particularly in our world
where calmness of mind has become such a rare incident. Academic success needs
calmness of mind. Corporate success requires calmness of mind. Success in the
market needs calmness of mind. Happy family life needs calmness of mind. Even
something as simple as cooking a meal requires calmness of mind. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Unfortunately
the greatest casualty of the modern world is this calmness of mind. The most
tragic thing that has ever happened to man is what has happened to us during
the last few hundred years – ever since the beginning of the industrial
revolution. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Calmness
of mind is related to calmness of the brain. In the language of neurobiology a
calm brain is said to be in the alpha or the theta state and a disturbed brain
is in the beta state. The beta state is when electric waves in the brain are
moving between 14 Hz and 100 Hz or more. The brain then consumes huge amounts
of energy, the output is of poor quality, you are aggressive and restless, you
don’t trust people, you see people in general as enemies threatening your ego,
you don’t communicate well, you express high levels of hostility to those
around you, you lose control over yourself and become slaves to your negative
emotions like anger, jealousy and so on. In the alpha state which is calmer,
your brain becomes relatively calm, electric waves move at a much lower
frequency, between 4Hz and 8 Hz,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and you
are far more intelligent, imaginative, creative and so on, much more friendly
with people, highly flexible, mellow, yielding and fluid. And in the theta
state that is still more relaxed you become really calm and centered, are able
to focus effortlessly on what are doing, have the highest intelligence and
imagination, have amazing creativity and problem solving ability. The theta is
the state of peak learning, peak intelligence, peak performance, peak
everything that is positive. Delta is the most relaxed state, but we will not
be talking about it at the moment because in delta frequently you are in touch
only with yourself and not with the outside world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">It is
delta that you are closest to your own nature, the mind that separates you from
yourself becoming very thin, the brain calm and relaxed. In theta you are still
close to your true nature, the mind streamlined and thoughts running smoothly
like oil flowing from a bottle and unlike water from a tap. In alpha the
positive qualities of theta are reduced, but you are still relative calm and
centered, much intelligence and imagination still available to you. But in beta
you are far from your true nature, the mind has become a thick curtain between
your true nature and the functional you, thoughts are running chaotically at an
alarmingly high rate in your mind, electric waves inside the brain are giddying
fast, you are like a planet moving off-course and erratically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">And
modern medical science, stress management studies and neurobiology all tell us
that the modern urban man spends most of his waking time in the beta state.
Which explains why the whole world is on the brink of insanity, as wisdom points
out. When Brenda Shoshanna wrote her beautiful book on Zen, the title she chose
for her it was: Zen Miracles – Finding Peace in an Insane World. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Our
world is truly going insane. Violence is growing every day. Rapes are on a
constant increase. People are more unhappy than ever before. All kinds of
diseases are on the rise and new ones are born every day. There are new
epidemics appearing more frequently than ever before, as the covid-19 pandemic.
Road accidents are more common in spite of much better vehicles and superior
roads. People are perpetually irritated. And the rates of depression and
suicides are at an all time high. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Krishna’
words here have a powerful message for all of us. Learn to accept small things
as small things. Taams titikshasva – endure them bravely. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Personal
clashes are a regular feature of workplaces. Some of the issues that cause
clashes are important and have to be taken seriously. In such situations the
reason for the conflict should be looked into deeply. But a lot of the time
being inflexible in your stand is not always the right thing to do, though that
is what we frequently do. Nor is giving in to the other person’s ways or
demands in an effort to avoid conflicts the right thing to do. The attempt
should be to find collaborative solutions wherever possible, win-win solutions.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Also
please remember, when you insist on winning every battle, a lot of the time you
end up losing the war itself. Insisting that you should win every battle is the
way of the ego. Wisdom is ignoring small things and focusing on the larger
things. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">One of
the most important things to do when conflicts arise, and to avoid the arising
of conflicts itself, is to listen to the other person fully and try to
understand him and his standpoint. This listening can not only avoid conflicts
but also create lifelong friendships. Try to understand the other person. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">A joke
we as children used to love in our place is about a conversation between a
Tamilian and a Keralite. In Tamil the word aamaa means yes and in Malayalam, it
means a tortoise. Both men were having a bath in a temple tank when the
Keralite pointed out something large moving underwater to the Tamilian and
said, “See, a huge fish!” and the Tamilian said aama, aama, meaning yes, yes.
But the Malayali said no, not aama, it is not an aama but a fish and the
Tamilian again said aama, aama. To which the Malayali responded by again saying
not an aama but a fish! Our fights are often like that. We don’t understand the
‘language’ of each other. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Attacking
the problem and not the person too is helpful. When you attack the person, it
becomes an ego issue – and ego issues are always touchy and explosive. Avoid them.
Learn to respect the fact that people have egos – that will take you a long way
in avoiding clashes. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Also,
everyone has the right to have his own feelings. Respect the other person’s
right to have his feelings even when you feel very differently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also, remember to respond rather than react.
Reactions are born of our blind unconscious and responses, from our wakeful intelligence.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Couples
fight over the silliest things much of the time. What to have for dinner or
which hotel to go to for it, what to wear for a party and when to leave the
party, taking out the trash, not jumping up in happiness about a gift you
received from the other person, forgetting to greet the other person on a
particular anniversary, forgetting your mother-in-law’s or father-in-law’s
birthday, the reasons are endless. Before picking up a quarrel about one of
these, think if that quarrel would be important to you a year from now. Most of
these issues, most of the time, are extremely simple though at the moment they
look momentous to us. Learn to treat molehills as molehills. They don’t have to
become mountains. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In the
1970s a word became the most important word for an entire generation: yield. Today
yielding is unacceptable to the ego. But remember, yielding is starving the
ego. And starving the ego is feeding the soul.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Taams
titikshasva bhaarata, Krishna tells Arjuna. Endure them. Endure heat and cold,
endure success and failures, endure them with fortitude. They are small things.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Endure
them so that your mind remains calm. So that you remain undistracted from the
larger journey you have to make. So that you become entitled for amritatva – so’mritatvaaya
kalpate. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Immortality
and all that go with that word are far more important than these small things.
And they are all really small. You do not have constantly bicker about the
weather, about taxes, about what the media presents us in the name of breaking
news most of which you will not remember after two minutes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember once a leading national channel
was presenting the top ten headlines in a news bulletin, and one of them was that
a police jeep tire went flat in a north Indian city! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">When
Adi Shankaracharya speaks of the essential virtues a sadhaka needs in Vivekachoodamani
he lists titiksha as one of those qualities and defines it as sahanam
sarvaduhkhanaam aprateekaara-poorvakam chintaavilaapa-rahitam saa titikshaa
nigadyate: Titiksha is enduring all distresses without a thought of vengeance,
without worrying about them, without wailing over them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The
purpose of such endurance is clear: keeping the mind unaffected by them,
keeping the mind calm. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">It is
for this reason that Krishna speaks of the need for keeping the mind calm even
when sukha comes. Just as we have to remain calm in losses and failures and
sorrows, we have to remain calm in happiness and victory too.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">What
awaits us is huge: ultimate freedom, bliss, discovery of the empire of our own
true nature, swaaraajya-saamraajya. Heat and cold, our daily successes and
failures are all puny before that. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Remember
what the Chhandogya Upanishad tells us: </span><span style="background: white; color: #323232; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">yo vai bhoomaa tat sukhaṃ, naalpe
sukhamasti, bhoomaiva sukhaṃ [7.23.1]. </span><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">There is no happiness in small things. Happiness is
only in the boundless. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">O0O <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">photo courtesy: Unknown artist </span></p>Satya Chaitanyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749603528440573740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2435755112654764920.post-19043868641378425582020-12-11T04:46:00.000-08:002020-12-11T04:46:03.150-08:00Living Bhagavad Gita 30: The Empire Speaks <p> <span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">A series of short articles on the Bhagavad Gita for people
living and working in our volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times
filled with stress and fear. This scripture born in a battlefield teaches us
how to face our challenges, live our life fully, achieve excellence in whatever
we do and find happiness, peace and contentment.</span></p><p class="MsoBodyText"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">[Continued from the previous post.] <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"></span></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBzo0Ra3hi1vnXxkkKi-8QGrKo6_dIFZSlkCKP95H_IoQtRUg4e2YlnYhfcQqt08JojpR7-tFOQYVqv7x-ZTV5cG1d_Vj8RGz-4WmHQlnV2rTaLVKn4TSMooz0W7u9iWd2toBgO6JbeOz7/s400/Flying+RAdha+Krishna.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="275" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBzo0Ra3hi1vnXxkkKi-8QGrKo6_dIFZSlkCKP95H_IoQtRUg4e2YlnYhfcQqt08JojpR7-tFOQYVqv7x-ZTV5cG1d_Vj8RGz-4WmHQlnV2rTaLVKn4TSMooz0W7u9iWd2toBgO6JbeOz7/s320/Flying+RAdha+Krishna.jpeg" /></a></i></div><i><br />na twevaaham jaatu
naasam na twam neme janaadhipaah</i><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">na chaiva na
bhavishyaamah sarve vayam atah param // 2.12 //<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">dehino'smin yathaa
dehe kaumaaram yauvanam jaraa <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">thaa dehaantara praaptir
dheeras tatra na mhuhyati // 2.13 //<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Never was
there a time when I existed not, or a time when you or these kings did not
exist. Nor will there ever be a time when we shall cease to be. Just as in this
body the self passes from childhood to youth and old age, so too after death it
passes to another body. The intelligent do not grieve over this. 2.12-13<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who called the Bhagavad Gita an empire of
thought and said: "I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad Gita... it was
as if an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene,
consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and climate
had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us.”</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As Krishna begins his
teachings, please keep in mind that his interest is not in teaching that the
dead or the-not-yet-dead do not deserve to be grieved over. His interest is in
teaching us that we are immortals. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As we have seen
earlier, though the Gita is born in the context of the Mahabharata war, it is
not about slaughtering enemies in the battlefield or winning victories over
them. It is about winning the battle called life. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Gita is about
becoming winners in life, winners over ourselves. it is about rising above the asuri
tendencies within us, about nurturing the daivi tendencies in us and eventually
growing beyond both daivi and asuri tendencies. It is about waking up from the
life we are dreaming, and waking up to life as it is, as it really is. It is
about ending the dream in which we see ourselves as mortals, with limited life
spans, limited intelligence, limited imagination, limited powers, limited
competencies and limited capacity for happiness. It is about discovering the
true us, discovering what we have been all through: immortals, whom weapons
cannot cleave, fire cannot burn, water cannot moisten and the wind cannot<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> dry up; eternal, all-pervading, beyond
time, beyond names and forms, beyond the power of thought to grasp, beyond all
changes; beyond the power of the mind to reach, which can be known through
knowledge beyond all knowing, which can be felt only through the feeling beyond
all feelings, which can be experienced only through the experience beyond all
experiences.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">There is a beautiful story about </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Zhuangzi<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> [Chuang Tzu]. One morning the great Chinese saint of Tao told his
disciples who had gathered to listen to him as usual: “Last night I </span>dreamt
I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, conscious only of my happiness
as a butterfly, unaware that I was Zhuangzi. Then I woke up and here I am,
veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I am a man dreaming I was a
butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming I am a man.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Let’s not be too sure
we are what we believe we are. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Adi Shankaracharya
was passing through Srivali village near Udupi in Karnataka when a man called
Prabhakara came and invited the master for bhiksha in his house. When the
acharya went there, the man introduced his son to him – a thirteen year old boy
who had never spoken. Bhagavan Shankaracharya looked into the boy’s eyes and
realized he was looking at a highly advanced soul. “Who are you,” asked the
master with a smile on his face. Prabhakara was confused because he had just
introduced the boy as his son, that too s a son who couldn’t speak. But as soon
as the master asked the question, a amazing torrent of philosophical shlokas
came out of the boy, as though a spring was bursting forth from the
underground, astounding everyone but the master. What he said became
subsequently known as Hastamalaka Stotra, the only philosophical work in the
history of the world on which the author’s guru wrote a commentary. This is how
the boy begins his answer to the master’s question:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">naaham
manushyo na cha deva-yakshau<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">na
braahmana-kshtriya-vaisya-shoodraah<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">na
brahmachaari na grihee vanastho<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">bikshur
na chaaham nija-bodha-roopah<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I am
not a man or a god or a yaksha;<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I am
not a brahmana, a kshatriya, vaishya or shudra<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I am
not a brahmachari, a householder or a forest dweller <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Nor am I a sannyasi;
what I am is pure consciousness of the self.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The young boy
Hastamalaka continues in this strain until he expresses the entire philosophy
that the acharya has been teaching travelling round the country! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Hastamalaka’s is yet
another of the innumerable stories that tell us what we really are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There is an ancient
story about Indra living as a pig. The story is about the Pauranic Indra, who
is a symbol of the unmastered human mind, and not of the Vedic Indra, who is the
symbol of the awakened mind, of the no-mind, of pure consciousness. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The story says that
Indra once offended his guru Brihaspati and was cursed to be born on earth as a
pig. Over the years Indra living as a pig had a sow for his wife and several
piglets by her for his children. He had no memories of being anything other
than the pig – no memories of Indrani, no memories of the apsaras, kinnaris,
yakshinis and gandharvis, no memories of the heavenly throne and the heavenly
garden, no memories of celestial drinks, food, dance or music, no memories of
the devarshis or Brihaspati, no memories of his curse. Quite some time passed
this way, Indra fully immersed in his life as a pig.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">However things were
not fine in the world of the gods because their king was absent and Brahma
decided to bring Indra back. He visited the earth where Indra the pig was
living amid dirt and squalor and told him who he really was. And Indra turned
to him asked, “Me, Indra! That’s impossible. I have always been a pig and that
is what I am going to remain always. I am perfectly contented with my sow and
my piglets. And look at the comfort I live in! What more can I desire?” And
Indra looked around triumphantly with a smile on his lips, standing in the
middle of a world of nauseating filth and stench, as though he is a great
achiever, refusing to take one step away from it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Ancient Indian
spiritual tradition believed in beginning at the highest level and slowly
coming down to lower levels, perhaps so that the advanced aspirants could be
taken care of first and then the others who need more attention. Thus the Kena
Upanishad, for instance, begins by teaching the highest truth and then later
teaches the same truth in the form of a story – that of an encounter between Goddess
Uma and the gods. Finally, the Upanishad ends by asking those who have not yet
understood these teachings to practice austerities [tapas], mastery of the body
and the senses [dama], the yoga of rituals and dedicated actions [karma] etc.
which will ready their mind for higher understanding. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Following this
tradition, Krishna too begins the teachings of the Gita with the highest level by
speaking of the true nature of ourselves and then gradually comes down to lower
truths. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Krishna tells Arjuna
that we are not the marana-dharma beings we think we are. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are immortals who have existed from the
beginning of time and will always exist:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">na twevaaham
jaatu naasam na twam neme janaadhipaah<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">na chaiva na
bhavishyaamah sarve vayam atah param. 2.12<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">It is not that I did not exist before now, nor you or
these kings. Nor shall we cease to exist in future.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">This is India’s great teaching, teaching that takes
all life into a different dimension, gives a different meaning to death, a
different colour to all our ambitions, aspirations and achievements, to all our
struggles in life, to all our stress and strain and pains, to all the goals we
set for ourselves, goals others set for us. It changes everything. This
teaching tells us to focus on the journey and not on the goal because life is a
journey without a destination. It is a journey undertaken not to reach
anywhere, not to achieve anything, but to enjoy the journey itself, like a
rafting adventure down a torrent undertaken not to reach anywhere but for the
pleasure of it, a rock climbing done not to reach anywhere but for the thrill
of the climbing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Years ago one of my students along with several of
his friends undertook a journey by cycle from our town to Pithoragarh in
Uttarakhand, covering some thirteen hundred kilometers oen way. The purpose
obviously was not to reach Pithoragarh – there are much easier ways for that. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Once in Rishikesh many years ago, together with a
young monk I met there, I <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>planned a
trekking trip along the Ganga. Our plan was to start at Gomukh and trek right down
to Gangasagar where the Ganga meets the ocean – not for any specific purpose
but for the adventure of it – we both loved the Ganga, she was a mother to us
and we wanted to be with her, making the same journey she has been making for
hundreds of thousands of years. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In the 1980s I conducted a series of personality
develop programmes for Tata Steel, selecting young people through their
Community and Social Welfare Department, for the first programme of which we
had 180 enrollments. As part of these programmes we used to trek up the Dalma
mountains in Jamshedpur, part of the Vindhya ranges. The programmes of course
were not undertaken for reaching the top of the mountains – there were much
easier ways for that. We just wanted to enjoy the pleasure of the climb, the
pleasure of the night camp and the camp fire there, feel the thrill of trekking
through thick forests that were haunts of wild elephants, tigers and other
animals.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Life too is like that, the Gita teaches us. Life is
the greatest adventure sport, the greatest stage play, the greatest movie there
is. India calls it leela, kreeda. In the stories of Krishna, it is called raasa
– raasa kreeda, raasa leela.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">If we can say that there is any purpose, it is to
realize what we are, what life is all about and then to continue the play
knowing that it is a play, not identifying with the characters, not identifying
with their joys and sorrows, not bound by them, but in freedom. Then we will be
able to say at the end of it all that we played our role well, that it was
great playing that role. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Our highest dharma is
living for awakening, our only true dharma. This is what many mystics across
the world belonging to different traditions call the mystical death. It is this
mystical death that makes Jesus capable of saying “I and my father are one”. It
is this that made the rishis of yore say I am brahman, aham brahmasmi. This is
the highest experience in life, this mystical death, and if there could be any
purpose, it is to experience this and become free from the notion of the ego
that shackles us every day, colours every moment of our life. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Maro he jogi, maro,”
said the great master Gorakhnath, considered one of the four greatest masters
India has known, the other three being Krishna, Buddha and Patanjali.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was not speaking of physical death, but about
mystical death, the death of the ego and waking up into universal
consciousness. But then like Gorakhnath’s own guru we forget that and start
living the life of maya, of delusion, start taking the life of the senses for
real, the life of our desires for real and have to be woken up again and again.
Maya is like shaivala, water plants that grow on the surface of water in a pond
or lake, says ancient wisdom. When you want to drink the cool water under the
shaivala, you push them away with the back of your hands and gather water in
the cup of your palms. But a moment later they come back and cover the surface
again so that if you want to drink more water, you have to push them away
again. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Krishna wants each
one of us to live our lives joyously knowing it is only a leela, a play in
which we are playing the roles we are given. The Bard of Avon was right when he
said “All the world's a stage, and all the men
and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances; and one
man in his time plays many parts,” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But joyfulness is
difficult under the shadow of death. So Krishna reminds us that death is not
real, it is not the end of everything, it is not a dreadful monster waiting
with its mouth open to swallow us, we do not have to live cringing in its fear.
He wants us to walk the earth like the giants we really are, taking confident
strides, and not taking tiny steps like Lilliputians. We are mighty trees, not
bonsais. That is why India raised fearlessness to the level of God and said
abhayam vai brahma, fearlessness is brahman. Abhayam is central to Krishna’s
wisdom of life. His words in the Gita remind us of the mantras of the
Upanishads as they talk to us: shrinvantu sarve amritasya putraah – listen ye,
sons of immortality. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is only when we
are fearless that we can live in utsava bhava in the world because it is only
then that we can forget ourselves. Without forgetting the ego there is no
utsava bhava. All fears belong to the ego. Our true self knows no fears. To the
extent we are egoless, to that extent we can celebrate. And when we are
completely egoless, our entire life becomes a celebration. Egolessness is
festivity, celebration, utsava. Adi Shankaracharya says in the Bhaja Govindam:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">yogarato va bhogarato va sangarato va sangavihinah <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">yasya
brahmani ramate chittam nandati nandati nandatyeva</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Let him be engaged in
yoga, let him be engaged in bhoga [sensual pleasures], he whose mind roams in
brahman, he just rejoices, rejoices and rejoices. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Of all the
Upanishads, it is to the Katha Upanishad that the Gita comes closest. And the
Upanishad has this to say about us, about our true self, about our true nature,
and about death: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">yasya
brahma cha kshatram cha ubhe bhavata odanah; <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">mrtyur yasya upasechanam....
Katha Up.1.2.25<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“You are that to
which the entire brahmanas and kshatriyas of the world are but a meal. Death is
nothing more chutney for you to lick up!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">To Krishna death is
no more than another life change. “Just as in this body the self passes from
childhood to youth and old age,” says he, “so too after death it passes to
another body. The intelligent do not grieve over this.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But can we use this
knowledge in our workaday world? In our factories and corporate offices? In our
markets and banks, in our hotels and kitchens? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Krishna says at the
beginning of the fourth chapter of the Gita that this knowledge was originally
taught to kings. If kings of yore could rule entire kingdoms using this
knowledge and excel in what he did, then being the head of a corporate house today
is no big deal. You may be the head of global organization, a multinational
company or just a small division, this knowledge empowers you more than
anything else does. With this knowledge, there will be a different quality to
your work, a different music to it, a different rhythm, a different fragrance. You
will be beyond the reach of the demon of tensions and stress then, beyond the
demon of meaningless, beyond the demon of anxieties and fears. Just as the
thickest darkness cannot touch the sun, worries and problems will not be able
to touch you. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">With this knowledge, our
dysfunctional mental and emotional patterns like anger, fear, anxiety, sadness
and the sense of self-limitations will fall away. Today the corporate world
drains us of our energy, exhausts us completely, many of us reach back home in
the evening after a day’s work totally fatigued and a feeling of having been
sucked dry, with no energy left but even to rest and reequip for yet another similar
day. Fatigue builds upon fatigue and reduce us to shapeless masses like
overheated rubber. Instead, with this knowledge, we will be as fresh at the end
of the day as when we woke up.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Our self-image will
improve, hostility levels, rigidity, depression and so on will be reduced, yur
sensitivity, sociability, tolerance, and so on will go way up, improving our
interpersonal relations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We will have
better capacity to initiate contacts, greater inner control, and our emotional
and energy blocks will be removed, helping us enjoy what we do better. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Living this knowledge in the corporate world, we
will have increased energy levels, drive, and the sense of power. Emotionally we
will become more stable and spontaneous. Since our stress levels go way down, we
will have increased capacity to deal calmly and decisively with the challenges
the world throws at us. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">With this knowledge, we
will be able to come out of the cocoon in which you have been living all these
years. We will not have to hide from light any more, we won’t have to hide in
our personal jungles and caves. We will come out of the narrow vision of life
and will be able to float with life with as the messiah of Richard Bach’s Illusions
does. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Once there lived a
village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. The current of
the river swept silently over them all – young and old, rich and poor, good and
evil, the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Each creature in its
own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for
clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned
from birth. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“But one creature
said at last, ‘I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I
trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take
me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom.’<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“The other creatures
laughed and said, ‘Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you
tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom.’<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“But the one heeded
them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed
by the current across the rocks. Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling
again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt
no more.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“And the creatures
downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, ‘See a miracle! A creature like
ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all!’ <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“And the one carried
in the current said, ‘I am no more Messiah than you. The river delights to lift
us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure.’<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“But they cried the
more, ‘Saviour!”’ all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked
again he was gone and they were left alone making legends of a Saviour.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This is how Krishna
want us to live. This is how Krishna wants us to be. Whether we are in a
factory or in the market, in a corporate office or on a construction site, in a
flight or in a battlefield. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Surrendering to
existence, accepting life in its totality, fighting the battles of life
fearlessly, with loka-sangraha as the only goal, living for the good of others.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Jataka Tales of
the Buddha tells us of five hundred of Buddha’s past lifetimes, in each of
which he lived fearlessly for others.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>Satya Chaitanyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749603528440573740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2435755112654764920.post-80015176855359689792020-12-11T04:37:00.002-08:002020-12-11T04:37:33.882-08:00Living Bhagavad Gita 29: Krishna Smiles<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoqhVqplZVHprcSd5W2CpPiFEeasbyeKRJs7jxuTaQLiQOA20zxyFlDNF1Q1_jXNvbcGUDp7uFkQtphaRNQzYBytF86DtM_u5kEwqpjIcNi9mpBSrefadLOgbWOKwxPvVHy4sv1xzVsbFo/s400/Flying+RAdha+Krishna.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="275" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoqhVqplZVHprcSd5W2CpPiFEeasbyeKRJs7jxuTaQLiQOA20zxyFlDNF1Q1_jXNvbcGUDp7uFkQtphaRNQzYBytF86DtM_u5kEwqpjIcNi9mpBSrefadLOgbWOKwxPvVHy4sv1xzVsbFo/s320/Flying+RAdha+Krishna.jpeg" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoBodyText"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">A series
of short articles on the Bhagavad Gita for people living and working in our
volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times filled with stress and fear.
This scripture born in a battlefield teaches us how to face our challenges,
live our life fully, achieve excellence in whatever we do and find happiness,
peace and contentment.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">[Continued from
the previous post.]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">sri bhagavaan
uvaacha </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">ashochyaan anvashochastwam </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">prajnaavaadaamshcha bhaashase </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">gataasoon agataasoomshcha </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">naanushochanti
panditaah // 2.11 //<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Shri Krishna said: </span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“<i>You speak words of
wisdom and yet grieve over those you should not grieve for! The wise do not
grieve either for the dead or for the living.” BG 2.11</i><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<h2 style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></h2>
<h2 style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Sensitivity is a measure of how human we are. Throughout
his life, Arjuna was a very sensitive man. He is among the most sensitive of
all people in the Mahabharata – sensitive to people, sensitive to ethics,
sensitive to values like commitment and loyalty. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<h2 style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Of the three gunas the Gita speaks about
devoting practically three full chapters out of eighteen to it, sattva, the
upward tendency, is the highest. And sensitivity is a sattvic quality. Tamas is
the opposite of sattva. Tamas makes us insensitive – to ourselves and others,
to values and ethics. <o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<h2 style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Sensitivity is one of the most precious human
qualities. It is this that makes us human. Insensitivity plunges us into
monstrous worlds of darkness – the kind of worlds that the Upanishads speak of
when they say asuryaa naama te lokaah andhena tamasaavrtaah – sunless worlds swathed
in blinding darkness. <o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<h2 style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">All the atrocities in the world are committed
by insensitive men and women. When sensitive people commit horrid acts, it is
in those rare moments when they are rendered insensitive by the demons of
anger, jealousy, vengeance, lust and other asuri powers. <o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<h2 style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Power without sensitivity gives birth to the
monsters of the world. The serial killers of the world, the rapists, those who
practice human slavery, human trafficking and forced prostitution are all powerful
people without sensitivity. Hitler who wanted to wipe out the entire Jewish
race and under whose extermination programme six million Jews died is an example
for what insensitivity can make us do. People like Dr Joseph Mengele known as
the angel of death who conducted hair-raisingly ghastly medical experiments in
Auschwitz death camps are possible only with insensitivity. <o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<h2 style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">The inquisition in Europe lasted for several
hundred years beginning in the 12<sup>th</sup> century and led to the deaths of
innumerable innocent people. This meant particularly unspeakable horrors to
women accused of being witches who were tortured using instruments specifically
invented for the purpose until they confessed and when they did that unable to
stand the torture, they were burnt at stake. It has been said that the
inquisition systematically wiped out for centuries every single woman in Europe
who showed any sign of light within her. The cruelties of Stalin in Russia, slavery
of black people in America, the atrocities of King Leopold of Belgium in
colonial Africa and colonial powers all over the world, the dropping of the
atom bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasati which wiped out entire cities and killed
several lakhs of innocent people and caused generations of children to be born mutilated
because of radiation were possible because of human insensitivity. <o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<h2 style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">The caste system born of the failure and decay
of the varna experiment that India began in the Vedic times resulted in living
hell for millions of people. Until a few generations ago, I have read, the so
called untouchables in some parts of the country were forced to walk backward when
they used public road, with broom tied at their waist so that as they walked
their footprints were automatically wiped out – the footprints polluted the
upper classes if they stepped on them. <o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<h2 style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Another result of human insensitivity.<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<h2 style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Insensitivity has many faces. <o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<h2 style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Sometime back I was in a coastal town giving a
training programme to the executives of a company on behalf of XIM Bhubaneswar.
The programme was on stress management and work/life management. During our
discussions I asked the officers about the various ways they managed stress.
One of the answers was fishing – something practiced for fun and relaxation all
over the world. Since it is so common, we do not realize what it means for the
fish. I remember seeing the movie I Know What You Did Last Summer in which we
see a giant hook a man carries as he stalks a group of young people – the hook
is big enough to go into the mouth of people and come out through the top of
their head. The hooks we use to fish do precisely the same thing for fish –
they enter the mouths of fish and come out through their heads. From the
standpoint of the fish, the hooks we use are the same size as the giant hook we
see in I Know What You Did Last Summer. <o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<h2 style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">We really do not think. We really do not feel.
And we are taught fish do not feel pain and we are willing to believe it
because it is very convenient to us. All we have to do to learn the truth is to
open our eyes and see fish in their moments of death as they thrash about in
the air hanging from the hook. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<h2 style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">I was on my morning walk one day when I came
across this sight some two minutes away from my home. There were two or three
men standing under the overhanging branches of a tall roadside tree. The men
were looking up and calling aloud “Mithoo, Mithoo” and I looked up too – there
was a pretty green parrot with a red beak perched on one of the topmost
branches – a beautiful parrot that instantly reminded me of J. Krishnamurti’s
green parrot with a red beak on the dry branch of a green tree against dark
rain clouds in the sky, a sight that sent the master into instant samadhi. <o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<h2 style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">And then I heard a sweet female voice – one of
the sweetest female voices I have ever heard. The voice was calling out “Mithoo,
Mithoo,” the most common pet name in north India for a parrot. Looking in the
direction of the melting voice, I saw an beautiful young woman – tall, slender,
fair, intelligent looking, her eyes sparkling, her skin aglow. it is as though
she lighted up the whole street as she walked in the direction of tree. And
then I saw it in her hand – a beautiful cage! The love in her voice was as
though she was calling her child who is playing under the tree, but it was for
the parrot. Mithoo was her pet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">She came and stood
under the tree and called Mithoo to her again and again. And the parrot
answered every call, his voice no less sweet than hers. Soon several men on the
morning walk stopped and they too started calling out Mithoo, Mithoo – who
wouldn’t want to help a sweet girl like her? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But Mithoo had
tasted the girl’s love and preferred the dangers of the free world to the
comfort of the nest she had for him. One instant he was there on the tree and
the next instant he had spread his wings and taken off. I sighed deeply in
relief. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Caging birds and
clipping their wings are considered to be acts of affection for them! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Our cosmetic
industry and our fashion industry are very insensitive to animals and birds
that share our world with us. We justify our cruelty to them by saying God has created
them for us, for our consumption, a belief India does not subscribe to. All our
prayers have always been for all living beings, never for men alone. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It requires
sensitivity to see that every living creature has as much claim on the
resources of the earth as we have. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">O0O <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">When Arjuna
refuses to kill his own people, what we see is this mighty warrior listening to
the voice of sensitivity from within his heart, albeit at the moment that
sensitivity is only towards his own people. True, Arjuna is emotionally
hijacked, many of the arguments he gives do not stand rational enquiry, but the
core of his arguments is not wrong: How can you live happily after killing your
own people? A sensitive person will ask that question. And it is this
sensitivity that qualifies Arjuna for the teachings of the Gita. Minus that
sensitivity, he would not be fit for the Gita. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The Gita is only
for sensitive people. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">There are around
five hundred Jataka Tales – stories about Buddha’s past lifetimes. And every
single one of them speaks of Buddha’s sensitivity and sacrifice for others. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Spiritual growth
is only for the sensitive. The insensitive have no place in the spiritual
world. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">India tells the
story of Goddess Manasa, worshipped widely in many parts of the country,
particularly in Bengal, Bihar and north-eastern India.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Mahabharata knows Manasa by another name,
or by no name at all, depending on how you look at her story. Her story as told
by the epic, read between the lines, is one of total self-sacrifice, of
sacrificing the ego and its needs for the good of others. And whoever
sacrifices the ego becomes divine, rises to the level of God. Because minus the
ego each one of us is God, as the Gita teaches us. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We are told
Manasa’s story as part of the story of Janamejaya’s snake sacrifice, the sarpa
satra. As Janamajaya begins his snake sacrifice, thousands of snakes come and
fall into the roaring sacrificial fire, to be reduced to ashes. The sacrifice
is Janamejaya’s revenge on the snake people, the Nagas, because Takshaka, the
Naga chief had bitten his father Parikshit and killed him. Despair spreads
throughout the Naga world and they are told by Brahma that the son born to the
Naga Vasuki’s sister and the wandering ascetic Jaratkaru will save the Nagas
from Janamejaya’s wrath. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The ascetic
Jaratkaru, however, does not want to marry. Forced by the spirits of his
ancestors he agrees to marry on certain conditions – someone should come and
offer a young woman to him as his wife, he would in no way take care of her,
but she should be completely obedient to him and serve him in total humility. And
the first time she offends him, he would abandon her. One of his conditions is
that the woman he marries should have the same name as him – which could be
read as his demand that she should lose her name, her identity, her everything
in his service, she should not exist in any way except to serve him. Naga Vasuki
comes and tells Jaratkaru that he has a sister with the same name as his and
offers her to him in marriage saying that all his conditions are acceptable to
him and his sister. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The Naga maiden’s
story is told by the Mahabharata, the Devi Bhagavata Purana and Brahmavaivarta
Purana. The Brahmavaivarta Purana tells us that such is Jaratkaru’s total
rejection of his wife that for a long time he even refuses to sleep with her,
preferring to sleep under a fig tree. Eventually however she – Jaratkaru to
Mahabharata and Manasa to some other tellings of her story – conceives. One day
while the ascetic is sleeping with his head on her lap, the sun begins to set
and she, afraid that her husband might miss his evening worship, wakes him up.
The angry sage shouts at her in fury saying that the sun has no power to set
before he performed his evening sandhya and abandons his wife for displeasing
him. Before leaving her he however tells her she is pregnant – there is a child
growing in her womb. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The child is
subsequently named Astika, meaning someone who exists, from the word asti
spoken by his father before leaving his mother, reassuring her a child exists
in her womb. It is this Astika who saves the Nagas from Janamejaya’s wrath. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Jaratkaru-Manasa’s
story is one of sacrificing her everything, her personal needs and desires, her
hopes and ambitions, even her name, for the good of others. which is possible
only when you deeply sensitive to other’s suffering and their needs. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">To India such
sensitivity to other’s needs and sufferings was always precious. It is this
sensitivity in him that qualified Arjuna for the Gita. And the Gita would be
meaningful to us only when we are deeply sensitive. To the insensitive the Gita
will be just an intellectual exercise, if anything at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Krishna’s presence
and his teachings mean nothing to an insensitive man like Duryodhana, though
Krishna was available to him too as much as he was to Arjuna, because he lacked
sensitivity to other’s sufferings that is the first requirement to begins the
spiritual journey. He is obsessed with power and would do anything for power –
he makes the innumerable attempts on the life of his cousins and their mother. During
Krishna’s peace negotiations in the Kuru assembly, every time Krishna makes a
request for peace, Duryodhana counters it with a single question: but who has
more power, they or we? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Obsession with
power destroys your sensitivity to other people and to the world around you. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Krishna does not
want Arjuna to become like Duryodhana. Krishna loves Arjuna’s sensitivity. Had
he not, he would not have helped him elope with his sister Subhadra, nor would
he have stood with him in thick and thin throughout their life. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So when Krishna
asks Arjuna to kill Bhishma and Drona in battle, he is not asking him to be
insensitive, but to do that in spite of his sensitivity because there is no
other way. When you destroy the edifice of adharma, the pillars on which it is
built also will have to be destroyed – and that is what Krishna asking Arjuna
to do. The evil empire of Duryodhana is built on the strength of Bhishma and
Drona and without destroying them, there is no way that empire could be built.
So along with Duryodhana, Shakuni and Karna who is Duryodhana’s greatest source
of strength, these two noble souls too will have be killed. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But that is
precisely what Arjuna does not want to do. He cannot imagine killing in battle
his guru and his grandsire. And that centrally is the problem for which he is
seeking Krishna’s guidance. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Unfortunately at Arjuna’s
level there is no answer for that problem so Ajuna has to be taken to a higher
dimension – from the vyavaharika dimension to the paramarthika one. So Krishna
points out that from a higher dimension we can see things differently. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And that higher dimension is what he begins teaching with the words<i>: </i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“<i>You speak words of wisdom and yet grieve
over those you should not grieve for! The wise do not grieve either for the
dead or for the living.” BG 2.11</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In the Mundaka
Upanishad we see Shaunaka approaching Rishi Angiras in humility and asking him,
“Bhagavan, what is it knowing which everything else becomes known?” “Kasmin nu
bhagavo vijnaate sarvam idam vijnaatam bhavati?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And Rishi Angiras
tells him, “There are two kinds of knowledge that we can acquire: the higher
and the lower.” The rishi then explains, “The lower knowledge consists of the
Rig Veda, the Yajur Veda, the Sama Veda, the Atharva Veda, phonetics, the
science of rituals, grammar, etymology, prosody and astronomy.” Basically the
seer is listing all sciences that existed in his days. And then he explains
what the higher knowledge is: “It is that through which the Imperishable is
attained.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We have a very
similar story told by the Chhandogya Upanishad too. Here we have Narada
approaching Sanat Kumara requesting him to teach him. Sanat Kumara tells him,
“Tell me what you have already learnt and then I shall teach you what is beyond
that.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Narada now lists
all he has learnt: Rig Veda, Yajur Veda, Sama Veda Atharva Veda; thee epics and
the Puranas; mathematics, the science of auguries, the science of divining
hidden treasures, logic, political science, the science of administration,
astrology, astronomy, the six limbs of the Vedas, dance, music, art, the
science of the spirits, the science of the gods... And then he adds that in
spite all this knowledge he still grieves. He tells Sanat Kumara he has heard
that those who know their own self go beyond all sorrows and requests him to
teach him self-knowledge and take him beyond grief. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which is what Sanat Kumara does. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">At the end of
every chapter of the Gita we are told that it is both brahma avidya and yoga
shastra – brahmavidyaayaam yogashaastre. Brahma vidya shows us the path and the
destination, and yoga shastra helps us walk that path. It is this brahma vidya
and yoga shastra that Krishna is has begun to teach Arjuna. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Krishna has a
smile on his face as he begins his teaching. The smile is not, as a great Sanskrit
commentator has said, mocking Arjuna. It is not a smile of superiority though
Krishna is definitely superior to Arjuna. It is not a smile of arrogance
because the egoless cannot be arrogant. It is a smile of pure joy. Joy because
Arjuna is finally showing the eagerness to go beyond all he has learnt and to
learn the higher knowledge, the para vidya as the Upanishads call it, knowing
which everything else becomes as good as known. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Krishna’s is a
teacher’s joy at finding a student fit for his teachings. A teacher’s greatest
joy is finding the right student. Which in the spiritual world means a student
who has completely surrendered to him and is ready to open his eyes to the
highest knowledge. A student whose surrender is unconditional, who expects
nothing in return for his surrender but the grace of the teacher.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Krishna also
smiles because the auspicious moment has come for him to give the world his
greatest gift: the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita. He smiles because he sees
time has come for spirituality to climb to a higher peak, for the world to soar
to a higher dimension. He smiles because human consciousness is now going to
soar into boundless skies where it will blossom in its fullness. He smiles
because now man will not have to give up all he is doing and seek what he wants
in caves and monasteries but can attain it where he is now, even if it is a
battlefield where he is called upon to slaughter his own people. He smiles
because time has come for man to effortlessly break free from all his shackles
and become what he has always been: existence without limits, bliss without
bounds and consciousness without confines. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">He smiles because
he is going to show man how to wake up to the truth of what he is without doing
anything different for it but by doing whatever he has been doing differently. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Para vidya does
not require you to memorize the Vedas or any other scriptures. It does not
require you to perform elaborate rituals. It does not require you to torture
yourself by standing on one leg or fasting for days on end. It does not require
you to abandon your wife and children, your home and responsibilities, your
career and profession. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And there is no
question of your making errors of omission or commission here – of vidhi or
nishedha. No abhikrama-naasha – sin of abandoning a ritual in the middle. No
pratyavaaya – punishment for procedural errors. And even a little of this helps
us transcend our great fear – svalpam api asya dharmasya traayate mahato
bhayaat. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Doing nothing
different but by doing things differently, Krishna’s path awakens us to the
truth of what we are and helps us live your life as a festivity, in utsava
bhava – with a smile on our lips, serving those around us, with no goals for ourselves
because we are not here to achieve things but to enjoy this dance of
consciousness called life, this dance of prakriti and purusha that happens as
much in the cosmos as in every cell of our body, in our breath itself. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Can Krishna help smiling?
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Photo courtesy: unknown painter</span></p>Satya Chaitanyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749603528440573740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2435755112654764920.post-17253888767091415922020-12-10T18:11:00.001-08:002020-12-10T18:11:39.380-08:00Living Bhagavad Gita 28: Our Sorrows Are Unfounded <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfN-Fcpm5veVdKzt9XzuV_Mx3_8gegMOOJrQNGWT1KYlmXl7wm3G5cQA-phWYPqA9abK_8c7pOqUVTNu9xFDNZMxNnoaKO5azaMqTMDSbYy9Z3TfjBv8f4J_PAMBzwBj2CGLNTziCFoRlX/s700/radha-krishna-3-alpana-lele.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfN-Fcpm5veVdKzt9XzuV_Mx3_8gegMOOJrQNGWT1KYlmXl7wm3G5cQA-phWYPqA9abK_8c7pOqUVTNu9xFDNZMxNnoaKO5azaMqTMDSbYy9Z3TfjBv8f4J_PAMBzwBj2CGLNTziCFoRlX/s320/radha-krishna-3-alpana-lele.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoBodyText"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">A series of short
articles on the Bhagavad Gita for people living and working in our volatile,
uncertain, complex and ambiguous times filled with stress and fear. This
scripture born in a battlefield teaches us how to face our challenges, live our
life fully, achieve excellence in whatever we do and find happiness, peace and
contentment.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">[Continued from
the previous post.]<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">sanjaya
uvaacha </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">evam uktwaa hrishikesham gudakeshah parantapah </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">na yotsya iti govindam uktwaa tooshneem babhoova ha // 2.9 // </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">tam uvaacha hrisheekeshah prahasanniva bhaarata </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">senayor
ubhayor madhye visheedantam idam vachah // 2.10 //</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">sri bhagavaan
uvaacha </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">ashochyaan anvashochastwam prajnaavaadaamshcha bhaashase </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">gataasoon
agataasoomshcha naanushochanti panditaah // 2.11 // <i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Sanjaya
said: Having spoken thus, Arjuna told Krishna he would not fight and became
silent. And then Krishna, spoke these words to Arjuna who was thus depressed
between the two armies. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Krishna
said: </span></i><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“<i>You
speak words of wisdom and yet grieve over those you should not grieve for! The
wise do not grieve either for the dead or for the living.” BG 2.9-11</i><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Speech and the sense of power and powerlessness are
closely related. In our moments of power we do not feel compelled to speak. We
speak when necessary and say just what needs to be said. We can see this all
around us. In movies based on powerful characters, like the Hindi movie Sarkar
with Amitabh Bachhan in the lead role and the English movie Lincoln with Daniel
Day-Lewis in the lead role, also portray powerful people who speak very little.
Both Sarkar and Lincoln wield enormous power – Sarkar as the uncrowned king of
Mumbai and Lincoln as the elected president of the United States, and both are
sure of their power and for that reason they do not feel compelled to speak
except when necessary. But the powerless feel compelled by their powerlessness
to speak. They blabber in an attempt to don the robes of power and the very
blabbering betrays their lack of power.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">At the moment Arjuna, the mighty warrior, the
greatest archer of the day, is feeling completely powerless. In a simple
situation – like in a battlefield facing true enemies – Arjuna is sure of
himself, but right now the situation is not at all simple. The enemies are
people whom he loves and reveres – his gurus, his grandsire. And he just does
not know what to do. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">So strong are the feelings in Arjuna’s heart that
even after surrendering to Krishna and asking him to teach him, he is not able
to stop. The pain in his heart still comes out in more words, like a vehicle
that keeps moving because of its momentum even after the engine has been shut
off. So before stopping and becoming silent, announcing his decision not to
fight, he adds that he does not see that even getting sovereignty over the
entire kingdom, even after becoming the unrivalled master of the Kuru empire,
his sorrow will not be alleviated. Why, he tells Krishna, his sorrow is not
going to go away even if he gets lordship over the gods. When he says this, he
is not saying anything new, but only repeating what he has already said in
other words earlier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">All his life Arjuna has lived under the belief that
he would be happy if he and his brothers became the undisputed rulers over the
Kuru kingdom, under the belief that his unhappiness was because he is not the
master of the kingdom. He had gone on successful digvijayas earlier, on
conquering kings of the land through wars, and the underlying belief was that
if you become the ruler over all the other kings of the land then you would be
happy. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">There is no doubt that if you conquer all the kings
of the land, if you become bigger and more powerful than all of them, there
will be a sense of achievement. But will that make you happy? Did other kings
in the past who conquered all attain happiness? That is a question we do not
ask in our race to conquer all, to be more famous and successful than all
others, to be wealthier than all others, to own bigger cars and bungalows than
our neighbours. The underlying belief that wealth will bring us happiness, fame
will bring us happiness, power will bring us happiness.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Krishna too fought wars – several of them. He
fought with Jarasandha seventeen wars, but none of them was for power. He
wanted Mathura to be left free and all the wars with Jarasandha were for that –
for the freedom of his land. He fought wars with Kashiraja, with Salva, with
Paundraka Vasudeva, but not one of them was for power. Every one of them was
for destroying adharma. When a ruler was adharmic, he fought with him and after
slaying him, he gave power over to someone who was dharmic – usually the
emperor’s or king’s son himself if he was dharmic. For instance, after the
death of Jarasandha, his son Sahadeva was installed king. Not once did Krishna
entertain the belief that through power over another he would be happy. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Krishna was born with the knowledge that Arjuna has
just had. Unrivalled kingdoms do not give you happiness, nor does power over
the gods themselves. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Nahusha’s is the story of a king who was given
power over the gods. Indra had to go into hiding for a sin he had committed –
the sin of brahmahatya, killing a brahmana. Nahusha was the most powerful king
on earth at that time and he is requested to take over as Indra. Nahusha
politely refuses saying that he is a mortal with limited powers and so cannot
rule over the gods. The gods then give him a boon – half the power of anyone on
whom Nahusha’s eyes fall will go to Nahusha. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Nahusha takes over as the ruler of heaven and for a
while everything goes well. But gradually he falls a prey to the irresistible
temptations of the world of the gods – the drinks, the music, the dances and of
course, the apsaras, each of whom more alluring than the others. His life
plunges into the quicksand of sensuality and he starts spending every moment of
life in indulging in sensual pleasures. Over time he has every apsara in the
celestial world in his bed. It is then that he sees a woman passing by Nandana,
the celestial garden of Indra, a woman more beautiful than any apsara, a woman
who took his breath away. He asks the men with him who she is and is told it is
Indrani, the queen of Indra.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His now
wants Indrani in his bed, claiming he is now Indra and hence Indrani belongs to
him by right. His lust for Indrani eventually leads to his fall from heaven.
Even if you are all powerful, with power over the gods themselves, with every
god at your back and call, if you are a slave to desire, then you are bound to
fall. If the chaste Indrani had submitted herself to him, which does not happen
in the story, then he would have desired something else. The very desire for
things speaks of your lack of happiness. Why should a happy man be obsessed
with desire for something forbidden? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In his quest to conquer the entire known world,
Alexander had conquered all countries between Macedonia and India, hoping that the
conquest would make him happy, looting, plundering, pillaging, raping and
razing cities all through the way. And yet happiness had evaded him. That is
how he reached what the Greeks call a gymnosophist – in all probability a Jain
monk – on the Himalayas who was the happiest man he had encountered all through
his journey. The monk teaches him that you don’t need power to be happy, the
most powerful man in the world had nothing to give him that can increase his
happiness. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Krishna is not against success. Nor is he against
achievements or pleasures or anything else for that matter. He is easily the
most life assertive teacher known to man, who says speaking of himself as God
that he is desire in man, so long as that desire is not against dharma, so long
as it does not harm others – dharmaviruddhe bhooteshu kaamosmi bharatarshabha.
Perhaps no other master has said that God is desire – that is how life
assertive Krishna is. He teaches us to say yes to life – welcome life as it
comes with open arms, says he. But at the same time he cautions – neither fame,
nor achievements, not wealth or pleasures can give us happiness. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Because happiness is not something to be achieved,
it is not a destination at all, it is our very nature, though at the moment we
are not in touch with happiness because we have lost touch with our true
nature, because the mind has come between us and our true nature. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">India uses several names for the mind. One of them
is avidya – Ignorance, primal Ignorance, Ignorance of our true nature,
self-forgetfulness. Speaking of it, Bhagavan Shankaracharya says in the
Vivekechudamani: na hyastyavidyaa manaso’tiriktaa, mano hyavidyaa
bhava-bandha-hetuh; tasmin vinashte sakalam vinashtam, vijrimbhite’smin sakalam
vijribhate – there is no avidya other than the mind, the mind itself is the
avidya that is the cause of the bondage to samsara, the constantly changing
world; when that is destroyed, everything [that binds us] is destroyed and when
that manifests, everything comes into manifestation. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">That mind has to be stilled, silenced. And through
stilling and silencing, it has to be transcended, so that it does not come
between us and our real nature. It is the mind that blocks ananda and if the
mind is silenced, it no more blocks the happiness that is our true nature.
Making the mind still, which is the goal of yoga as Patanjali puts it,
reconnects us with ananda. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Obviously, if achievements make the mind still for
a few moments, then we do experience happiness. If fame makes the mind still
for a few moments, then we experience happiness in those moments until we go
back to the disturbed state of the mind, desiring something else. In the case
of a man who is hungry after wealth, his mind is quieted for a few moments when
he achieves wealth, until the desire for still more wealth asserts.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">This feeling that we can become happy through
achievements, through possessions is called maya, which is another name for the
mind. Maya tells us, do this and you will be happy. Be popular in the social
circles, you will be happy. Be the most powerful man around,you will be happy.
Boss over people, you will be happy. Accumulate wealth, you will be happy. And
we run after these things, forgetting that for each thing we obtain we have to
pay a heavy price. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In the world of Truth, everything is free. But in
the world of maya, everything has a price – and the price you have to pay is invariably
much more than the value of what you get. And frequently, you pay heavily and
get nothing in return – that is the world of maya. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">W. W. Jacob’s <i>The Monkey’s Paw</i> is one of the
world’s most famous short stories. Several radio adaptations of it have been
made and there are many stage plays and movies based on it. The story is
centered on a mummified monkey’s paw with magical powers that a British army
officer takes to England from India. The paw can fulfill three of your wishes,
but for every wish you will have to pay an unknown and terrible price.
Sergeant-Major Morris, the army officer, shows it to his friends the Whites
while he is in their home one evening and then throws it into the burning fire
in the fireplace telling the Whites he has had a horrible experience with it. But
Mr. White retrieves it and, after Morris leaves warning them again of the
hellish consequences that might follow if they used its powers, makes a wish on
it in a light mood – he wishes for the money they need to make the last installment
of the mortgage on their house, a not too large amount. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The next morning young Herbert White, the son of
the family, leaves for his work as usual and sometime later a man comes running
from the factory where he works, informing the Whites that there has been a
terrible accident in the factory, their son has been killed, his body mutilated
by a machine. The company, informs the man, takes the responsibility for the
accident and has decided to pay a sum as compensation – and the compensation,
the Whites learn, is exactly the amount for which Mr White had made the
wish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">A week passes after their son’s funeral when a
grief torn Mrs. White insists that her husband should make a wish for their
son’s return. In spite of the premonitions he has had about his son’s mutilated
and decomposing body coming to them, Mr. White submits to his wife’s insistence
and makes the wish. Such is his dread of what will happen now that the monkey’s
paw falls from his hand. He collapses into a chair. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">His wife goes to the window and opening it, peers
out looking for their son, holding a candle in her hand, which the wind from
the window blows out, filling the room with darkness. Nothing happens for a
couple of minutes and the old man, relieved, goes to his bed where his wife
joins him after a minute. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">And then they hear the first knock on the door. Mrs.
White gets up and runs to the door, Mr. White runs after her and holds her
back, asking what she is going to do. “It’s our son, Herbert,” she says, a
thousand emotions struggling against one another in her heart. “For God’s sake,
don’t let it in,” says he, mortal dread filling his voice. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The word Mr. White uses is ‘it’, not their son, not
Herbert.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The old woman frees herself from him and rushes to
the door to open it, but she is not able to pull the bolt free, she cannot
reach it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">There are repeated, urgent, insistent knocks on the
door. In the middle of the volley of knocks that reverberate through the house,
Mr White hears his wife dragging a chair to the door. He is on his knees and
hands on the ground frantically searching for the monkey’s paw on the floor in
the darkness. He wants to make his last wish. And as he hears the sound of the
bold slowly being pulled back by his wife, he finds the paw and makes that
final wish. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The knocking ceases suddenly. He hears the chair
being pulled back by his wife, the door being opened. A cold wind rushes into
the house. A loud wail of agony and unspeakable grief escapes from his wife. That
emboldens him and he gets up and rushes towards her and then beyond her to the
gate. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In the light of the flickering street lamp, he sees
that the dark street beyond the gate is quiet and deserted.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">O0O<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Maya is called ‘thagini” because she cheats us. And
she is so effective in her cheating that in spite of knowing she is cheating
us, we submit ourselves to her, we become playthings in her hands. She tells us
if you get that bigger house, you would be happy, if you get that better job,
you would be happy, if you get that beautiful woman or that handsome man, you
would be happy, if you get that Mercedes, you would be happy, if you have more
followers on the social media, you would be happy. She tells you what you need
to become happy is to become a powerful politician, a minister in the cabinet,
the Managing Director of the company...endless are the temptations she gives
us, and we can see all around us people who have got all these, reached all
these places and yet not happy. Her power is such that even the wisest of men
become helpless victims to her. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Jnaaninaam api chetaamsi devee bhagavatee hi saa
balaad aakrishya mohaaya mahaamaayaa pravartate, says the Saptashloki Bhagavata<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">She, the Goddess Mahamaya, draws to her by force
even the minds of wise men – that’s her way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">And the Bhagavad Gita is the way out of the world
of maya.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">What<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Arjuna
has realised is the truth: neither an unrivalled kingdom on earth nor the
overlordship of the gods can remove our unhappiness, neither can give us
happiness. Nothing that can be achieved through our efforts can. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Because happiness is not something to be
achieved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The secret of happiness is inner stillness, is
making the mind still.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">We are searching for happiness in the wrong place. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Rabia is the most famous female Sufi saint, the
greatest of them all. One evening a man saw her searching for something under a
street lamp and he asked her what she was looking for. “My needle,” Rabia told
him. The man joined the search and after some time another man joined them and
then another. Soon there was a small crowd of people looking for Rabia’s lost
needle under the street lamp, with no success. It was then that one of them
asked, “Mother, are you sure you lost the needle here?” And Rabia laughed and
said, “Of course not. I lost it at home”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“Why are you searching for it here, Mother?” asked
the confused man. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“Because there is no light at home,” said the wise
sage. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">We have lost what we are looking for somewhere else
and we are all searching for it in the wrong place. We have lost happiness in
the inner depths of our being and we are searching for it wherever there is
light out there – in the malls that are aglitter with light, in the political
arenas where power hungry politicians wrangle over power, in the boardrooms of
the corporate world, in five star hotels, in the arms of our beloveds, wherever
we find the glitter, light. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Artjuna has just realized that he is not going to
be happy even if he wins an undisputed kingdom or overlordship of the gods. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Sanjaya reports that after telling Krishna he will
not fight Arjuna becomes silent. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The moment Krishna has been waiting for has come.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The teachings of the Gita are about to begin.
Teachings that can pull the whole humanity out of the mess it is now, the mess
it has reduced itself to.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya – says the ancient prayer:
Led us from darkness to light. That darkness is our own creation and without
grace it cannot pull itself out of it. Krishna’s grace in the form of the
teachings of Gita is about to shower on us, as it does on Arjuna.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">And Krishna begins with a smile on his face: “<i>You
speak words of wisdom and yet grieve over those you should not grieve for! The wise
do not grieve either for the dead or for the living.” </i><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Our sorrows are all uncalled for.
They are unfounded. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TimesNewRoman\,Italic"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman,Italic";">O0O</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman,Italic";">Photo courtesy: Alpana Lele</span></p>Satya Chaitanyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749603528440573740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2435755112654764920.post-31501737901630886632020-12-10T18:01:00.001-08:002020-12-10T18:01:38.586-08:00Living Bhagavad Gita 27: The Surrender<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLt5NQ4eMQIg4MsaMjpphmVdYqCDQt4k8VEq3I7xVz7hTYpKYJhvB9A3lw50RtFef9z-tySAg7Q5kkv5hyrsoxfrQzYMzp3jtBPVRjg_RArvGaMFWva77IHrDzi5oABwrClbgQ_mjYupf7/s700/radha-krishna-3-alpana-lele.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLt5NQ4eMQIg4MsaMjpphmVdYqCDQt4k8VEq3I7xVz7hTYpKYJhvB9A3lw50RtFef9z-tySAg7Q5kkv5hyrsoxfrQzYMzp3jtBPVRjg_RArvGaMFWva77IHrDzi5oABwrClbgQ_mjYupf7/s320/radha-krishna-3-alpana-lele.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoBodyText"><i><span lang="EN-GB">A series of short articles on the
Bhagavad Gita for people living and working in our volatile, uncertain, complex
and ambiguous times filled with stress and fear. This scripture born in a
battlefield teaches us how to face our challenges, live our life fully, achieve
excellence in whatever we do and find happiness, peace and contentment.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></i><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">[Continued from the previous post.]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">arjuna
uvaacha </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">katham bheeshmam aham sankhye <o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">dronam cha madhusoodana <o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ishubhih pratiyotsyaami <o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">poojaarhaav arisoodana ll2.4 ll <o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">guroon ahatwaa hi mahaanubhaavaan
<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">shreyo bhoktum bhaikshyam apeeha
loke <o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hatwa arthakaamaamstu guroon
ihaiva <o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bhunjeeya bhogaan
rudhirapradigdhaan ll 2.5 ll<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">na chaitad vidmah kataran no
gareeyo <o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">yad waa jayema yadi vaa no
jayeyuh <o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">yaan eva hatwaa na jijeevishaamas
<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">te'vasthitaah pramukhe
dhaartaraashtraah ll 2.6 ll<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">kaarpanya dosho pahata swabhaavah
<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">pricchaami twaam dharma sammoodha
chetaah <o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">yacchreyah syaan nischitam broohi
tanme <o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">shishyaste'ham shaadhi maam twaam
prapannam ll 2.7 ll<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">na hi prapashyaami mamaapanudyaad
<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">yacchokam ucchoshanam
indriyaanaam <o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">avaapya bhoomaav asapatnam
riddham <o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">raajyam suraanaam api chaadhipatyam ll 2.8 ll</i><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Arjuna said:
How can I engage in battle with Bhishma and Drona shooting arrows at them,
Krishna? They are worthy of my worship! It is better to live in this world living
on alms than to slay these revered elders. The pleasures I shall have after slaying
them would be stained with their blood! I hardly know what’s better – whether
to conquer them or to be conquered by them. Those who are standing before us
are the Dhartarashtras, after killing whom we do not even wish to live.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">I am
completely confused about what is right and what is wrong. My mind is
overpowered by weakness. Tell me Krishna what is good for me! I am your
disciple. I take refuge in you. Teach me, please!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">I don’t see
that the grief that is burning up my senses would be quenched even if I obtain
the unrivalled kingdom – or lordship over the gods themselves. BG 2.4-8</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">O0O</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Krishna’s
attack on Arjuna in the previous two verses was truly hurting. His words fell on
his friend with the force of merciless whiplashes. He calls Arjuna’s behaviour
unbecoming of noble men, cowardliness, contemptible weakness of the heart and
so on. Krishna also speaks of the ill fame that will come to Arjuna through his
behaviour. For a warrior of the Mahabharata world, fame was of extreme
importance and ill fame a great horror. Later, as his teachings begin, Krishna
would again speak of censure of people if Arjuna did not fight. He rhetorically
ask Arjuna what could be sadder than that. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Another thing
warriors looked forward to was veera-swarga, the heaven of the heroes – and
Krishna tells Arjuna that his behaviour would deny him that too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kshatriyas in those days rushed into the
battlefield with the same enthusiasm with which they would go to their new
brides. To them, death was a glorious bride waiting for them with open arms.
The Mahabharata repeatedly describes warriors entering deep states of ecstasy
in the throes of death, for they knew they were going to heaven. And to be
denied heaven was indeed the ultimate tragedy. That is how Ashwatthama is
cursed by Krishna – he was cursed to wander the earth, denied of heaven, denied
further gati, onward journey, his body full of sores and diseases, for thousands
of years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">We can
practically see Arjuna squirming under Krishna’s lash. We can see his flesh
burning, his heart bleeding and his soul scorching under Krishna’s attack. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">What we hear
when Arjuna responds to Krishna is not the voice of a fearless hero, but the
pathetic voice of a man who finds no way out of the sad situation he is in. He
cannot fight the battle, and at the same time, he cannot give it up. Duryodhana
has been making the brothers and their mother run for their very life for
years, hiding in jungles among ferocious animals and rakshasas, subsisting on
what the forest could provide. And what was done to Draupadi is unforgivable –
no man who does not wreck vengeance for what was done to her in the dice hall
has a right to call himself her husband, or even a man! Nothing like what was
done to her there has ever been done to a queen – or even to a common woman –
in the entire past of India. Perhaps Krishna had this in mind when he called
Arjuna a eunuch for wanting to run away from the battle. Had what was done to
Draupadi been done to one of Krishna’s wives, say to Rukmini, Krishna would
never have tolerated it, conditions of the dice game or not. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Let’s have a
look at Krishna’s words to the Pandavas and to Draupadi when he meets them in
the forest soon after the disgraceful dice game. Krishna tells them that he was
not in Dwaraka when the dice game took place and therefore he did not know
about it. Had he known of it in advance, the evil that befell the Pandavas
would not have happened. He wouldn’t have allowed the game to take place at all.
He would have come to Hastinapura even if he was not invited, he says, and
pleaded with Dhritarashtra not to permit the game, explaining to him the many
evils of dice. He would have taken the help of Bhishma, Drona, Kripa and
Bahlika and stopped it. And if he did not listen to him, if Duryodhana did not
listen to him, says Krishna, he would have compelled him by force. And Krishna
does not stop there. He says if the so called friends of Duryodhana had
supported him, then he would have slain the entire lot of the gamblers en masse!
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">The avatara
has no softness for adharma. The very purpose of the incarnation is to end
adharma and he would stop at nothing in destroying adharma. Krishna is very
clear that the dice match was evil and if gentle ways did not work, if
persuasion did not work, he would not have hesitated to kill Duryodhana and
every single one of his supporters! </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">That is
Krishna!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">And he is
speaking of the adharma done to Yudhishthira and his brothers by deceitfully snatching
away their kingdom and all their wealth and enslaving them. And he is speaking
of the still greater evil of what was done to Draupadi at the end of the game -
bringing her into the royal assembly full of relatives and guests dragged by
her hair from the inner apartments of the palace where she was in seclusion
wearing a single piece of cloth as custom required of a woman in those days
during her monthly period. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Krishna would
not tolerate injustice to anyone. Still less would he tolerate injustice done
to a woman. And that too to Draupadi – the only woman in the entire Mahabharata
world who had the right to call him her friend, her sakha. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Some
Mahabharata traditions speak of Draupadi as Krishna’s twin soul, born for the
same purpose for which Krishna took incarnation. Some Mahabharata traditions
speak of th entire Kurukshetra war being fought just by two people – Krishna
and Draupadi. In the Rajasthani tradition of Khatu Shyam alias Barbarika, this
son of Ghatotkacha witnesses from atop a hillock the entire Mahabharata war and
later reports that he saw only one thing: Krishna’s Sudarshana slaughtering all
the warriors in the battlefield and Draupadi turning herself into Kali and
drinking up all the blood. Such was Krishna’s relationship with Draupadi. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Slaughtering
the Kauravas would have given Krishna only pleasure. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">It was a
man’s duty in the Mahabharata society to avenge insult and humiliation to his
wife, just as it is expected of any man of honour anywhere in the world even
today. It was Arjuna’s duty to win back his lost kingdom to establish the rule
of righteousness there, the philosophy of power for the good of the people
there, to end the philosophy of power as an end in itself. It was also equally
his duty to avenge his wife’s unparalleled humiliation in the royal assembly
not only before her husbands and their cousins and in-laws, but also kings
invited from all parts of the land. It is from that responsibility that Arjuna
is running away calling the Kauravas his own people, killing whom he does not
want to live. What else could Krishna have called him but a eunuch, the worst
word for a man who fails in his manly duties in that society?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Krishna chooses
his words so that Arjuna really smarts under his attack. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Krishna wants
Arjuna to enter the dark night of the soul. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">The dark
night of the soul is usually understood as the darkness before spiritual
awakening. Many religious traditions speak of it. In the Ishavasya Upanishad we
hear the rishi crying out in agony: The face of the truth is covered by a
golden disk. O Pushan, God of Light, do you remove that, so that I may see the face
of Truth and Dharma! But a dark night can also be the beginning of a journey.
Many are the souls who have taken the first step into the world of spirituality
following such darkness. And that is why Krishna is pushing his friend, his
companion across lifetimes, into utter darkness so that seeing no other way
out, he would surrender to Krishna. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">That
surrender, as we saw earlier, is an absolute necessity for the spiritual
journey. Spiritual traditions across the world insist that that surrender has
to be total and complete. In spirituality there is no half you and half God. It
is all God. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">There is a
beautiful story told about what happened when Dusshasana tried to disrobe Draupadi
in the dice hall of Hastinapura. The story says that Draupadi for a long time
kept calling out to Krishna to save her honour, all the while trying to save
what was left of her honour by holding on to the single piece of cloth that
covered her, clutching it to her chest with one hand while raising the other
hand up and begging Krishna to help her. But so long as she did that, says the
story, no help came from Krishna. Eventually in utter despair, she abandoned
all attempts to save her honour by herself and leaving her cloth and raising
both her arms up calls for Krishna’s help. It is only then help came from
Krishna. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">There is
nothing called half surrender. You either surrender or you don’t surrender. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">In
spirituality holding yourself back from surrendering, remaining responsible to
yourself rather than giving yourself over to your guru is like a man travelling
by train, his suitcase still on his dead. It does not serve any purpose. It is
just a burden on himself. In fact, it is worse than that. It is like being in a
boat that is moored to a tree on the bank and rowing it with the hope of
reaching your destination. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">In our
previous essay we say how Mojud completely surrenders to Khidr. When he is
asked to leave his job and meet Khidr near the river after three days, Mojoud
does not ask any questions, he just does what Khidr asks him to do. There, near
the river Khidr asks him to jump into the river and Mojud obeys him instantly
without asking a single question even though he did not know swimming. Every
time Khidr asks him to do something, Mojud just does that, no matter how
strange his order is. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">When Hui Neng,
the sixth patriarch of Zen, came to his master Hung Jun, the young man was sent
into the monastery kitchen to pound paddy – hence his later name as Paddy
Pounder. Hui Neng obeys his master totally though he gets no<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>chance to study like the other four hundred
and ninety-nine other disciples. That total obedience opens the door for him
and eventually when time came to select his successor, it was Hui Neng whom
Hung Jun selected. Though he hadn’t studied anything, he was the master’s
greatest disciple. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">When
Satyakama Jabali came to his master as a young student, the master sends him
into the forest with his cows and Satyakama obeys the master’s command<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>without questioning. His surrender to the
master opens the gates for him and eventually it is Jabali that becomes the
greatest of all his master’s students. He becomes greater than his master, a
great rishi in his own right whose suktas are part of the Rig Veda. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Surrender
makes the impossible possible. We are all familiar with the story of Ekalavya’s
surrender to his master Drona which makes him such a brilliant archer even
without the teacher’s training that he becomes a threat to Arjuna’s position as
the master’s greatest disciple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">A story about
Bhagavan Shankaracharya’s disciple Padmapada tells us that when the master
called him from the other bank of the river he just got up and walked across
the river and wherever he placed his foot on water, a lotus came up to support
it – hence the name Padmapada, Lotus Feet. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">It is this
total surrender that you find in the cowherd women of Vrindavana. In the final
teaching fo the Gita, Krishna asks us to abandon everything else and to take
refuge in him: sarva-dharmaan parityajya maam ekam sharanam vraja. The gopis of
Vrindavana are the best examples for this surrender. As Krishna plays on his
flute on the bank of the Yamuna on the night of Sharat Poornima, the gopis
leave everything and run to him. The Bhagavata talks of how some of them were
serving meals to their husbands, some others feeding their babies, some taking
their back or cooking a meal, some dressing after their bath, some boiling milk
in the kitchen – but all of them leave everything the very instant they hear
the music of Krishna and rush to him as they are. Their husbands raise their
eyebrows puzzled – they do not understand the women’s behaviour nor do they
hear Krishna’s music. They hadn’t surrendered to Krishna as the women had done.
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">There are
certain things that could be experience only through surrender. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">There is a
Sufi story about a deaf man watching people dancing ecstatically in the town
square. He sees them gyrating their bodies, twisting and turning around,
cavorting and jumping up into the air and doing all kinds of things with great
joy in their eyes, but he does not understand why. And then one day he starts
hearing and hears for the first time the music that was sending the people in
to the ecstatic dance and he understands. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Surrender
helps us hear the divine music. It removes what is discordant in us, removes
all our sharp edges and makes our flow with the current easy – we become like
the smooth stone in the bed of the Ganga in the plains, each of which was once
a hard, shapeless stone up on the mountains. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">O0O</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">The Padma
Purana tells us a precious story about Arjuna and Krishna. The Purana says that
once Arjuna and Krishna were sitting on the banks of the Yamuna when Arjuna
asks him a series of questions about Krishna’s raasa with the gopikas – the
cowherd women of Vrindavana. Arjuna wants to know who they really are, the
nature of their sports with Krishna, where exactly they sport with Krishna and
so on. The questions are ultimately about what Krishna really is and what the true
nature of the raasa is. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">There are two
different types of questions that people generally ask their gurus – questions
are crystal clear and questions that are vague, confused, messy, not clearly
expressed, questions that speak about something when what the questioner wants
to know is something else. Clear questions are asked by questioners who are not
sincere, questioners who want to test their masters, questions to which they
usually know the answer, questions that are merely cerebral and not
existential. To such questioners the questioning is no more than an
intellectual game. The other questions, the ones that are messy and confused
are usually questions and convey the chaos in the mind of the questioner. They
are frequently not just an intellectual game with the teacher, but questions
that are vital for the questioner. They are not really seeking answers to their
questions – they are seeking inner clarity. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Arjuna’s
question here is of the second kind. What he wants to know is the true nature
of Krishna, the true nature of union with Krishna, the true nature of the
highest spiritual experience. He wants to know what sayujya with Krishna means,
what the union of the individual soul with the cosmic soul feels like, what it
means to lose your identity completely and merge with Krishna – a merger that
yoga calls Samadhi, Zen calls satori and kensho, the Buddha called nirvana. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">And as with
any wise master, Krishna’s answer is not to the questions Arjuna asks, but to
the unasked question behind his words. Krishna tells him that the only way to
understand what he wants to know is to become a woman. To know him as he truly
is, Krishna says, he has to become a woman. No man can understand him, says
Krishna, only women can. The Krishna experience is not for men, but only for
women. In Krishna’s own words from the Padma Purana:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">tat sthaanam
vallabhaas ta me vihaaras taadrsho mama<br />
api praanasamaanaanaam satyam pumsaam agocarah [Pad. Pu. 5.70.7]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">“That
dimension of mine, those darlings and those revelries of mine are truly beyond
the perceptions of men, even if they are as dear to me as my life breath.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Arjuna is as
dear to Krishna as his life breath. But still he is not capable of
understanding the secret of Krishna’s raasa with the gopikas. Only a woman can
understand that. </p>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; mso-padding-alt: 0cm 0cm 0cm 0cm; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184; width: 100%px;">
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<td style="padding: 0cm 0cm 0cm 0cm; width: 100.0%;" valign="top" width="100%">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">In the
language of spirituality, the masculine is the symbol of rigidity, inflexibility,
the need to conquer and dominate others, the need to control others, the need
to be in control of oneself, not yielding, not letting go. Whereas the
feminine is the symbol of flexibility, receptiveness, emptiness, openness,
acceptance, yielding, surrending, flowing with the current and so on. The
masculine in the language of spirituality is the symbol of ego-assertiveness
and the feminine the willingness to surrender the ego. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">When
Krishna says you have to be a woman, what Krishna means is that you should be
willing to surrender your ego before him, you should be open to him,
receptive to him, ready to float with him. And that is a difficult task for
Arjuna, particularly because he is Krishna’s friend and his brother-in-law
and both of them are the same age. They used to have fun together, play
together, and now suddenly surrendering to him is not easy. Surrender to
someone like Krishna? Well, that is tough for him – surrendering to someone
like Vyasa or Bhishma or one of the rishis would have been easy. So Krishna
asks him to go to the Himalayas and worship Goddess Lalita Tripurasundari
there, and with her blessings get himself transferred to a woman. And that is
precisely what Arjuna does, as narrated in detail in my article Arjuna
Becomes a Woman: A Transgender Tale from Padma Purana.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">With the
blessings of the tantric goddess, Arjuna has a gender transformation in the
truest sense, a spiritual gender transformation, which is what Krishna wants,
though the Purana tells us the story as though it is of a physical gender
transformation, because it does not make much difference whether you are
physically a male or a female, what matters is your spiritual gender.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Arjuna
comes back to Krishna as Arjuni – a beautiful woman and it is as a woman that
he experiences Krishna in his true nature – as the self of the universe, as
the unborn and undying, as the bliss that passes understanding, as
ananda-ghana, ananda solidified, as prajnana-ghana, consciousness solidified,
as sat-chid-ananda, existence- consciousness-bliss. He experiences the bliss
that even great ascetics do not experiences and is easily available to every
gopi in Vrindavana. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">India
recognized a long ago that in KIrishna’s world, in the spiritual world, there
can be no men, only women can be. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Men
in spirituality stand for beings with ego and will, and women stand for
surrender and openness. It is in that surrender and openness that the highest
flowers.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Spirituality
cannot be conquered, you have to surrender to it. Spirituality is like the
bride in the swayamvara – you cannot choose her, she has to choose you. If
you carry her against her wishes, tragedy follows, as it followed Bhishma
when he carried away the three Kashi princesses from their swayamvara hall. India
tells the stories of hundreds of asuras and rakshasas who tried to take the
spiritual world by storm, every single one of them ending in tragedy.
Bhasmasura and Ravana are perhaps the best examples for this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">The power
you need, the strength you need, the courage you need in spirituality is a
different kind of power: the strength to let go of yourself, the power to
surrender, to courage to sacrifice your ego. Spirituality is not for teak
woods that stand against the wind resisting it, but for the bamboos that
yield to the wind and dance with it. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">India
developed a spiritual path known as the sakhi smapradaya – the sakhi
tradition, in which men lived as women, as Krishna’s women friends. They
dressed like women, moved like women, spoke like women, and lived the life of
women in all respects in their male bodies. Sri Ramakrishna, the great master
from Kolkata, one of the greatest saints India has known in centuries, lived
for a while practicing sakhi sampradaya and it yielded him powerful
experiences. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">O0O</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Ahankara,
the ego, is the greatest enemy of spirituality. It is in fact the only enemy.
When ahankara – the notional ‘I” – disappears, what is left is the real I,
our real self, sat-chid-ananda. Once surrender takes place, there will be no
Arjuna and Krishna as separate individuals, the two will be one, whether you
call him by the name Arjuna or Krishna. After the river surrenders to the
ocean, it is no more separate from the ocean, but is the ocean itself. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">But all
this happens only if you surrender to the divine, to the high, and that is
exactly what Arjuna does here when he says shishyaste’ham, I am your
disciple. Whether Arjuna knows it at this stage or not, accepting Krishna as
his guru, surrendering to him, is the greatest incident in Arjuna’s life.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">The seventh
verse of the second chapter of the Gita is momentous in its implications. The
Gita truly begins with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">O0O</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Just one more
thing. It is not only in spirituality that surrender is important. In today’s
world we are ashamed of the word surrender, we cannot surrender to anyone. But
without the attitude of shraddha towards one’s teacher which is what makes
surrender possible in an educational institute personal transformations are not
possible – and the purpose of education is not just acquiring knowledge but
this transformation. In the ancient Indian tradition we called an educated man
dwija – meaning twice born, or born again. It is shraddha that makes this birth
possible. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Even in the
corporate world, in the mentor-mentee relationship, one needs to have shraddha
in the mentor for true transformation to take place. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">With shraddha
magic happens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">That is why
India said shraddhavaan labhate jnaanam – the one with shraddha gets jnana.
Jnana is not just knowledge but awakening, transformation, a new birth. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">O0O</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">Photo courtesy: Alpana Lele</p>Satya Chaitanyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749603528440573740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2435755112654764920.post-82148978649094609832020-12-10T17:45:00.001-08:002020-12-10T17:45:36.364-08:00Living Bhagavad Gita 26: The Way of the Rain Cloud<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJaJmVOTiaeNZ6H-oAJVQwgHutKFhiyBEyZjjWVhOyJXwDkTNj3TAzbdawVlYMjWDAEjtD2uVGB5Gkbmhz6sxXTHF1-o9gAZ0AxUUVwd4NP6WkV1afKFPPjz-1DeNjftOjVO_D3V9XYK__/s700/radha-krishna-3-alpana-lele.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJaJmVOTiaeNZ6H-oAJVQwgHutKFhiyBEyZjjWVhOyJXwDkTNj3TAzbdawVlYMjWDAEjtD2uVGB5Gkbmhz6sxXTHF1-o9gAZ0AxUUVwd4NP6WkV1afKFPPjz-1DeNjftOjVO_D3V9XYK__/s320/radha-krishna-3-alpana-lele.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">[</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">A series
of short articles on the Bhagavad Gita for people living and working in our
volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times filled with stress and fear.
This scripture born in a battlefield teaches us how to face our challenges,
live our life fully, achieve excellence in whatever we do and find happiness,
peace and contentment.</span></p><p class="MsoBodyText"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Continued from
the last post.]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Sanjaya said: To him who was thus overwhelmed with pity and grief and
whose eyes were filled with tears, Krishna spoke these words. BG 2.1<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Shri Bhagavan Said: “Why this weakness, Arjuna, at a time of crisis,
this shameful cowardice unworthy of noble minds? This unmanliness is beneath
you and it does not lead to heaven. Do not give in to it, Arjuna. Shake off
your weakness now and stand up like a man, O Parantapa</span></i><i><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;">”</span></i><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> BG 2.2-3<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The second chapter
of the Gita begins with Sanjaya continuing his report to Dhritarashtra about
what happened in the battlefield. He tells the blind king what Krishna told
Arjuna who was thus overwhelmed with pity and grief and whose eyes were tear-filled.
We see here that Krishna does not empathize with his friend at all. Instead,
what he does is question Arjuna’s behaviour and attack him with words as sharp
as arrows. One of the words Krishna uses here to describe Arjuna’s behaviour is
klaibya, which literally translates eunuch-like, which in the Mahabharata world
of warriors and heroes was a great insult.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Life is about
facing challenges – not about escaping them, avoiding them, hiding from them, running
away from them. Life’s challenges are opportunities we get to discover new
aspects of ourselves, new strengths within us, new possibilities; to plunge
into greater depths of our being and thus soar into newer heights. Even life’s
jolts are. They are exactly what you need to grow at the moment – to outgrow your
present limitations, to come out of your comfort zones and to discover a
greater you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each fresh challenge is a
new gift to you from life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And these are
born as much from your personal needs as from the needs of the world. That you
meet them head on is as much the need of the world as it is yours. They are
produced by a collusion of samashti karma and vyashti karma, said the wisdom of
India – of the karma of the totality and our individual karma. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The Arjuna way so
far has been to face them, that is what he has done all his life, that is what
made him the great hero that he is. He is not known to run away from
challenges. That is what he did as a student of Drona. That is what he did when
he went out on a conquest of the directions on his brother’s behalf, what he
did when he participated dressed as a brahmana in Draupadi’s swayamvara and won
her where everyone else had failed, what he did when the entire assembly of
kings pounced upon him when they saw a brahmana had won Draupadi and not one
their own men. Aided by his brother Bhima with a tree trunk in his hand, he
stood there rock steady with his bow in hand, his arrows spitting the fire of
his fury speeding from his bow not letting Duryodhana, Karna, or anyone else
come near him when they wanted to kill him for snatching Draupadi away from
him. That is what he did when life called him to live as a eunuch in the Virata
palace, teaching young Uttara dance. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">That has been the
Arjuna way and that is exactly the Krishna way too. But for the first time
Arjuna is running away from a challenge – the biggest challenge of his life.
But his friend Krishna wouldn’t let him to – after all, what else are friends
for? And that too a friend like Krishna who says such is his friendship with
Arjuna that for his sake he would pull out his very flesh and give it away if
necessary. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Krishna now wants
Arjuna to fight – not because Krishna is a war monger. Krishna is not. True
Krishna has fought numerous wars in his life, but war has always been the last
option for him. When conflicts arose, he would try sama, dana and bheda and
only if none of those worked would he reluctantly chose danda – the way of
force. He has done everything possible to avoid the war. Not only as a human
being but also as an incarnation, as he himself explains to Rishi Uttanka when
the sage wanted to curse him for failing to stop the war between the Pandavas
and the Kauravas. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Krishna is
definitely not a war monger, but if there is no other way out, then he would
fight. And he wants Arjuna to do the same. Particularly because Arjuna is a
kshatriya and it is the duty of a kshatriya to protect dharma at any cost,
sacrificing even his life if necessary and, Krishna would say, sacrificing what
is dearer to men of honour than life itself – values, ethical principles,
everything, for there is nothing more valuable than dharma. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">India worshipped
ahimsa. Indian mantras and Indian prayers ended invoking peace: om shantih
shantih shantih! But when there was a clash between ahimsa and the common good,
India chose the common good, loka-sangraha. Ahimsa is without a doubt great,
but if ahimsa stood in the way of loka-sangraha, the good of the world, then
ahimsa has to be sacrificed, albeit reluctantly. If except through a war there
was no way of creating or sustaining a society in which people could live a
life of daivi sampada and not by asuri sampada, which destroyed everyone, the
ones who practices it and the ones on whom it is practiced, then that war had
to be fought, that war was a dharma yuddha, a war for dharma, said India. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And it is that war
from which Arjuna is now turning away, saying it is himsa, violence and as his
friend, as a man committed to sustaining dharma, as an incarnation of the
divine for the specific purpose of sustaining dharma and for destroying
adharma, Krishna is not going to let him to. Krishna needs Arjuna fighting this
war for the good of the world. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">That is the Indian
way. We see this spirit of battle against adharma in the Vedic Indra. All our
goddesses, whether it is Durga, Kali, Lalita Parameshwari, all fight battles to
destroy adharma. Shiva and Vishnu do that. In some lesser known stories Sita
does it, as when she kills Sahasramukha Ravana.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So Krishna lashes
out at Arjuna calling his feelings kashmalam, a word that translates into
English as weakness, sin, disgracefulness, faintheartedness and so on. That is a
word that has nothing positive about it. Its associations are all with tamas,
not with rajas or sattva. And kindness is sattvic, compassion is sattvic, love
for others is sattvic, sacrificing one’s self-interests is sattvic, living for
others is sattvic, renunciation is sattvic. So when Krishna calls Arjuna’s
feelings kashmalam, what he means is that it is not kindness that he feels, not
compassion, not love, not renunciation or any of the other feelings that are
born either of sattva or even of rajas. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Sanjaya used the
word kripa for what Arjuna feels – kripayaa parayaa aavishtah, overcome by
supreme compassion. Kripa means compassion and is a beautiful word. But Krishna
in his higher wisdom does not see what Arjuna feels as kripa; for him it is
kashmalam. He also calls Arjuna’s feelings as anaryajushtam – not practiced by
noble people. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Commentator Madhusudana
Saraswati explains Krishna’s question here: Is this kashmalam of yours for the
sake of moksha, for the sake of heaven, or for the sake of keerti, fame? He
then points out that Krishna says in the next half of the verse that none of
these three could be attained through his disgraceful behaviour. The
commentator takes the word arya to mean those who work for moksha. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Krishna tells
Arjuna here that this is the worst time to feel something like what he is
feeling now – because he is in a crisis and crises are handled not through
debilitating helplessness, not by running away from them, not by closing your
eyes to them, not by turning your back to them. In a great crisis you need to
have all your energies at your command, all your resources. Winners are charged
by crises, not crippled or debilitated. Bending your knees before overpowering
situations is not the way of heroes. And Arjuna is a hero – explaining this
verse, traditional commentator Ananda Giri calls Arjuna here kshatriya-pravara,
an outstanding kshatriya. Such a kshatriya has no business to collapse in the
war chariot. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Not content with
what he has said, Krishna says further: <i>This unmanliness is beneath you and
it does not lead to heaven. Do not give in to it, Arjuna. Shake off your
weakness and stand up like a man, O Parantapa</i></span><i><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;">”</span></i><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">A parantapa is one
who scorches his enemies.</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Krishna’s words paint arjuna’s feeling in just
one colour – black. It is not that Krishna does not see anything positive in
what Arjuna feels But he knows this is no time for softness, for misplaced
kindness and compassion.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Krishna not only wants Arjuna to fight the war
for the good of the society, but he also wants Arjuna to grow spiritually
through that fight, awaken to the higher realities of life. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>it is a dual journey Krishna has in mind – an
outer journey and an inner journey, both undertaken simultaneously. It is the
last rite of passage for man – much more important than the rites of passage
many cultures have as a boy or girls enters the adult world. This is the rite
of passage into the spiritual world and Krishna does not want Arjuna to run
away from it <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The spiritual journey Krishna has in mind is a
journey that has been waiting for all of us through endless lifetimes. But we
have been avoiding it under one pretext or the other, </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">always for the
best of reasons. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">A Tibetan story tells that the lama of the north received a desperate
call from the lama of the south asking for a monk to be sent to him. He needed
a holy and learned monk to initiate young lamas and to teach them. The lama of
the north happily complied but what surprised everyone was that instead of one
he sent five lamas. When he was asked why, he said if even one lama reached the
south, he would be happy. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">After a few days journey the group was camping in a village when they
told the lamas there was no priest in their temple and they needed a learned
lama who would perform the rituals and also teach them. “Our village is rich,”
added the people, “and we can look after the lama well.” One of the lamas felt
as a Buddhist he can’t say no to that request, so he stayed back when the other
four lamas left. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">A few days journey further away, they were passing through a small
kingdom when the king requested one of the handsome young lamas to marry his
daughter and settle down with him, adding that when he died, the kingdom would
be his. The princess was beautiful, the kingdom affluent. The young lama felt
this would be a good opportunity to spread Buddhism – his influence would be
great as the husband of the princess and in future as the king. He stayed back in
the kingdom.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In a few days time the other lamas came across in a scenic village a
pretty girl living alone in her house. She told them her parents had died
recently, she was left alone now and found life tough with all her yaks and
sheep to look after and the vast fields to care for. One of the monks felt
great compassion for the girl – she was the most beautiful girl he had ever
seen and his compassion for her overflowed. “There is no greater Buddhism than
love and compassion,” he told his friends piously as he stood by the girl and waved
them away on their journey.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">A few days later the remaining two lamas passed through another well to
do village which was once Buddhist but had recently converted en masse to
another religion. One of the two lamas now remaining felt he should stay back
in the village and convert the people back to the Buddha’s way, that would be
his best offering at his feet of the Compassionate One. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Eventually the lone lama remaining reached the lama of the south,
revealing the true meaning of the words of the lama of the north. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">That is how we are too. It is this journey that we are born for, that
has been calling us for ages, though lifetime after lifetime. Krishna says in
the Gita: bahoonaam janmanaam ante jnaanavaan maam prapadyate – it is only at
the end of innumerable lifetimes that a wise man surrenders to me. Once after
countless lifetimes we begin this search and even after that we fall on the wayside
again and again. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In Krishna we have a guru unlike any known guru. He says we do not have
to do anything different, but only do whatever we are doing differently. Krishna
calls it karma yoga – transforming our karma itself into our yoga, whatever
that karma is. The way countless rajarshis of this land has reached the supreme
by fulfilling their karma with total dedication, the way even a butcher called
Dharma Vyadha reached that goal by complete commitment. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Karmanaiva hi samsiddhim aasthitaah
janakaadayah, says Krishna in the Gita: it is through karma alone that people
like King Janaka reached the supreme goal. [BG 3.20]<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">That is not to say other paths do not lead to this goal. But our present
karma itself can become a powerful path, perhaps the most appropriate path for
us. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">To achieve material goals, we may have to change our circumstances. But
to achieve the spiritual goal we don’t have to change anything at all, just go
wherever life takes us, do what life asks us to do. In fact, any attempt to
change things will take us away from our path and its goal. Because, at our
level, all attempts to change comes from the ego and when we try to do that, we
are feeding our ego. That is why Krishna makes that revolutionary statement in
the Gita: na hi a-sannyasta-sankalpo yogi bhavati kaschana – no one who has not
given up his sankalpas will ever become a yogi. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Sankalpas are goals we set for ourselves, destinations we chart out for
ourselves, decisions we make for ourselves. When we say I will do this, I will
not do that, we are making sankalpas. All such decisions are of the egos and
not of existence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is true even when
the sankalpas are for the good of the world – many of which, despite the good
it does to the world, are ego trips, unless of course that call comes from a deeper
source from within you. The right way, true spirituality, is to wait for the
call of the divine, to make oneself just a nimitta – an instrument, a tool, a
vehicle – for blessings to flow through you to the world. Nimitta-maatram bhava
savyasaachin, Krishna tells Arjuna. [BG 11.33]. Then It is no more an ego trip
but a spiritual journey. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The two are very different. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">What we call mukti is the cessation of the ego, of existence as separate
from the totality, the merger of the individual with the whole, like rivers
ceasing to be rivers and merging with the ocean to become one with it. Then one
can no more say I am the Ganga or the Yamuna, or the Don or the Danube, alllwe
can say is I am the ocean. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">That journey into union with the totality, the losing of our
individuality, is the true goal of spirituality. Being empty of oneself, that
spirituality means. Just floating with life is one of the paths to reach there.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">A true spiritual sadhaka is a parivrajaka, a white cloud that has no
destination of its own but goes where the wind takes it. So long as we have
your own destinations, we have not given up our sankalpas and hence we cannot
be yogis, as Krishna says. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">An incredibly beautiful Taoist story by Chuang Tzu tells it all: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The prince discovered, when he returned from the top of the mountain,
that he had mislaid the Pearl of Great Price up on the mountain. He sent his
generals and their armies to search for it, but they could not find it. He
employed Huang-Ti, the vehement debater, to find the Pearl; but Huang-Ti was unable
to find it. He sent his skilled gardeners and his artisans to find it, but
they, too, came home empty handed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Finally, in despair, having tried everyone else, he sent Purposeless to
the mountain, and Purposeless found the pearl immediately. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">"How odd it is", mused the Prince, "that it was Purposeless
who found it!"<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">To be purposeless is to have no individual purposes, no personal
choices, just letting go of oneself, surrendering oneself to the goal of
existence, living without resisting anything, floating with life. In some
versions of the story, instead of purposelessness, the word used is Nothingness
– that is, egolessness, being empty of oneself, sankalpa-lessness, which you
become after renouncing sankalpas, as Krishna asks us to do if we want to
become yogis.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">O0O<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Mojud was a young man who worked in the office of weights and measures.
One day Khidr, the hidden guide of the Sufis, appeared before him and asked him
to leave what he was doing and meet him by the river three days later. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">That single sentence changed everything. His life was no more what it
was, his future as a possible senior officer of weights and measures was gone,
his past was gone, everything gone, washed away by those words, as the rain washes
the earth clean. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">When he met Khidr on by the river, he told Mojud to tear off all his
clothes and jump into the water. Without a word Mojud obeyed his master, though
he did not know swimming. Sinking and floating, gulping down water, Mojud was
carried downstream until he was saved by a fisherman. “What a fool you are! What
were you trying to do?” he asked. Moujud’s answer was he did not know. The
Fisherman invited him to help him in his work and gave him the spare bed in his
hut. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Years later, one night as Mojud was sleeping Khidr appeared again and
commanded him to get up and leave the hut, which he instantly obeyed. He walked
on and eventually reached a road where he met a small farmer. Invited by the
farmer, Mojud starts working for him. Two years pass, Mojud learning about
farming and little else. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Khidr now appears again and orders him to go to Mosul and there, with
the money earned by working for the farmer, start a business, dealing in skins.
After he trades in skin for three years Khidr appears again. Mojud is by now
fairly rich and was planning to buy a house. But Khidr asks him to give all his
money to him and then walk to Samarkand and work for a grocer there. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Mojud becomes a grocer’s assistant for many years. It was in those days
that people started noticing strange incidents happening around him. Whoever
went near him felt great peace. The sick became healed, the blind started
seeing and the deaf started hearing. Multitudes thronged to him to be healed. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The inevitable happened then. Religious scholars arrived and questioned
him. How was he performing the miracles? What spirituality had he practiced? Under
whom had he studied? What was he before he became what he is now? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And Mojud told them he hadn’t practiced any sadhana, it is difficult to
say under whom he studied. To begin with he was an officer of weights and
measures in a distant city. They asked him if he gave up that job to practice
self-mortification, and he said no, he just gave it up. They asked him what
else he had done if not self-mortification and he said he became a fisherman,
then a farmer’s assistant, then a skin merchant and, as they knew, a servant of
the grocer for the last many years.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Of course, they were completely puzzled and couldn’t accept what he
said. Each of the scholars made up stories about him in his own way, speaking
of the terrible asceticism he had performed, the temptations he had faced, the miracles
that had happened. They told of how he had flown through the air, how the
angels had appeared before him and begged him to accept boons and how he had
refused.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mojud said nothing. He
continued living the way he has been living, serving the grocer in spite of his
saying no, his life going on as it had done all these years and his presence
healing people. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Moujud means presence. Just a presence. Presence without an ego. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Acceptance is the highest spirituality. That is what Arjuna is refusing
to do and that is what Krishna wants him to do – accept what life has brought
him as its gift at the moment, the war with all its dreadful horrors, along
with the responsibility for the death of his grandsire and guru and other near
and dear ones. Play his role in the cosmic drama, play his part in the cosmic
plot that has been handed over to him, unresisting, surrendering, accepting – and
doing all that not grumblingly, but joyously, grateful for the grace that has
been showered on him. Krishna does not forget to remind his friend: sukhinah
kshatriyaah partha labhante yuddham eedrsham – happy are the kshatriyas who get
this kind of war. [BG 2.32] <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It is grace! Divine grace!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">O0O <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">How do we apply this in the corporate world and in our daily lives?
Exactly as Mojud does. By going where you are taken, by working with total
commitment in each place, by accepting the challenges that come to you, by not
running away from them, by not clinging to anything. Fearlessly, avoiding the
traps the ego lays for you, by remaining rooted in daivi sampada such as
fearlessness, non-violence and truthfulness, without covetousness, with
compassion for all beings, dealing with everyone gently, our anger mastered,
envy and jealousy mastered, our greed mastered, not letting our lusts enslave
us. And remembering to give all of ourselves and a little more to what we are
doing at the moment and the person we are with.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Exactly as Arjuna does under the divine guidance of Yogeshwara Krishna.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Benefitting all as the rain cloud benefits all. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">O0O <o:p></o:p></span></p>Satya Chaitanyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749603528440573740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2435755112654764920.post-39619325857894745722020-12-09T21:56:00.002-08:002020-12-09T21:59:05.325-08:00Living Bhagavad Gita 25: As the Inner Journey Begins<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5oSkKNEQiy_qITKGRnbsaxnicxT973qDJu1j58mccx93wLg2H5VTVRlwa_8qwYPTOXRGXtMm9HLHkYhutUKCld_SYtLYAvEnePsEZDGRGsloQ_LrU7MyEGJ85fA-Nd-piuOUmAqjT4mDr/s700/radha-krishna-3-alpana-lele.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5oSkKNEQiy_qITKGRnbsaxnicxT973qDJu1j58mccx93wLg2H5VTVRlwa_8qwYPTOXRGXtMm9HLHkYhutUKCld_SYtLYAvEnePsEZDGRGsloQ_LrU7MyEGJ85fA-Nd-piuOUmAqjT4mDr/s320/radha-krishna-3-alpana-lele.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoBodyText"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" style="font-family: arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">A series of short articles on the Bhagavad Gita
for people living and working in our volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous
times filled with stress and fear. This scripture born in a battlefield teaches
us how to face our challenges, live our life fully, achieve excellence in
whatever we do and find happiness, peace and contentment.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-GB">[Continued from the previous post]</span><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt;">CHAPTER 2: INTRODUCTION <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The
Upanishads are among the world’s rarest jewels of wisdom. While other cultures
have produced wisdom books, no other culture in the world has given us anything
like the Upanishads, those books of highest wisdom to which the authors refused
to add their names. The rishis who gave us these treasure chests said that they
did not write them, they just came through them, they were mere channels for
them and are not their authors, not their sources, they are not born of their
brains. They said the Upanishads are apaurusheya – come from a world far beyond
that of men. That refusal to give their names to their works too is part of the
wisdom of their authors, for how can Krishna’s flute claim it produced
Krishna’s music? It was just a channel for his music, an empty reed through
which his breath flowed out as divine music the like of which the earth has
never heard, to hear which ancient sages rich in asceticism took birth as
cowherd women of Vrindavan.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">And the
Bhagavad Gita is the soul of the Upanishads, their most precious essence. There
are a group of Sanskrit verses called Gita dhyana shlokas, meditation verses on
the Gita, traditionally chanted before any study of the scripture. I remember
chanting them before each of the hundreds of classes I had in the gurukula when
I studied the Gita under my gurus, experiencing as I chanted them a deep
serenity of the mind that is a requirement for understanding Krishna’s
teachings. One of these verses says: </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial;">sarvopanishado gavo dogdhaa gopaalanandanah; </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">paartho vatsah sudheer bhokthaa dugdham gitaamrtam mahat. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“The Upanishads are cows and the son of the cowherd, Krishna, is the
milkman. Arjuna is the calf and men of purified intellect are those who get to
drink the milk. And the supreme nectar called the Gita is the milk.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Gita is also the confluence of all the innumerable streams of the
rich Indian thought. Over millennia India developed countless paths to the
Supreme, for awakening and experiencing our essential nature, for what is
called self-realization or God-realization. We developed ways of living that
led to growing within us the qualities required to walk this path: qualities
like inner purity, fearlessness, readiness to surrender to the higher,
straightforwardness, self-mastery, mastery over the senses, detachment, love
for solitude and so on. We developed scores of paths to climb the mount of
self-realization. And the Bhagavad Gita is a confluence of all these paths and
all those ways of living. As innumerable rivers flow into the ocean to lose
their separate identities in it, so do all streams of Indian thought and ways
of spiritual living flow into the Gita and become one with it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt;">SOME GREAT MINDS ON THE GITA<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Speaking of the Gita, Henry David Thoreau of
Walden fame who was in awe of the scripture said, "In the morning I bathe
my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita,
in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and
trivial.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Mahatma Gandhi said that when doubts haunted
him, when disappointments stared him in the face, and when he saw not one ray
of hope in the horizon, he turned to Bhagavad Gita and always found a verse to
comfort him and he began to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">"I owed a magnificent day to the
Bhagavad Gita,” said Emerson. “It was the first of books; it was as if an
empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent,
the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and climate had pondered
and thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us… The Bhagavad-Gita is
an empire of thought.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt;">GITA AS KRISHNA’S HEART<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">There is a Sanskrit line in which Krishna
tells Arjuna that the Gita is his heart – geeta me hrdayam paartha.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Gita, as Krishna says, is truly his
heart, that is what he lived all his life. In some cultures we have
philosophers who do not feel any need to live what they teach – Rousseau for
instance. It is difficult to imagine anyone who has done more good to children,
such were his ideas on education that became the power behind modern naturalism
in education. What education today is to a large extent what he made it. And
yet he left his own children uncared for on the streets. But in the east the
belief has always been that a philosopher should live what he teaches. So the
rishis of ours lived what they taught – whether it is Gautama, Kanada,
Patanjali, Vyasa, Yajnavalkya, Agastya, Lopamudra, Sulabha or whoever. Krishna
too lived exactly what he taught. He never taught anything that he himself did
not live, nor did he ever live anything that he did not teach. His teachings
and his life – he and his teachings – were the same. So to understand the Gita
perhaps the best way is to study Krishna’s life. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Krishna’s lived one of the most active lives
known to us. He was at the center of all the political activities that happened
in his days. Rulers in his days had become deeply corrupt, there was an evil
conglomerate consisting of such rulers as Jarasandha, Kamsa, Duryodhana, Paundraka
Vasudeva, Kashiraja, Shalva, Shishupala and Kala Yavana who believed in power
for the sake of power with no commitment to the people. Krishna wanted to
create a climate in which rulers will rule for the good of the people inspired
by the ancient wisdom that a ruler should be like a pregnant woman who ignores
herself and her interests and lives for the good of the baby in her womb. He
wanted kings to ignore their personal interests and live for the good of the
people in the spirit of sacrifice. In fact, from Krishna’s standpoint the
purpose of the Mahabharata war was to dethrone Duryodhana who believed in the
philosophy of power for the sake of power and have in his place Yudhishthira
who believed that a king should live to serve the people – something like the
servant leadership model we speak about today.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Krishna sang and danced throughout his life
in spite of constant threats to his life and other difficulties that surrounded
him all his life. He is always a complete master of himself, living life fully,
with the spirit of festivity, with his wives and friends. We cannot imagine
Krishna without a smile on his lips. Both the Mahabharata and the Harivamsha,
which is considered an appendix to the Mahabharata or its nineteenth chapter,
show us Krishna offering elaborate, festive parties to his people. Even when
his friend Arjuna is overwhelmed by the Mahabharata war situation as he stands
between the two armies and watches those who have come to do the battle risking
their lives, the smile on Krishna’s face never fades. The first words of his
teachings in the Gita are Gita wants us to live us in the same spirit – in the
spirit of festivity and celebration. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The Bhagavad Gita is Krishna’s teachings to
Arjuna, as we all know. But it has been a wisdom guide to all humanity for the
last more than five thousand years [according to Indian understanding, the
Mahabharata War took place in 3102 BCE and the Gita was, of course, born on the
first day of the war.] and is going to remain so for a long, long time to come.
In that sense, the teachings of the Gita are actually given to us. Arjuna is
only a nimitta, a medium, through which the teachings are given to us. The Gita
is thus Krishna teaching us how to live our life meaningfully, joyously. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Though born in a battlefield, the Gita is not
about the art of war. Throughout the Gita Arjuna asks Krishna questions –
questions about all kind of things. He asks a large number of questions, but
not one of them about the art of war. His questions are all about the art of
living. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">And as a book teaching us the art of living,
it is a complete book. While there is no harm in reading other books – I love
reading, am a voracious reader who read for several hours every day – the Gita
is a complete book on the art of living. There is nothing that it does not
teach us, including what food to eat, how to respond to situations, how to
understand people, how to understand ourselves, how to master our mind with all
its passions and so on. These are exactly the kind of questions my students ask
me in the different business schools where I teach. Right now I am teaching a
course in Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow and the questions Arjuna asks
Krishna are no different from the questions my students there ask me.
Yesterday, for instance, a student asked me how he can live consciously
throughout the day rather than a few moments now and then. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">CHALLENGES IN UNDERSTANDING
THE GITA<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">I remember my youngest sister asking me many
years ago why the Gita is difficult to understand, unlike some other religious
books that are comparatively so easy. One of the many reasons why is Gita’s
simplicity. The Gita tells the truth without beating about the bush, tells us
straight forward how to reach the ultimate goal of our life, without ever
indulging in pep talk. It does not treat us as children incapable of
understanding higher truths. And it talks about reaching our goals now – while
we are alive, not after our death. It tells us do this and this will happen. In
that sense there is no place for belief in the Gita. There is nothing in the
entire teachings of the Gita that you cannot experience here and now, provided
you do the right kind of things with the right frame of mind. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">So that is one challenge in understanding the
Gita. Another is that it was produced by a culture that was philosophically
highly advanced, far more advanced than we are, a culture for which enquiries
into the meaning of life and the nature of the world were far more central than
they are to us, a culture in which advanced philosophical terms were part of
the common man’s everyday speech.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Speaking of Indian Philosophy, E. W. F.
Tomlin has this to say on the subtleties of Indian Thought in his book on the
history of eastern philosophy: “The philosophical terms [in Indian thought] in
their vocabulary exceed in number those of any other form of intellectual
belief. No language of ancient or modern times contains more philosophical
terms than Sanskrit. Indian thought arrives at subtleties of distinction so
varied and acute that the uninitiated and unprepared reader may well receive
the impression that Indian philosophers enjoy the use of half a dozen
intellects instead of one. We are accustomed to the idea of scientists
constructing artificial brains to effect calculations which neither a single
individual nor a team of individuals devoting a lifetime to the task could hope
to achieve. The elaborate system of certain Indian philosophers sometimes
appears to be the product of such socially-constructed intellects.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Yet another challenge in understanding the
Gita is that in spite the culture that produced the Gita being philosophically
highly advanced, it does not believe in philosophy! Yes, there a huge number of
books written on Indian philosophy, but India has not really ever believed in
philosophy. it might come to some as a surprise that there is actually no
Indian word for philosophy. The word used in place of philosophy is darshana –
and darshana is very different from philosophy. Darshana means perception,
seeing, vision, from the Sanskrit root drsh or darsh, meaning to see. Philosophy
is the product of thinking, of analytical and synthetic thought processes,
whereas seeing is not. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">A world renowned modern master once pointed out
the difference between philosophy and darshana beautifully. Philosophy is, he
said, like a man who is asleep, with his eyes closed and a bed sheet drawn over
his head, the windows of his room closed, trying to understand and tell others what
the morning is like – though he has never seen it. Whereas darshana is, said
the master, waking up from sleep, throwing away the bed sheet, getting up and
going to the windows and looking out – and seeing the glory of the morning with
your own eyes, seeing the sun coming up in the east, hearing the morning
sounds, smelling the morning air, watching the plants and trees dancing in the
freshness of the new day, hearing the sounds of birds and animals, seeing
people moving about, breathing in the fresh morning air and feeling the daybreak
rush of energy and life in your veins. In the first case, in the case of
philosophy, you are bound to be wrong because there is no way of understanding
what the morning is without personally seeing it and in the second case you
will always be right because you have seen it, experienced it, lived it as part
of it, felt it in your veins. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The Gita is not interested in explaining to
you intellectually what truth is, what your true nature is, what the nature of
the world is, but helping you to experience it directly. The discussions of the
Gita are not for helping you understand reality cerebrally but so that you
experience it. It is like the finger pointing at the moon – say, someone
pointing out the moon to you by saying that it is what you see between the two
large eastern branches of a tree. The moon has nothing to do with the branches
of any tree, a minute later the position of the moon would have changed, and
even if the tree were not there, the moon would have been where it is. But the
pointing out helps you see it. And the pointing out has just one purpose, just
one meaning – so that you see it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">All darshana begins with a master’s
experience and ends when the disciple sees what he has seen. Gita is Krishna’s
attempt to help Arjuna see what he has seen, know what he has known, experience
what he has experienced, live what he is living, and through Arjuna, help us do
these. The Gita is not a book to be cerebrally understood, it is not something
to be neatly arranged within our brain and then debated and discussed with
others. So that is another challenge. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Speaking of the truth that the Gita points
at, the Upanishads say yato vacho nivartante, apraapya manasa saha – it is
something from which words return, having not reached, along with the mind.
This truth that is the subject matter of the Gita is beyond words and even
beyond the mind. It is not a bunch of concepts that can be expressed in words
or understood by the mind. All words have to cease before we reach there. We
have to go beyond the mind to reach there. Where the mind is, there is no way
we can understand this truth. The mind is like an opaque glass which does not
let the light of the truth in, it blocks it. When the mind becomes thin,
translucent, almost completely transparent, then we get glimpses of the Gita’s
truth. And then like the Upanishad rishi we cry out: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">hiranmayena paatrena satyasya
apihitam mukham <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">tat tvam pooshann-apavrnu satya-dharmaaya drshtave.
Isha Up. 15<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“The face of the Truth is hidden by a disk of
pure gold. O Pooshan, Lord of the Sun, do you remove that so that I have the
vision of Truth and Dharma.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">And so long as the mind is thick, filled with
thoughts and ideas and concepts and images and memories and plans, there is no
way we can know it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">It is this truth that the mind cannot
comprehend and the senses cannot reach that we Gita is speaking about. And that
forms another challenge. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Yet another challenge is that the Gita is a
poem and poetry is suggestive and invariably means more than what it says. It
is not like a thesis where each word means exactly one and only one thing. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Krishna, the teacher of the Gita, is a rebel
who gives original meanings to the words he uses – meanings born of his own
understanding of spirituality and meanings he revives from traditions that had
more or less disappeared by his time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Krishna uses terms like sannyasa, yoga and akarma in senses that were
totally different from the sense in which they were understood in his days. He
also rejects many of the spiritual practices that were very common in his days,
like Vedic rituals for pleasing the gods, extreme forms of asceticism and so on.
For instance, he says traigunya-vishayaa vedaah, nistraigunyo bhava arjuna –
the Vedas deal with [the world of] the three gunas; go beyond the three gunas,
Arjuna. He also uses terms like nishkama karma and akarma in highly technical
senses, with meanings very different from the senses in which they were
understood in his days. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The fact that a large number of us today are
‘Macaulay’s children’ whose minds have been trained to look down upon things of
Indian origin, our awe of things that come from the west, that we tend to think
and speak in a language that has no roots in the Indian psyche and so on also
pose challenges before us.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">THE GITA AND PATRATA<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Krishna and Arjuna had been together much of
their life – they were friends, cousins and brothers-in-law and yet Krishna
never taught Arjuna the Gita until the situation in the battlefield arose. That
is because the wisdom of the Gita is not for us until we are ready for it. All
people at all times are not eligible for its teachings – its teachings can be
dangerous for those who are not ready for it and in the hands of such people,
it can be dangerous for others too. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Learning the Gita also requires a certain
maturity that comes from living the life of the world – a life based on the
belief that the fulfillment of what Abraham Maslow calls physical and
physiological needs, safety and security needs, acceptance and belongingness
needs and esteem needs can give us contentment, can make our lives fulfilled.
From a slightly higher standpoint, we may include even self-actualization needs
in this group. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">While everyone at all levels can learn
valuable lessons from the Gita, it is only after realizing that the life of the
world of actions do not give us what we are ultimately seeking that we become
qualified for the teachings of the Gita that take us to the higher dimensions
of life. After the realization through personal experience that what we are
searching for is the uncreated and that the uncreated cannot be the result of
actions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Also, it is only when we become ready to do
prapatti, surrender, to the guru, as Arjuna does in the battlefield when he
tells Krishna in the second chapter of the Gita shishyaste'ham shaadhi maam
twaam prapannam – I am your disciple. Protect me, for I seek refuge in you –
that we become ready for the highest teachings of the Gita. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">KRISHNA’S SPIRITUAL
REVOLUTION<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The Gita teaches the path to lasting good, the
ultimate good. And the path to achieve that, as traditionally understood is the
path of nivritti, withdrawal from all other activities, from the outer journey,
and devoting all your energies and time exclusively to the inner journey by
living a life of renunciation, sannyasa. Perhaps the most revolutionary
teaching of Krishna in the Gita is that we need not do anything special for
travelling on that path, that we need not do anything other than what we are
doing now, that what we are doing at this moment itself can take us to that
goal, the ultimate universal goal, the goal that every human being is seeking
nisshreyasa, a word that means freedom from all bondages, including the bondage
to the ego, to our life scripts, to time itself. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Krishna says that whatever we are doing at
the moment, whether it is fighting a war as Arjuna is doing, or administering a
kingdom or farming or tending cattle, or service to others could all equally
become the path of that journey, just as meditation and prayer are. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">As Krishna teaches it, the supervising,
planning and organizing that an executive does, his actions of decision making,
controlling, representing, consulting and administering, can all become
spiritual paths leading him to the ultimate good, nisshreyasa. Marketing his
products can become the spiritual path to a marketing executive, selling
vegetables from a pushcart his spiritual path to a street vendor, tending cows
his spirituality to a cowherd, cooking a meal for a cook, driving car for a
driver, mowing the lawn for a gardener, chopping wood for a woodcutter, dancing
for a dancer, painting for a painter, weaving cloth for a weaver, weaving
baskets for a basket maker all can lead to the ultimate when done with the
right mindset and understanding. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">India speaks of the butcher Dharmavyadha
using butchering as his spiritual path, the prostitute Bindumati transforming
her work into her spiritual path – and Krishna would approve of all these. And
Krishna does not hesitate to declare that openly: sve sve karmany abhiratah
samsiddhim labhate narah – each man achieves the highest by engaging in his own
karma. [BG 18.45] <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">For Krishna what you is not the important
thing, but how you do it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all he
is teaching Arjuna in the Gita how to transform the battles in the warfield
themselves into his spiritual path – slaughtering enemies can become his
spiritual path for a soldier, for a kshatriya, if that cannot be avoided, if there
is no other means left. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Krishna calls this karma yoga, the miracle of
transforming your karma into your yoga, whatever your karma is. Until his days,
pravritti, actions in the world, and nivritti, withdrawal from the world, were
two different paths. Krishna beautifully blended the two to form the path of
karma yoga. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He combined pravritti and
nivritti and called it by the ancient name of sannyasa, giving the new meaning
of nivritti in pravritti to sannyasa – withdrawal while actively engaged in
action, detachment while working with full commitment. He taught Arjuna that
running away from karma is not sannyasa, but doing karma with a different
mindset is. Krishna teaches that you do not have to do anything different, but
only do the same things differently. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">At the same time, Krishna does not forget
that there are other paths to reach that goal too – after all the spiritual
search has been man’s greatest adventure and over millennia humanity has
developed innumerable paths to reach that goal. So Krishna gives us many paths
to reach that goal – for no path is for all people. Each man’s journey has to
begin from where he is now and for that reason there are innumerable paths
leading to nisshreyasa and the Gita is a compendium of all these paths.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">FINAL WORDS BEFORE WE BEGIN<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">One last thing before we begin the discussion
of the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The Bhagavad Gita is not a book that tells
you what to do and what not to do. It is not a book of prescriptions or
proscriptions. It is a book about awakening, about seeing the truth face to
face, and about living rooted in that awakening. It is a book that leads you to
enlightenment, in the light of which you will be able to decide for yourself
what is right and what is wrong, what to do and what not to do, how to live and
how not to live. So if you are seeking readymade solutions for your problems in
the Gita you might be disappointed. It will give you light in which you can see
things as they are, and you will know what to do with each problem facing you.
It will also show you many paths to walk on, and will tell you where each path
will take you, and ask you to choose for yourself as Krishna does at the end of
the Gita by telling Arjuna:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">iti te jnaanam aakhyaatam guhyaad guhyataram
mayaa<br />
vimrshyaitad ashesheṇa yathechchhasi tathaa kuru<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“Thus, have I revealed to you knowledge that is
more hidden than the deepest secret. Think over it deeply and then do as you
wish.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The Gita is a book of freedom, not of
bindings. It does not put you in shackles by saying do this and don’t do this,
but removes all your shackles. It does not clip your wings, but shows you the
sky and asks you to flutter your wings and soar.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Krishna believes that rather than fitting
into the society as it is, with all its maladies and shallowness, we should
change it. On his way to India, Pythagoras discovered in Egypt that people live
as though in sleep. The Gita wants us to wake up ourselvss and then help others
wake up. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Apart from leading individuals to the highest
goal of life, the Gita can also help us create an enlightened society in which
life will be meaningful rather than meaningless, people will have something
genuine to live for rather than feel life and work have no meaning. With the
help of the Gita, life can become a song of joy, a dance of celebration. It can
create a society in which people will not be running madly all the time to
reach where they know not, but will have time for their souls to catch up with
them. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Gurudev Tagore sang: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Where the mind is without fear and the head held
high;<br />
Where knowledge is free;<br />
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;<br />
Where words come out from the depth of truth;<br />
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;<br />
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert
sand of dead habit;<br />
Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening thought and action;<br />
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The Gita can make not only our country but
the entire world awaken into that heaven of freedom. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">O0O</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>Satya Chaitanyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749603528440573740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2435755112654764920.post-60120880610457986842020-07-18T06:19:00.001-07:002020-07-18T06:19:43.304-07:00Living Bhagavad Gita 024: The Miracle of Listening<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A series
of short articles on the Bhagavad Gita for people living and working in our
volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times filled with stress and fear.
This scripture born in a battlefield teaches us how to face our challenges,
live our life fully, achieve excellence in whatever we do and find happiness,
peace and contentment.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></i></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[Continued from
the previous post.]<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the fascinating things about the Gita chapter we are about to
finish discussing is that Krishna says just a single sentence of five words
here: partha pashya etaan samavetaan kuroon – Arjuna, see these assembled
kurus. After that he remains totally silent, listening to Arjuna. As Arjuna
passes through various stages of confusion, frustration, depression, melancholy
and finally reaches the depths of his vishada, Krishna pays full attention to
him. He speaks again only after Arjuna has collapsed in his chariot abandoning
his bow and arrows at the end of the chapter and the next chapter begins. He
gives Arjuna space to say all he wants to say without interrupting once. And
after he has stopped speaking, Krishna provokes him to speak again, helping him
to expresses anything more that might be lurking in the depths of his mind. This
is like emptying a vessel and then pouring some water into it, shaking the vessel
well and emptying it again to clean out anything that might have been still<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>be in it. As Krishna does so, Arjuna brings
out the rest of his pain and agony and confusion from his inner depths, thus
making his mind empty and receptive to Krishna’s teachings. That emptiness at
the end of pouring out all that is in your mind is a requirement to receive the
teachings of the Gita. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Very little of Gita can go into a crowded mind, which is the reason why
we too must practice some sadhana for emptying the mind along with the study of
the Gita, like a meditation. A few minutes of meditation every day and living
the whole day meditatively will take us a long way. Living the whole day
meditatively is not difficult because all you have to do is to focus completely
on whatever you are doing. Meditation is focusing your attention on a single
thing, whether it is your breath, abdominal movement, a mantra, a sound, an
image or anything else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In his classic The
Miracle of Mindfulness, Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of transforming everyday actions
like washing vessels into meditation by the simple practice of paying full
attention to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the most famous Zen stories is about a university professor who
went to meet a Zen master to learn Zen from him. While the professor began
introducing himself, the master ordered tea. A disciple brought tea and the
master began pouring the tea into a cup while the professor talked about the
researches he has done, the researches he is engaged in at the moment, his
future research plans and so on. Listening quietly without saying a word, the
Zen master kept pouring the tea into the cup which had by then become full and
had started spilling over. Suddenly the professor noticed this and said,
“Master, the cup is full. No more will go in!” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And the master stopped and said, “You are like this cup, professor. You are
so full of yourself that no Zen will go in now. Empty yourself and come back.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Without emptying ourselves, we cannot receive wisdom. Wisdom is given
only to those who have become silent inside and not to those with crowded
minds. Krishna is allowing Arjuna to go on talking so that his mind becomes
empty and receptive to what he has to say. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is another reason why Krishna listens to Arjuna attentively
without interrupting. The greatest thing anyone can do for a man who is in pain
and grief is to listen to him. Being heard is healing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just the fact that someone is listening to us
attentively, the fact that someone feels what we have to say is important, will
have a positive effect on us, as anyone who has ever wanted to talk to someone
and has found someone to listen to him knows. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I remember my days as the principal of a large junior college. One day a
girl student in her teens came to me weeping, her whole body shaking, the power
of each sob sending violent tremors through her whole body. I seated her
conformably on a sofa in my chamber and gave her plenty of time to relax and
catch her breath. It was only after quite some time that she started sharing
her problem. It took me a long time to get the whole picture from her as she
shared her pain in words interspersed with periods of sobbing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This young girl was extremely beautiful and very sweet. One of her plain
looking teachers could not tolerate her beauty or the fact that all the boys
liked her. So she began insulting her in class, finding fault with her for
everything, calling her an idiot for the smallest errors she made and also
saying things like she has no interest in studies but was interested only in drawing
boys to her, she was a trap and a danger to the boys and bad example to other
girls. The teacher went to the extent of calling the young girl a slut in the
classroom. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It took me more than an hour of more or less silent listening to put her
at ease and then to assure her she would be fine, nothing would happen to her. I
had instructed my secretary who sat just outside my chamber not to let anyone come
in so that I could listen to her uninterrupted, paying full attention. I can’t
say she was healed of her pain by the time she left my room, but she had
certainly become relaxed, with even a gentle smile appearing on her face as she
was thanked me and left. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Krishna listens with complete attention to whatever Arjuna has to say
because listening with complete attention is in itself healing. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By the way, listening with complete attention is also the greatest
compliment you can give anyone. We all need attention – that is one of the
greatest people truths. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The following passage is from Brenda Shoshanna’s beautiful book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Zen Miracles: Finding Peace in an Insane
World</i>, a book that I have used as a text in a course called Zen and the
Executive Mind that I taught for several years in one of the top business
schools of India, XLRI School of Business and Human Resources. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“A Zen student, Leila, went to
the beach for the weekend. After a hectic week she looked forward to peace, to
the smell of the ocean, to the sand dunes. There was a woman cleaning in the
guest house Leila was staying at. This woman, Frieda, sang very loud love songs
in Spanish as she swept the floors. In addition, she was noisy and clumsy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“As usual, Leila woke up early in
the morning and wanted to do zazen. She tidied her room, and placed a cushion
on the floor to sit on. Just as she sat down on it she heard a bang against the
door. Frieda was sweeping outside and had knocked the door with her broom. She
was also singing loudly, “My heart’s breaking, breaking today.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Leila sat on the cushion,
listening to the shrill song. “What will I do without you?” Frieda kept
wailing. Finally, Leila got up, opened the door and called, “Frieda, can you be
a little more quiet?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Frieda didn’t fully understand
English and kept right on singing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Leila went back to sit down
again, but not only did the song get louder, the broom started banging her door
consistently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Finally, she got up from
the cushion wondering what was wrong with the woman. Negative thoughts started
to brew but thanks to years of zazen, she caught herself. “Stop it,” she said
to the dark mind that was forming. Leila realized that when we want to be apart
from something, it clings to us; when we want to be too close, it runs away.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“She opened the door and went out
of the room. The minute Frieda saw her, she flew over, standing no more than
two inches away. It seemed she had taken a great liking to Leila. Leila turned
to go outside in the street, and Frieda followed along.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Where are you going?” she said. </span><span lang="EN-GB">“To the beach,” Leila said. Frieda grinned. “Me too. Going along.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“As they walked down the dirt road to the ocean,
Frieda kept humming and Leila resisted, trying to shut her out. She started
concentrating on other things. Then the humming turned into loud singing again.
Leila focused on the delicious salt air and took deep gulps of it. The singing
got louder still. Whatever Leila did to block it out, it only got louder. Then,
suddenly Master Rinzai’s words came to her: “If we master each circumstance,
then whatever we do is the truth.” <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">How
am I going to master this? </span>she wondered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They arrived at the beach with Frieda singing relentlessly.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“When they got to the sand, Leila spread out a blanket
and sat down; Frieda planted herself right beside her again. As Leila watched
the waves of the ocean roll up on the shore, she suddenly stopped pushing
Frieda away, and fell into zazen. She stopped wanting things to be different.
She stopped wanting quiet time alone at the beach. This was the circumstance
she was in now, hearing Frieda sing over and over that her heart was breaking...”<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As we shall see,
this incident Brenda Shoshanna shares is about listening, but it is about other
things too. It is about accepting things as they are, people as they are, life
as it is, and many more things. As a practitioner of Zen, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Leila is trying to
use every situation that life presents as an opportunity for practicing Zen.
Let’s continue with Shoshanna’s narration. Something beautiful happens
now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Frieda was swaying as she sang,
and Leila found herself swaying as well. As the two of them sat there swaying,
Frieda’s voice became softer. Leila turned and looked at Frieda. Tears were
pouring down her face.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Frieda said, “You, my mamma.
Missing my mamma.” Leila finally understood that Frieda was missing her mother,
who was far away. She must have reminded Frieda of her mother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Frieda was sitting there crying and in a moment
Leila started crying as well. She was also missing her mother, who had died a
year ago. The two of them sat there crying on the blanket together until Leila
turned and gave Frieda a hug. Soon the crying subsided, the singing
subsided—they were simply sitting together, listening to the sound of the
waves.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></i></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What a beautiful experience! Leila could have rejected Frieda, shouted
at her, instead she accepts her, listens to her attentively. A woman in great
pain and loneliness is consoled. The pain she had been storing inside her
suffocating her melts and comes out in the form of her tears and an amazing
relationship is formed between the two women who were strangers just a few
minutes ago!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Listening can do miracles. Paying attention to others can do miracles.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Unfortunately in today’s world no one has time to listen to others! All
of us are in such hurry and we all have so much to say! How can we listen to
others then?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I remember a sad story reported by newspapers several years ago. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As the parents were getting the little baby ready for school she was resisting
and saying she did not want to go. Well, that was nothing unusual, so they
continued. But as they put her foot in one of her shoes she started screaming
but they ignored that too. Just the daily drama taken to just another level,
they thought. They tied up the shoe laces after putting the other foot in the
other shoe and hurried her out as they heard the school bus coming. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The baby kept screaming in the bus and then continued crying aloud in
the school too for two more hours. It is only then one of the teachers noticed
blood was draining from her face and her body was slowly turning blue while the
child kept up with the screaming which had by now become weak. Soon the baby collapsed
in a swoon and the teacher loosened her uniform and removed her shoes. It was
then she saw it – there was a scorpion inside the child’s shoe, still alilve!
It was the scorpion bite that had made her scream in the first place and now
her foot was all swollen up and the poison had spread to other parts of her
body too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I remember the news said
the poor baby died of the scorpion poisoning.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just the other day I saw a sad You Tube video about a little child
fighting with her mother insisting that she did not want to go to school. The
mother asked her why and she said it was no fun, they didn’t allow her to play,
it was only study and study all the time, and you had to sit without moving and
do all the teacher asked you to do. The mother asked her if they don’t sing
songs in school, if they don’t dance and she said it was just abcd and numbers
and nothing else. The baby kept saying she did not want to go to school, wept,
begged her mother not to send her to school. As you watched the baby’s helpless
frustration, tears welled up in your eyes and you felt it difficult to breathe.
But I felt that was not how the mother saw it – I could hear her laughing at
what the baby was saying, as though she found it all amusing rather than
painful. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I know perhaps mothers today have no choice, such is what education has
become, particularly in India with such high premium placed on education and
with so many first and second generation learners. I remembered all those
lectures on Rousseau I gave to future teachers in a College of Education where
I taught for many years. Speaking about the right kind of education, Rousseau
said “education practices the art of delay,” meaning we must delay sending
children to schools as much as possible. The father of modern education also
said the best education is negative education, meaning we much give children as
little book education as possible, and instead send them back to nature for
natural education. Sadly all those ideas have been wiped away by the tides of
time and what we see today all around us is little babies going to school bent
under the weight of heavy backpacks. They look like mountain climbers with huge
trekking bags. Education should be pleasurable, said Rousseau, but that is not
exactly what we see when we look at our schools. Even then shouldn’t parents at
least give a sympathetic ear to children when they say they do not want to go
to school?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In his book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Is</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the American Dream Killing You?</i> Paul
Stiles speaks of how we have all become servants of an all-powerful entity
called Market and how that entity has made in the short span of just two
generations joint families disappear from the face of the earth. True, joint
families had their own problems, but they were wonderful places for children to
grow up in, with many generations living together, and several children of near
ages growing up together and there was always someone to listen to you when you
wanted to talk. Today instead of parents and grandparents, it is the paid
caregivers at the day care centers who look after you. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">More than Anything Else in the World</i> is a powerful, award winning Brazilian
movie I once saw in a film festival. It talked about the loneliness of a little
girl growing up with her single mother who works nine to five in modern Rio de
Janeiro and the hell life has become for her and the mother.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Much of the insanity and violence in the world today is because no one
has time to listen to children in their most important years of growing up. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the greatest leadership skills is listening skill, some would
even say it is the greatest leadership skill. A story from third century China
tells us of King Ts’ao taking his son Prince Ta’i to Pan Ku, the best guru in
the country who lived near the Ming Li forest. The king requested Pan Ku to
give the prince the best possible education as the future ruler of the country.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When the king left, Pan Ku turned to the young boy and told him, “Go the
forest and build a small hut there for yourself. Live in that hut for a full
year listening to the sound of the forest. Come back to me after the year is
over.” The boy was completely confused by the order. He had expected to be
taught strategic leadership skills, people skills, planning skills, the vision
and mission of a king and all else he would need tomorrow as a ruler. Instead
he was being asked to go and live in the forest all alone listening to the
sound of the forest. But since there was no one he could complain to since his
father himself had left him with the guru, he quietly went and lived in the
forest as he was told to. He listened to all the sounds of the forest – the
rustle of leaves, the chirping of crickets, the buzzing of bees, the roar of
lions, the song of birds, the laughter of hyenas, the chattering of the monkeys...
He waited impatiently for the year to be over and then went back to the master.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Did you listen to the sound of the forest?” asked the master and the
prince said, “Yes, master.” And when Pan Ku asked him what he had heard, he
started naming the different sounds he had heard. As the list grew, the guru’s
face began growing darker and darker and when he finished, the guru shouted,
“Back to the forest. Come back after one more year.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The furious and frustrated young man went back to the forest and for a
while continued listening. But he had already spent an entire year listening
just to the sounds of the forest and there was nothing new to hear. Eventually
he gave up and spent his time just relaxing under trees, walking by streams and
lying in shades. He was no more trying to listen to forest sounds but had
surrendered to a forest dweller’s life, became part of the forest, no more
separate from it but one with it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And then one day it happened. He heard something he had never heard
before. The sound of the grass growing, the sound of the trees drinking up
water with their roots, the sound of green leaves yellowing, green fruits
ripening, plants flowering, seasons changing. He had goose bumps all over,
great joy spurted from within him as water from an underground spring, and
bathed in this bliss he ran to the guru, without even waiting for the
completion of the year. The guru took one look at him and then hugged him,
telling him he had heard that he wanted him to hear, he had heard the sound of
the forest. Pan Ku sent him back to his father with his blessings, telling him
his education was complete, he would be a great king like his father.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What the boy had heard was the sound of silence – it is in silence that
the grass grows, it is in silence that fruits ripen, it is in silence that
seasons change. He was able to listen to the sound of silence because he
himself had grown silent inside by surrendering to life, accepting it without
resisting it, and by totally relaxing, letting go. And with the birth of that
inner silence, he had become capable of listening – for the first time in his
life. He could now listen not only to what was spoken, but also to the
unspoken. He could not only listen to sounds but also to silence. Intelligence
had been awakened in him, because the secret of intelligence is inner silence.
Sensitivity had been awakened in him, because the secret of sensitivity is
inner silence. Imagination had been awakened in him, because the secret of
imagination is inner silence. Love had been awakened in him, because only with
a silent mind can you really love others. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">His education was now truly complete. Everything that he did will now
have the quality of excellence. When he touched things, they would sparkle.
When he spoke, people would run to fulfill his wishes. He would be surrounded
by an aura of tranquility and stillness. His energy would now be inexhaustible.
He would now be what Tibet called wang thang, a center of serene power. He
would see beauty in the most ordinary things. He would radiate love. He would
no more have to manipulate people because his least wish would be a command for
them. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That is what happens when you become silent inside. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Says Zen: To the mind that is still, the
whole universe surrenders.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Learning to listen is a great blessing on us. It is also a blessing on
others. When you give your attention to others, they are healed, made whole. </span><b><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Doctors need to listen to their patients, says the latest discoveries in
medicine. It is as much the doctor who heals as the medicine. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Parents need to listen. Teachers need to listen. Husbands and wives need
to listen. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Leaders need to listen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
only then that they can understand the private hells within peoples and efficiently
motivate them; coach, mentor and guide them and build effective teams. It has
been said by experts that leadership is 80% listening and 20% talking –
probably the opposite of what is widely practiced. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Amazing is the power of loving attention. It transforms people. If you
have seen the movie Munnabhai MBBS, you know the instant transformation that
happens when Munna pays loving attention to Maksood Bhai, you know the secret
of Anand Bhai’s metamorphosis from a living dead man to the narrator of the
movie. Like love that transforms both the lover and the loved, attention paid to
others too transforms both them and you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Krishna listens to Arjuna and encourages him to speak more and that
opens the door to wonderful teachings we call the Bhagavad Gita.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Gita teaches us what exactly we are seeking and why we seek it. The
Gita helps us discover the meaning of life, shows us the only path worth
travelling for our own good and the good of the world. The Gita teaches us the
difference between shreyas and preyas. The Gita helps the river of our life to
flow towards the ocean as it should and not towards dreary deserts, to borrow
an expression from Gurudev Tagore. The Gita can make life what it is meant to
be – an utsava, a celebration, a festival, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thus ends Chapter One of the Bhagavad Gita. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Shri krishnarpanam astu! Tavaiva vastu govinda tubhyam
eva samarpaye!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">O0O</span></span></div>
<br /><br />
</div>
Satya Chaitanyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749603528440573740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2435755112654764920.post-37317682328541422782020-07-11T21:47:00.001-07:002020-07-11T21:47:47.829-07:00Living Bhagavad Gita 023: Journey to the East<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A series of short
articles on the Bhagavad Gita for people living and working in our volatile,
uncertain, complex and ambiguous times filled with stress and fear. This
scripture born in a battlefield teaches us how to face our challenges, live our
life fully, achieve excellence in whatever we do and find happiness, peace and
contentment.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[Continued from
the previous post.]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The name given to
the first chapter of the Gita is Arjuna Vishada Yoga – the Yoga of Arjuna’s Vishada.
The word vishada is translated variously as melancholy, sorrow, grief, depression,
despondency, sadness, misery and so on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We just saw in the
last article how Arjuna surrendered to melancholy, dropped his bow and arrows
and collapsed into his chariot telling Krishna he will not fight, he finds no
point in fighting and killing, no point in winning the kingdom, no point in
pleasures or even in life itself. Kim no rajyena govinda, kim bhogair jeevitena
vaa, he asks: “What good is the kingdom, Krishna, and what good are pleasures
or life itself?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All over the world
today there is a lot of discussion about depression which is fast spreading and
assuming the form of a wild fire that can consume everything. I was part of the
faculty team giving an intensive training programme for doctors at XLRI School
of Business and Human Resources and we were having a pre-programme dinner when
the topic of depression came up. Several professors felt depression is fast
becoming the most dangerous problem the world is facing today with a large
number of lives claimed every day. This was of course in the days before the
covid-19 pandemic. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bright young
people seem to be particularly susceptible to depression. In his bestselling
book The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology,
Shawn Achor speaks about depression in Harvard University where happiness was
the subject of his research for several years. Achor says “despite all its
magnificent facilities, a wonderful faculty, and a student body made up of some
of America’s (and the world’s) best and brightest, it is home to many
chronically unhappy young men and women. In 2004, for instance, a Harvard Crimson poll found that as
many as 4 in 5 Harvard students suffer from depression at least once during the
school year, and nearly half of all students suffer from depression so
debilitating they can’t function.” Shawn Achor then goes on to say that “This
unhappiness epidemic is not unique to Harvard. A Conference Board survey
released in January of 2010 found that only 45 percent of workers surveyed were
happy at their jobs, the lowest in 22 years of polling. Depression rates today
are ten times higher than they were in 1960. Every year the age threshold of
unhappiness sinks lower, not just at universities but across the nation. Fifty
years ago, the mean onset age of depression was 29.5 years old. Today, it is
almost exactly half that: 14.5 years old.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Speaking about depression, the Himalayan monk Om Swami says in his book <i>When All Is Not Well: Depression and Sadness</i>:
“Depression isn’t just sadness. It is emptiness, it is misery. It is pain and
nothingness at once. When you are truly depressed, you lack the ability or will
to cheer yourself up. No one just ‘has depression’. You suffer from it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Continuing, Om Swami explains what depression feels like. “You will wake
at 5, 6, maybe 7 a.m., feeling as though you had only just fallen asleep... If
you don’t have to be somewhere, you could lie in bed for another three hours;
too tired, too miserable and pathetic to crawl out of your bed. Or maybe you will
sleep until 1 p.m., because it’s so much easier to sleep through most of the
day than actually live it, and you’re so unbelievably tired anyway. You will
push through the day, knowing that every hour will be a struggle and not
knowing how you will feel tomorrow. People will ask what is wrong, and you will
simply smile and say, ‘Nothing, I’m just tired.’ ...You will spend your days
not only lost in the haze of depression, but your mind will be so consumed with
these thoughts of escaping and self-destruction that you think you could
explode…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But the important
question is why so many people are feeling depressed today. Why is depression
spreading across the world like a deadly epidemic today? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The reasons are
not too difficult to find. For one thing, our life has become too fast. We are
obsessed with speed – in real life as well as in virtual life. We have become
intolerant of slowness. And stillness? Of course, we have grown strangers to
it. We have forgotten that all that is beautiful in life comes from stillness.
Creativity comes from stillness. Intuition comes from stillness. Art and music
come from stillness. The essence of dance is not movement but the stillness
that is its substratum, from which arises and into which it goes back. All
inventions and discoveries are made in moments of stillness. Intuition comes
from stillness, insights come from stillness, healing comes from stillness. Medical
professionals have long recognized that silence plays an important part in
healing. For instance, the experience of even a little real silence can produce
physiological changes that neutralize the effects of stress.“When you are
still, you find that your perception of life is at its purest,” says Ron
Rothbun in his book The Way Is Within.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are all
familiar with the story of Archimedes who ran through the streets of Athens
shouting eureka, eureka. The Athenian ruler had given him an assignment.
Someone had gifted the ruler a crown and he wanted to find out if the crown was
of pure gold or some alloy had been mixed with the gold. The specific gravity
of gold was known then, but no one knew how to measure the mass of an irregular
object like the crown. Archimedes was the best scientist of the day and he
struggled for weeks to find a solution to the problem. If only there was a way
to measure the mass of the crown! Then you could decide whether the crown was
pure gold or not. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Eventually
Archimedes gave up his struggles admitting defeat and sank into a tub for a
relaxed bath. It was then, in that moment when there were not struggles in his
mind and the mind had become still with his acceptance of defeat, that he
noticed water spilling over from the tub as his body sank into the tub. That
very instant insight was born, a great discovery happened: the mass of water
that spilled out was equal to the mass of his body that had submerged in the
water. The quantity of water that flows out when a substance is immersed in a
vessel full of water is equal to the mass of the substance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In that still
moment, his problem had been solved and climbing out of the tub he ran through the
streets of Athens shouting that word that has now become part of every language
in the world: eureka, eureka!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We all have had
the experience of something, a name, we had forgotten coming back to us the
moment we give up the struggles and the mind becomes still. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All science and
all technology is the product of still moments. All that is precious to
humanity are products of inner stillness, of the mind is that is empty of
restless thoughts. The saying that the empty mind is the devil’s workshop is
completely wrong. The empty mind is God’s workshop! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Indian culture
says the universe is born of God’s empty mind. The Taittiriya Upanishad says,
“Sa tapo’tapyata. Sa tapas taptvaa idam sarvam asrjata. Yadidam kincha.” “He
did tapas. Having done tapas, he created all this. He created all that exists.”
It is from the mind of God that has become empty because of tapas that the
universe comes into being. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is story
told about the world famous painter Raphael and an unknown woodcutter. One
morning as the woodcutter was going to the forest to cut wood, he saw Raphael
sitting by a lake, lazily picking up pebbles and dropping them into the lake.
The woodcutter shook his head in disapproval – what a waste of time! – and went
on his way. As the woodcutter was returning home with his load of firewood, he
saw Raphael still sitting there picking up pebbles and throwing them into the
lake! What an idiot, he thought! I have done a whole day’s work and the moron
is still sitting there and throwing pebbles into the lake! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We know today that
such a woodcutter existed because of Raphael, one of the greatest painters the
world has known. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the ancient
Indian tradition, in fact all over the world, we began everything with a few
moments of silence, of mental stillness, of prayer. But today stillness, and
even slowness, is looked down upon. It is one of the greatest casualties of the
age of speed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The virtues of
slowness are unlimited, says Carl Honore in his book <i>In praise of slowness</i>. In his book <i>Slowing Down to the Speed of Life</i>, Richard Carlson says more or
less the same thing. And it is that slowness that we have rejected in favour of
speed! Faster, faster, ever faster, says our culture!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Slowing down and
experiencing stillness is one of our basic needs – it is as essential as
breathing. Our brains go completely haywire unless we experience slowness and
stillness on a regular basis. Which is exactly what is not happening today. And
that is taking a heavy toll on young minds today, especially gifted young
minds, leading to depression and all that depression leads to. The philosophy
aaraam hai haraam has to go. Laziness is bad, sluggishness is bad, sloth and
apathy are bad, but relaxation is not. It is the most healing thing most of us
know, apart from sleep. In fact sleep is a form of relaxation too. The second
highest form of relaxation, after meditation which is the highest form of
relaxation in existence. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We need to spend
more time ‘plucking daisies’, we need to spend more time climbing mountains, we
need to spend more time unfocused and in ‘purposeless’ activities, like Raphael
picking up pebbles and throwing them into the lake. We need to give our souls
time to catch up with us. That is the medicine for fighting the insane
obsession with speed that drives us away from our own calm inner centre. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A European
explorer was in the Amazon forests, exploring the flora and fauna there. He had
hired a supervisor and the supervisor had hired native people to help him in
his work. One day passed the explorer and the natives hurrying from one thing
to another, then another day and then yet another day. On the fourth day when
the explorer was ready to start he found not one native was ready. When
enquired, the supervisor gave him an incredibly beautiful reply. He told the
explorer: they are giving time for their souls to catch up with them!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We all need to
give time for our souls to catch up with us. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the most
beautiful Chuang Tzu stories ever says:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The prince
discovered when he returned from the top of the mountain that he had mislaid
the Priceless Pearl up on the mountain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He sent his
generals and their armies to search for it, but they could not find it. He
employed Huang-Ti, the vehement debater, to find the Pearl, but Huang-Ti was
unable to find it. He sent his skilled gardeners and his artisans to find it,
but they too came home empty-handed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finally, in
despair, having tried everyone else, he sent Purposeless to the mountain, and
Purposeless found the pearl immediately. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"How odd it
is", mused the Prince, "that it was Purposeless who found it!" <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are all birds
meant to fly in the open sky. Those who have known the truth, the Upanishad
rishis for instance, call us amritasya putraah – children of the Immortal, each
one of us a divine spark. The Mundaka Upanishad tells us: yathaa sudeeptaat
paavakaad visphulingaah sahasrashah prabhavante saroopaah, tathaa aksharaad
vividhaah somya bhaavaah prajaayante tatra chaivaapi yanti: Just as sparks in
their thousands are born from a roaring fire, each of the same nature as the
fire itself, so do, dear one, beings come forth from the Imperishable One and
return to It. [Mu.Up.2.1] <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No, we are not
meant to spend our lives hopping about on the ground searching for worms but to
stretch out our wings, soar up and enjoy the bliss of the boundless skies – the
boundless skies of consciousness. We are meant for the bhooma, the vast, and
not for the alpa, the small. The owl will be satisfied with the rotting body of
a mouse, but not the phoenix which will touch no food other than certain sacred
fruits and drink only from the clearest springs. The chakora lives on
moonbeams, says Indian mythology, and will touch nothing else. The way man
lives today is like the phoenix being forced to live on rotten mice and the
chakora being forced to live on the food that pigs eat. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By and large, man
has forgotten the higher. We have become flotsams with no roots in our
spiritual selves. We are living not the philosophy of the rising son as we did
in the past but the philosophy of the setting sun. Frustration and depression
are bound to be there. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As we saw, the
vishada that happened to Arjuna in the battlefield is called by different names
such as melancholy, sorrow, grief, depression, despondency, sadness, misery and
so on<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But there is a different
name for it. India calls it vairagya, dispassion, and considers it sacred. Vairagya
is the first step in the journey to the east, the journey to the land where the
sun rises, the journey to the source of all light. Light as bright as the light
of a thousand suns, light before which all other lights pale. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is mantra
that is traditionally chanted when we do arati, ritually show burning lamps
before a sacred idol. Na tatra sooryo bhaati na chandrataarakam nemaa vidyuto
bhaanti kutoyam agnih; tam eva bhaantam anubhaaati saravam tasya bhaasaa sarvam
idam vibhaati, says the mantra. “The sun does not shine there, nor the moon or
the stars. How then will this fire? That alone shines and everything else
shines after it, reflecting its light.” The journey to that source of all light
begins with what Arjuna is experiencing now and that is why India considers
vairagya sacred. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is something
that happens only to sensitive people. Much of the time the kind of questions
Arjuna asks, the feelings Arjuna feels, come to us from a great shower of blessing
that descends upon us. It is ishwra-anugraha, the grace of God, says India. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The rishi of the
Svetashvatara Upanishad declares boldly and unhesitatingly:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">vedaaham
etaṃ puruṣhaṃ mahaantam aaditya-varṇaṃ tamasaḥ parastaat;<br />
tam eva viditvaa atimṛtyum eti naanyaḥ panthaa vidyate'yanaaya. Sv. Up.
3.8 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“I
know the Great Purusha, He who is luminous like the sun and beyond darkness.
Only by knowing Him does one go beyond death. There is no other path worth
travelling!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Vairagya
is the invitation to begin our journey on the only path worth travelling. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is
not only Arjuna who has grace showered on him as he stands in the chariot
driven by Krishna in the middle of the two armies in Kurukshertra, but all of
us, the entire humanity. Because it is in response to this vairagya he felt
that the Bhagavad Gita was born on a shukla paksha ekadashi day, on the
eleventh day of the bright lunar fortnight in the month of Margashirsha, more
than five thousand and one hundred years ago.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A well
known story from the Mahabharata says that both Arjuna and Duryodhana went to
meet Krishna seeking his help before the war began. Duryodhana was the first to
enter Krishna’s bed chamber and he went and took a seat by the head of the bed.
A few moments later Arjuna entered the chamber and he too could have gone and taken
a seat at the head of the bed as Duryodhana had done. Instead, he went and
stood at Krishna’s feet. When Krishna opened his eyes a few moments later it
was naturally Arjuna who was standing at the foot of the bed that he saw first.
As we all know, it was on him that Krishna’s grace fell in the form of his
presence with him during the war and as his driver. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Krishna is grace.
The greatest possible grace! With Krishna on your side, the impossible becomes
possible. With Krishna on your side miracles happen. Mookam karoti vaachaalam
pangum landhayate girim, yat-kripaa tam aham vande parama-ananda-maadhavam,
says one of the shlokas traditionally chanted before the study of the Gita: “I
bow down to Krishna, who is supreme bliss itself, with whose grace the
speechless become eloquent and the lame crosses over mountains.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The choice that
Arjuna made in Krishna’s bedchamber, rejecting the Narayani Sena, rejecting the
power of a mighty army and choosing just Krishna, Krishna’s grace, it is that
choice that is now showering on him in the form of the Bhagavad Gita. All we
have to do is to make that choice, everything else happens by itself. That is
why Krishna concludes his teachings in the Gita by saying: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Default" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">sarvadharmaan parityajya maam ekam sharanam vraja; aham twaa
sarvapaapebhyo mokshayishyaami maa shuchah BG 18.66<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="Default" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Abandoning all dharmas, take refuge in me alone; I will
liberate you from all sins. Have no grief.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Duryodhana missed
Krishna’s grace throughout his life. After the war was over, Gandhari curses
Krishna saying he could have and should have helped her son but did not. But
grace can shower on you only when you are open to it. If a pot remains upside
down when the sky showers rains, not a drop will go inside even if an entire
season passes. In fact, the only thing you need to deserve grace is openness to
it, receptivity to it, which is what Duryodhana did not have. There were a thousand occasions in his life when
he could have taken refuge in Krishna, but rejects every single one of them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is a famous
Indian story about a beggar who was crossing a bridge, walking with a stick in
hand. The story says that Goddess Parvati takes pity on the poor beggar and
requests Shiva to bless him with wealth. Shiva says there is no point because
even if he gives wealth to him, he will not get it because he is not open to his
blessing. But the heart of the goddess is the heart of a mother and she insists
that the man be given wealth. Shiva agrees and a treasure chest appears on the
bridge. The moment the chest appears on the bridge, the beggar has a thought:
“I am young now and I can see well, but what will happen to me when I grow old
and lose my eyesight? I must practice walking blind right from now.” With that thought, he closes he eyes and walking
with the help of the stick crosses the rest of the bridge, missing the treasure
completely! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Throughout his
life Duryodhana behaved like that beggar.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whereas Arjuna
chose Krishna lifetimes ago. The Mahabharata tells us they have been friends
across lifetimes, meditating in the Himalayas together. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is a mantra
in the Mundaka Upanishad that my teacher Swami Dayananda Saraswati was very
fond of. During the years when I was in the Sandeepany Gurukula and learning
timeless Indian wisdom from him, he must have quoted this mantra hundreds of
times.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">pareekshya lokaan
karmachitaan braahmano nirvedam aayaan naastyakrtah krtena tadvijnanartham sa
gurum evabhigacched samitpaanih shrotriyam brahmanishtham. Mu.Up.1.2.12 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Having
examined all in the world that is gained through actions, after attaining
nirveda and realizing that the uncreated cannot be achieved through actions,
let [him who has thus become] a brahmana, approach with samit in hand a guru
who is learned [in the traditional spiritual lore] and rooted in the Brahman.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
soul of the entire Indian spiritual culture could be found in that one mantra.
Before approaching the guru and being qualified for his grace, we must
developed nirveda towards all that can be attained through our own power,
through our actions. Nirveda means vairagya – what Arjuna is experiencing at
the moment. It is when this vairagya is born in your heart that you become a
brahmana – one whose entire focus is on
attaining the Brahman, one whose concentration now is only on attaining
the spiritual goal. And then he should go to his guru with samit in hand. Samit
is kindling used in sacrificial fire. Carrying that to your guru is the symbol
of your joyful willingness to serve the master.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Duryodhana is
still far from the nirveda the Upanishad talks about. He is not willing to
surrender to Krishna and therefore is not ready for the grace. He has not yet
developed what makes you a brahmana – the all consuming urge to abandon
everything else and walk the path of shreyas to reach the land of the ultimate
good, the land of light, having reached which you never return – yad gatvaa na
nivartante. He is still very much with the loka of wealth, power, position,
sensual pleasures and so on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Arjuna has developed
that urge and he is ready. That is why he is asking, “What good is the kingdom,
Krishna, and what good are pleasures or life itself?” The vishada he is
experiencing at the moment is the clear sign of that. <span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All vishadas, depressions,
are not bad, some are good. Some can take you to the higher. They come to you
from divine grace. With them begins our journey to the east, the greatest
journey we will ever make. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br /></div>
Satya Chaitanyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749603528440573740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2435755112654764920.post-41273753219734805272020-07-11T21:44:00.001-07:002020-07-11T21:44:51.773-07:00Living Bhagavad Gita 022_When Tamas Takes Over<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A series of short
articles on the Bhagavad Gita for people living and working in our volatile,
uncertain, complex and ambiguous times filled with stress and fear. This
scripture born in a battlefield teaches us how to face our challenges, live our
life fully, achieve excellence in whatever we do and find happiness, peace and
contentment.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[Continued from
the previous post]</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="Default" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="color: windowtext; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sanjaya said:
Having spoken thus in the battlefield, Arjuna sank down into the chariot
dropping his bow and arrows, his mind heavy with grief. BG 1.47<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Chapter One of the Bhagavad Gita began with a
question by Dhritarashtra about what his sons and the sons of Pandu did in the
battlefield of Kurukshetra and now we have come to the last verse of the
chapter in which Sanjaya tells the blind king that Arjuna has sat down in the
chariot overcome by great compassion that has risen in his heart, refusing to
fight. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The journey of the Gita which is a journey
into light begins with tamas, darkness – Dhritarashtra is tamas. We cannot help
but wonder how appropriate this is because all journeys have to begin from
where we are and we are in darkness now. The purpose of the Gita is to take us
from the darkness – spiritual darkness – in which we are now to light. Tamaso
maa jyotir gamaya, lead me from darkness to light, says one of the oldest prayers
known to mankind, a prayer that we find the Vedic people of India making to the
unnamed power that presides over our lives. Gita is about this journey from
darkness to light. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Bhagavad Gita shows us how we can travel
from darkness to light. Krishna tells us it is for each one of us to make this
journey from darkness to light, it is for us to pull ourselves out of the abyss
we have fallen into. Uddharet aatmanaa aatmaanam: Lead yourself by your own
self, he says in the Gita. If we are in the gutter it is because of ourselves
and it is for us to climb out of that gutter – that is what the Gita tells us,
that is Krishna’s way. As the greatest leadership teacher in the history of
humanity, Krishna knows that without our will to get out of the mess we are in
we will never come out of it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The darkness Dhritarashtra finds himself in
when he asks that question in the first verse of the Gita was of his own making
– others certainly aided him in that but his role in its creation is no less
important than anyone else’s. From the television serials on the epic, many of
us tend to blame Duryodhana and Shakuni for the tragedy of the Mahabharata, but
Dhritarashtra was the king, the man invested with all power, and he was also
Duryodhana’s father. Just as a modern organizational head is ultimately
responsible for whatever happens in that organization, the responsibility for
the tragedy of the Mahabharata in the final analysis is his, more than that of
anyone else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is interesting that this blind king because
of whom India fought its greatest ever war was a biological son of Sage Vyasa,
the author of the Mahabharata, the compiler of the Vedas, author of the Puranas
and arguably the greatest sage our land has known – a fact that proves greatness
and wisdom cannot be inherited but have to be acquired. As Gibran said:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Your children are not your children. <br />
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. <br />
They come through you but not from you, <br />
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Each one of us is a child of Life. In our endless journey,
each one of us has had thousands of mothers and fathers – they are the gates
through which we enter this world but we do not originate in them. The
Mahabharata says our relationships are like the relationships of two logs
meeting in the vast ocean, now brought together and now again separated: yathaa
kaashtham cha kaastham cha samaayetaam mahodadhau, sametya cha vimaayetaam,
evam bandhu-samaagamah. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are all alike
eternal sojourners in this vast ocean of life. And in that beginningless and
endless journey, each one of us undergoes endless experiences, including our experiences
with our current parents, react to those experiences in our own unique ways and
are shaped to become what we are now. Some of us end up as predominantly
sattvic, some others as rajasic and yet others as tamasic. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ultimately the responsibility for what we have
become rests on us. [And so long as we blame others for what we, divine sparks
the Upanishads calls amritasya putraah, children of immortality, have become, there
is no possibility of change.]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">There is no way gunas can be inherited from our parents, as
we see in the case of the four sons of Maharshi Vyasa. His son Brahmarshi Shuka
is beyond all gunas – an enlightened man who has become gunatita. Vidura,
another biological son of his, is predominantly sattvic and Pandu is rajasic. </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Dhritarashtra, the blind king with whose name
the Bhagavad Gita begins, is deeply tamasic. In fact, he could be used as an
example to explain what tamas means as I have done numerous times in my
lectures to the business school students I have taught and the corporate
officers I have trained during sessions on understanding self and others,
motivating self and others and so on. It is difficult to find a better example
for tamas in the Mahabharata than Dhritarashtra. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tamasic people cannot create – creativity is
the opposite of tamas. But they can destroy. They are not stupid, but have a
kind of intelligence that Krishna names tamasic intelligence. Krishna gives us
a definition of tamasic intelligence, tamasic buddhi, in the eighteenth chapter
of the Gita:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="Default" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: windowtext;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">adharmam dharmam iti yaa manyate tamasaavritaa, sarvaarthaan
vipareetaamshcha buddhih saa paartha taamasee. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The intelligence which is clothed in darkness
and sees adharma as dharma and views all things as the opposite of what they
are, that intelligence is tamasic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>BG
18.32<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ruthless, cunning, manipulative, insensitive
to the sufferings of others, totally self-centered and joyless, tamasic people
try to doggedly hold on to whatever they have. They cling to things, cling to
their power, positions and privilege, refusing to let go, ad Dhritarashtra does.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In his international best seller <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Illusions: the Adventures of a Reluctant
Messiah</i>, Richard Bach speaks of a village of creatures living at the bottom
of a crystal river. He says:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoBodyText2" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Once</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt;"> there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal
river. The current of the river swept silently over them all – young and old,
rich and poor, good and evil, the current going its own way, knowing only its
own crystal self. Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs
and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and
resisting the current what each had learned from birth.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These creatures at
the bottom of the river that Richard Bach speaks of are excellent examples for
tamasic people. These insecure people are like baby birds in a nest, refusing
to let go of the security of the nest and thus denying themselves the freedom
and joyfulness of the boundless skies. Dhritarashtra is like those small creatures
at the bottom of the river, like those baby birds who refuse to flutter their
wings, let go and take to the skies. The name Dhritarashtra can mean one who
holds the rashtra, the kingdom, together. It can also equally well mean one who
holds on to the rashtra, the kingdom, one who clings to the kingdom, to the
throne and crown, to power, as Mahabharata’s Dhritarashtra definitely does.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Continuing Bach’s
story:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoBodyText2" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: left;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“But one creature
said at last, “I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I
trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take
me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoBodyText2" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: left;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The other creatures
laughed and said, “Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you
tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoBodyText2" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: left;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But the one heeded
them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed
by the current across the rocks.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoBodyText2" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: left;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yet in time, as the
creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom,
and he was bruised and hurt no more.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoBodyText2" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: left;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And the creatures
downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, “See a miracle! A creature like
ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoBodyText2" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: left;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And the one carried
in the current said, “I am no more Messiah than you. The river delights to lift
us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoBodyText2" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: left;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But they cried the
more, “Saviour!” all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked
again he was gone and they were left alone making legends of a Saviour.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoBodyText2" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tamasic people just cannot let go. They are incapable of doing that.
Unfortunately without letting go of the alpa, the small, there is no bhooma,
the big. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoBodyText2" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But the tamasic just cannot let go. Clinging because of their
insecurities, the tamasic live a life of fear, a life of dread, seeing threats
everywhere, afraid of what they have being snatched away from them any moment.
They become paranoid.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoBodyText2" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is a beautiful Taoist story about a phoenix and an owl:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">Hui Tzu was prime minister of
Liang. He had what he believed to be inside information that Chuang Tzu [</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">the great Taoist master<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">] coveted his post, and was plotting to supplant him.<o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When Chuang Tzu came to visit
Liang, the prime minister send out police to arrest him, But although they
searched for three days and nights, they could not find him.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Meanwhile Chuang Tzu presented
himself to Hui Tzu of his own accord, and said: “Have you heard about the bird
that lives in the south – the phoenix that never grows old? This undying
phoenix rises out of the south sea and flies to the sea of the north, never
alighting except on certain sacred trees. He will touch no food but the most
exquisite rare fruit, and he drinks only from the clearest springs. Once an owl
chewing an already half decayed rat saw the phoenix fly over. Looking up he
screeched with alarm and clutched the dead rat to himself in fear and dismay.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Prime minister,” asked Chuang
Tzu, “why are you so frantic, clinging to your ministry and screeching at me in
dismay?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Had Dhritarashtra cared about the good of his subjects as an Indian king
was expected to rather than clinging to power, had he cared even for his own
son’s good, the war would not have happened. He should have handed power back
to Yudhishthira, whose it really was as per the conventions of the day since
his father Pandu was the last king of the Bharata’s and Dhritarashtra was no
more than a caretaker. Had he done that, he wouldn’t have had to weep at the
end of the war that all his one hundred sons have been killed, that Bhima did
not spare even one of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Mahabharata tells us that when Sage Vyasa came to his sister-in-law
Ambika to produce a child through the ancient custom of niyoga as ordered by
his mother, seeing his ascetic form she closed her eyes and that is why her son
was born. This story is symbolic of Dhritarashtra’s mother turning away from
light, closing her eyes to light, rejecting light at the moment of his
conception, for Vyasa was light, wisdom, goodness and spirituality at the
highest level.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just as his mother did at the moment of his conception, throughout his
life the blind king turned away from light and remained a prisoner of darkness,
of the asuri sampada that the Gita speaks of.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was not for the first time
that in ancient India, or even in the history of the Bharata dynasty itself,
that primogeniture has been overlooked in favour of competency. Bharata
himself, after whom the dynasty is named, rejected all his nine sons born to
his three queens since he did not find them ‘appropriate’, competent enough,
and accepted a rank outsider called Bhumanyu as his successor. Dhritarashtra’s
own grandfather, Emperor Shantanu was not the eldest son of his father Emperor
Pratipa – he was his youngest son. Pratipa’s eldest son was Devapi who on his
own gave up inheritance because he had leprosy and became an ascetic. Devapi’s
younger brother Bahlika abandoned his right to the Kuru kingdom and went to
live with his maternal uncle in what we call the Balkh country today and
eventually inherited that kingdom. That is how the crown came to Shantanu.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The rule that someone who suffered from a physical defect or disease was
not fit to rule was based on the ancient understanding that kingship was a
responsibility and not a privilege and to be fully effective a king – a leader
– should have all his faculties at his command so that he can understand the
situation personally and take the right decision. Dhritarashtra was denied the
throne based because it was felt by those in power that a blind king will not
be able to fully comprehend challenging situations and if he failed to do so
and took wrong decisions on important issues, the kingdom would suffer. One of
the important expectations in those days was that the leader led from the
front, particularly in the battlefield, and here a blind man was at a
disadvantage, though exceptions to this rule did exist. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rejecting Dhritarashtra, Pandu was made king and he proved himself to be
superbly effective. But perhaps Pandu who was very sensitive towards others
felt guilty about ruling as king while his elder brother was alive – Ramayana’s
Bharata refused to sit on the throne even though according to Valmiki the
kingdom was his by birth since Dasharatha had married his mother Kaikeyi by
giving the kingdom as rajyashulka, by promising that her son would inherit the
throne. Pandu eventually gave up the throne and went to live with his wives in
the forest as an ascetic, though there may be other factors that contributed to
that decision. From Dhritarashtra’s subsequent behaviour, we clearly see that
he had more than ordinary greed for power – power was the most important thing
for him, the be-all and end-all of his existence, power for himself and
his future generations.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like most power hungry people, he had no respect for anything other than
power. Once a great rishi of awesome spiritual powers called Baka Dalbhya came
to him asking for a few cows. It was a common thing in those days for rishis to
approach kings and request for cows and kings usually gave not one or two but
hundreds and sometimes thousands of cows to them. But what Dhritarashtra did
was truly shocking – he pointed out a few dead cows and asked Rishi Dalbhya to
take them – that’s all he would give. As a consequence of this action of the
king, says the Mahabharata, the entire Kuru kingdom suffered from terrible
draughts and famines that lasted for twelve years and a vast section of the
population died from hunger, thirst and starvation. Dhritarashtra accepted his
mistake and made amends only when he realized Baka Dalbhya’s incredible spiritual
powers. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Power is perhaps man’s greatest temptation. Because with power comes
everything else. In modern political organizations, in industry and business, in
fact everywhere, we can find people clinging to power whether they are good as
leaders or not, and appointing their own people in positions of power – what we
call nepotism in English and bhai-bhatijavad in Hindi. Many organizations have
died sad deaths because of this.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Dhritarashtra Vilapa, a long soliloquy by the blind king, is at the
very beginning of the Mahabharata. In the vilapa the blind king recalls one by
one sixty-eight occasions when he lost all hope of victory – the verses describing
these incidents all begin with the words yadaa shrausham, when I heard..., and
end in ...tadaa naaham vijayaaya naashamse, then I no more hoped for victory.
Practically all these occasions speak of some success or another of the
Pandavas – like their escape from the lacquer house in which they were supposed
to be killed, Arjuna winning the archery contest for wedding Draupadi, the
Panchalas becoming allies of the Pandavas and so on. He sees each of these as
occasions that destroyed his hopes. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Pandavas are really not ‘others’ – they are the children of his
brother, and they gave him the same love and respect that they had for their
father; but the world of the tamasic is very small and have no place even for
one’s nephews. That is a major difference between the sattvic and the tamasic –
for the sattvic, the whole earth is their family, as is said in Sanskrit
vasudhaiva kutumbam, whereas for the tamasic, their family is too small, and
even their own nephews are not part of it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As his father and as the caretaker king, Dhritarashtra had all the power
he needed to stop Duryodhana’s evil ways but never once does he take a strong
stand against him, newer a stand that will really stop him. True he did speak
against him a few times, but never with all his authority and never in such a
way that his son will not be able to go against him.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The face of Dhritarashtra we see in the Mahabharata most of the time is
of an absolutely shameless old man who does no more lip service to the children
of his brother who are the rightful heirs to the throne. Even in the Udyoga
Parva of the epic when the war has become imminent, the message he sent to the
righteous Pandavas is truly unbelievable in its meanness: he tells him since
they are lovers of peace they should not wage a war against him or even demand
their rights, but should go somewhere else and ask someone else for some land
as charity!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is this face tamas that we see in the Sabha Parva of the epic too
where the dice game happens. It is possible that Dhritarashtra is the happiest
man in the dice hall every time Yudhishthira loses a game. It is his voice
alone that we hear at these times and every time his question is the same:
jitam mayaa, have I won it? He is asking about what Yudhishthira has staked and
lost, including Draupadi as the last stake. There is great thrill in his voice
as he asks that question every time. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">It is this Dhritarashtra that Arjuna does not want to dethrone because
he is his uncle; and also because in that process he will have to slay in
battle Bhishma and Drona. Arjuna’s vision has temporarily become clouded by blind
mamata, which is form of tamas. But Krishna clearly sees what Arjuna does not
see: the </span>danger of surrendering the world to Dhritarashtra’s philosophy.
He can see the dangers of having tamasic people in positions of power. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When tamas takes over
individuals, they are finished. When it takes over organizations, they are
finished. When a culture is taken over tamas, when a nation is taken over
tamas, it is finished. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Nobel Prize winning book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Tin Drum</i> by Gunter Grass discusses how
Germany plunged into darkness under Hitler. Bhishma Sahni’s Tamas brilliantly
shows what happened in the days of Partition as tamas conquered us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">O0O</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As Arjuna collapses in his
chariot surrendering to a dark wave of tamas perhaps for the first time in his
life, his mind and body drained of all energy, his will deserting him, Krishna
shows him how to walk out of the blinding darkness he is in now and reach the
world of light: of victory, joyfulness, prosperity and glory.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That glorious path is the
Bhagavad Gita. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">O0O</span></div>
<br /></div>
Satya Chaitanyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749603528440573740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2435755112654764920.post-33874415508691347922020-06-26T04:26:00.000-07:002020-06-26T04:26:12.064-07:00Living Bhagavad Gita 21: Loser Mindset, Winner Mindset<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A series of short articles on the
Bhagavad Gita for people living and working in our volatile, uncertain, complex
and ambiguous times filled with stress and fear. This scripture born in a battlefield
teaches us how to face our challenges, live our life fully, achieve excellence
in whatever we do and find happiness, peace and contentment.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></i></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[Continued from
the previous post]<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<i><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Alas! How sad that we are ready to commit the great
sin of killing our own people out of greed for the pleasures of the kingdom! It
would be better for me if the Dhartarashtras kill me in battle with their
weapons while I am unarmed and unresisting. BG 1.45-46 <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Arjuna is a
winner. Perhaps the most common among his many other names is Vijaya, meaning
the victorious one, a winner. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His
mindset is that of a winner, through and through. Among the many splendid
warriors in the Mahabharata, he is the most consistent winner. Fearless in
battlefield, a master of strategic moves, the greatest living master of the
martial arts, he possesses the secrets of more weapons empowered with powerful
mantras than anyone else [not counting Krishna, of course]. At the same time he
is a sensitive human being, highly ethical, uncompromising in his values, ideal
in his social behaviour towards his elders – he is the acme of what the ancient
world expected a man to be. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">His concerns about
having to kill his grandfather and his guru are genuine, his guilt about
killing one’s own people is genuine. We all should feel what he feels in
similar circumstances, not feeling such concerns and such guilt makes us
subhuman. Krishna is not going to ask Arjuna not to have such feelings but to do
what needs to be done for the sake of dharma, virtuous ways of living and
leading, for lokasangraha, the common good, in spite of such feelings, rising
above such feelings. Not being able to do so, to rise above such feelings and
do what needs to be done, is to behave like a loser – which is what he is doing
at the moment, perhaps for the first time in his life. The winner mindset tells
us to stand and face our challenges whatever they are and take the right steps
needed to be a winner, whereas the loser mindset tells us to run away from
them. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is an
invaluable lesson that Kunti, a winning mother in every sense of the term, gives
us in the winner mindset exactly seven days before the incidents we are
discussing happens. It is perhaps the most empowering message ever given by a
mother to her son. The message was given not to Arjuna but to Yudhishthira and
it was sent through Krishna. The message is known as Vidula Upakhyana and was
one of the inspirations for our freedom fighters when we were trying to overthrow
the yoke our colonial masters had put on the shoulders of Mother India. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The language of
the message is harsh, the words as sharp as whiplashes, because Kunti felt
nothing less than that would arouse her son who had sunk deep into the mire of
the loser mindset. She gave this message to Krishna when he came to see her and
take leave of her after the failure of the peace talks in the Kuru assembly. As
he touched his aunt’s feet by way of paying respects to her and told her he was
now hurrying to the Pandavas because there was no time to lose, she gave him
this message for her eldest son and then added a few words for her other four
sons and for Draupadi, with whom she shared an amazing relationship, as though
they were twin souls.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kunti never minces
her words. She tells Krishna to tell her son what a shame he has become. He has
forgotten his dharma and has became a worshipper of piece at all costs because
of which she had to wait for the kindness of other people even for the food she
eats for thirteen years, says she referring to the twelve years the Pandavas
spent in the forest and the one year they lived incognito in Virata while she
lived in Hastinapura. She says peace at all costs is not the way of kshatriyas
who should live by the might of their arms and look after their subjects by it.
She compares her eldest son whom the world calls the embodiment of dharma to a
brahmana who does not know the meaning of the mantras of the Vedas but parrots
them. As Kunti sees is it, Yudhishthira does not know dharma but only the words
of dharma. She reminds Yudhishthira that kshatriyas are born of the arms of the
cosmic person, the virat purusha, God, which makes them God’s arms on earth to
establish righteousness, justice, equality, fearlessness, truth, kindness,
compassion and all other godly ways that the Gita calls daivi sampada in its
sixteenth chapter. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is a beautiful
story of a master carpenter. He was a house builder and every house he made was
a masterpiece. The doors were strong, the windows opened to the winds from the
east and west, the roof could withstand any storm, and you felt you were stepping
into a temple every time you entered one of his houses. Passing years did not
touch them, the seasons were gentle to them and they delighted in the elements
rather than quiver in fright. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But he had made
enough houses and wanted to retire and live the rest of his days in quietude. Though
he had thoroughly enjoyed every house he had built, he had discovered the
passion for building was no more in him. He wanted to take morning and evening
walks, watch children at play, be with the kids that gamboled in the field, sing
again the songs he had sung as a child, swim in rivers, climb mountains, enjoy
passing breezes and just lie under the open sky. No more house building for me,
he decided. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So he went to his master,
the lord whose servant he was, and told him he would build no more houses. The
master shook his head and said, “Build just one more house. A last one. And I
shall ask you no more to build houses.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Reluctantly the
master carpenter agreed. But there was no passion for building houses in him anymore.
There was no magic when he held his tools in his hand, no rush of energy. They
felt heavy for the first time in his hand. He felt no thrill, his heart did not
dance when he used the chisel and the hammer. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The house he built
was unlike any he had built earlier. There was no joy in the house just as
there was no joy in him when he built the house. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When he finished
he came to his master, the lord, and told him it was done. And the lord knew
there was no need to look at the house – the master carpenter had built it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With a glowing
smile on his face, with the glitter of joy in his eyes, he told the carpenter,
“This house is my gift to you! It is an expression of my gratitude for all the
houses you have built for me. Go, spend your remaining days in that house!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And the master
carpenter was condemned to live the rest of his days in that shabby house he
had built without any love.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We too are like
that carpenter. Each one of us is condemned to live in the world we make. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kunti reminds
Yudhishthira that if he is suffering, if he is living a life of grief and
misery and making his brothers and Draupadi live such a life, it is because of
himself. As the king it is his duty to practice dandaniti which includes
punishing the wicked too, she reminds him, but instead of that he kept speaking
of peace at all costs even when the enemies were trying to kill him and his
brothers all means including poisoning and setting fire to their house. There were
times when he should have taken up arms and fought, but he did not. She quotes
a well known statement of the day that I have quoted innumerable times in my
leadership training programmes: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">kaalo vaa kaaranam raajnah raajaa vaa kaala-kaaranam; iti te samshayo
maa bhoot raajaa kalasya kaaranam. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Let there be no doubt in your mind as to whether the age makes the king
or the king makes the age. The king makes the age.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We hear Bhishma quoting the same verse to Yudhishthira again after the
war has ended and he goes to Bhishma lying in the bed of arrows to learn from
the grandsire the art of governance. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The king then is responsible for making the age good or bad. Satya yuga,
treta yuga, dwapara yuga and kali yuga do not come in succession as is
generally told, but the king – the leader – has the power to create them on
earth. Kunti explains to Yudhishthira:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">raajaa kritayuga-srashtaa tretaayaa dvaparasya cha yugasya cha
chaturthasya raajaa bhavati kaaranam.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is the king that creates kali yuga on earth, and it is he who creates
treta, dwapara and satya yugas. He makes all the four ages. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If he implements dandaniti rightly, says Kunti, he creates satya yuga
and if uses it with partial effectiveness, then the other two yugas are born.
If he fails completely in practicing dandaniti, then the age of kali is born. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And then Kunti adds: tato vasati dushkarmaa narake shashvatees samaah.
And then [when he creates the age of kali on earth], he lives in hell for an
eternity.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Arjuna has just expressed his fear if he will not be thrown into hell
for an eternity for killing his own people even if they are wicked, and Kunti
here, in her message to Yudhishthira just before the war begins, says a king is
sent to hell for an eternity for not punishing the wicked! <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After these introductory words, Kunti tells Krishna the story of Vidula
as her message to Yudhishtira. Vidula was the mother of a prince called Sanjaya
[a name that means the winner!] who had been vanquished by his enemy, had
psychologically accepted that defeat and was living a life of shame losing all
his past glory. As we can see, Kunti who has been living in Hastinapura, as she
says by looking up to her enemies even for the food she eats, is in the same
position as Vidula and we must look upon Vidula’s words to Sanjaya as Kunti’s
words to Yudhishthira. Fearless is the mother here, whether she is Vidula or
Kunti, and her words give us goose bumps as we listen to them. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kuinti’s words hit us with power of a thunderbolt. She says:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“You who increase the joys of your enemies, you are not my son! You are
neither my son nor your father’s. Where have you come from? You with no anger
in you, no thirst for vengeance, you cannot be counted a man. You look like a
man and yet you are not a man – so what are you? A eunuch, that’s what you are!
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“You have no right to sink into despair so long as you live, you coward!
If you wish your own welfare, accept the burden of your challenges on your own
shoulders. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Don’t be a shame on your soul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Never be satisfied with little. Fix your mind
on your own good and don’t be scared. Abandon your fears! Rise, coward, rise!
Don’t you lie down accepting your defeat, delighting your enemies and making
your friends grieve. Don’t you have any sense of honour?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Tiny streams are filled with a little water. The
palms of a mouse are filled with little. And so does a coward become satisfied
with little! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Pull out the fangs of a deadly snake and die doing
so – that’s honourable. Don’t you die like a miserable dog! Exerting your
utmost, risk your very life and do all you can to be victorious! Be like the
eagle in the vast sky that soars high and wanders infinite spaces. Keep your
eyes on your enemies for the opportune moment and strike fearlessly!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“You are lying there as though you are but a lifeless
body. Have you been struck by lightning? Rise up, coward! Aren’t you ashamed to
sleep after you have been vanquished by your enemy? Why are you miserably
hiding from the sight of all? Let the world know you by your deeds. Never be
contented with anything less than the highest position. Nothing less than the
best should satisfy you! Be a winner, be the very best, be the first! Don’t you
be satisfied by being the second or the third or anything less. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Be like the Tinduka wood! Blaze up! Blaze up even if
it is only for one moment! Don’t smolder like chaff without flames! Cultivate
your desires! Ignite them! Nourish their fire! And achieve glory!”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kunti has only contempt for the kind of ahimsa that
Yudhishthira speaks of and practices. That is not the way of kshatriyas, she
says. She reminds him kshatriyas are an acursed lot, condemned to live by
cruelty – by kroora karma. To kill and slaughter for praja paripalana, for looking
after his subjects, is a kshatriya’s lot. To punish the wicked, if necessary
with the ultimate punishment – that is the way of kshatriyas, kings. That is
what he is born for, that is what the creator fashioned him for and for that
reason that is how he should live. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kunti’s advice to Yudhishthira and the story of
Vidula she tells him are long – it runs into several chapters of the Udyoga
Parva of the Mahabharata. But she did not foresee her son Arjuna would need the
message as much as Yudhishthira needed it. Because Arjuna was a winner, the
very epitome of winners. When he was born, the gods had predicted that Arjuna together
with Bhima would vanquish all the Kauravas and shake up the whole world. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the help of Krishna, he would slaughter
his enemies in war and will achieve victory over the entire earth. His fame
would reach the very skies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So she did not foresee Arjuna would need her message
as much as Yudhishthira needed. She did have a few words for him, though. And
those few words are unforgettable. The essence of what this winning mother had
to tell him was, “draupadyaah padaveem chara.” Follow the path of Draupadi.
Follow the path that Draupadi treads, follow the path that she shows.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kunti and Draupadi had an amazing relationship
between them. They were the ideal mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, unlike the
saas-bahu relationship we see in television serials today. They were twin
souls. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And just as they were twin souls, Krishna and
Draupadi too were twin souls too, says Indian culture – if anything, more twin
souls than Kunti and Draupadi. They were one single entity, Krishna and
Krishnaa were, born in two bodies, one male and the other female, but a single
soul, born for the same purpose: the destroy adharma, to destroy the kshatriyas
who had turned evil, and to reestablish dharma, virtues ways<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of living and leading, says Indian culture. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kunti says her grief is not about the failure in the
dice game or the kingdom being stolen from them. It is not about her sons being
sent to the forest on the exile. What she grieves over are the merciless words Draupadi
had to hear from Duryodhana while she wept in agony and shame in the royal dice
hall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kunti wants Krishna to remind her sons the most
hurting incident in their entire life. And she tells Krishna to tell Bhima and
Arjuna: yadartham kshatriyaa soote tasya kalo’yam aagatah. Time has come for
that for which a kshatriya woman gives birth to sons. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Powerful words that ask her sons to be
victorious in battle or to die the death of heroes.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our deep buried traumas
attack us in our weakest moments. Born of our psychological reactions to threatening
real life experiences, they are like wayside robbers that attack us in our weary
moments and loot us of everything we have. A single powerful traumatic
experience can destroy our life. I have heard about a brilliant surgeon who was
the best in his field but whose hands started shivering the moment he picked up
a scalpel. What happened was that when he was a student one of the professors in
the medical college was demonstrating a surgical procedure. The professor asked
him to fetch a particular scalpel and he brought the wrong number. The
professor shouted at him calling him an idiot, a good for nothing and said he
would never amount to anything – he said this in the presence of the other
students, several boys and girls, who were watching the demonstration as he
was. He humiliation and insult he felt became a powerful traumatic experience.
As a surgeon, every time he touched a scalpel, he heard the professor’s words
from deep within him, “Idiot, good for nothing, you’d never amount to
anything!” and his hands started shaking. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That’s the power
of a single traumatic experience. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have read about
a girl whose left arm became paralyzed because one day while she was sitting at
the dining table along with some of her friends, her father picked up a fork
and threw it at her hitting that arm. He was angry at her for some small thing
but that humiliation in the presence of her friends paralyzed her left arm for
twenty years until she was healed of the trauma by a therapist.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Arjuna’s whole
life is filled with traumatic experiences. He had grown up knowing that he is
not the son of his father Pandu. That Pandu couldn’t have children and all his
children were born through niyoga was not a secret to anyone. Then his father
had failed to control himself and had sex with his wife Madri and died in the
final moments of the act – on Arjuna’s birthday while Kunti was serving a feast
to brahmanas. Pandu’s act was a kind of suicide because he knew sex would be
death for him and yet he had given himself to it. Following Pandu’s death,
Madri had committed ritual suicide by entering his funeral pyre. The years he
lived in Hastinapura as unwanted cousins hated by Duryodhana were not happy
years at al during which innumerable attempts were made on their life and they had
to live in constant fear. And then there was the lacquer house incident, their
escape and subsequent life in the forest for several years. And perhaps the
most traumatic of all incidents – what happened to them in the dice hall and
what was done to Draupadi there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had
to live as a eunuch in the Virata palace, and more than that, he had to endure the
shame of having to watch the glorious Draupadi living as a maid to the Virata
queen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The list of
traumatic experiences that fills Arjuna’s life is endless, any single one of
which is enough to destroy a man. It is no less than a miracle that in spite of
all this he not only survived but flourished and became the winner he became. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But traumas can
strike us in our most vulnerable moments, which is what happened to Arjuna as
he stood between the two armies and watched his grandfather, his guru and
others standing on the opposite side whom he will have to kill in battle. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As we shall see when
we journey into the Gita further, Krishna begins by giving him a shock
treatment, which is one of the ways of shaking up people deep in traumas out of
their helplessness and awakening them to reality. When Kunti sends her message
to Yudhishthira and her other sons, what she does is no less than a shock
treatment. Sometimes that is the only way to bring people out of their apathy
that traumas push them into. It is interesting that Krishna attacks Arjuna as
he begins his teaching by calling him a kleeba [eunuch, which was a shocking
term of abuse for a warrior in the Mahabharata times] and Kunti uses the same
term for Yudhishthira at the beginning of her message to wake him up from his apathy.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What Kunti is teaching Yudhishthira and her
other sons through her message is the winning mindset. And what Krishna teaches
Arjuna through the Gita too is the same: how to be a winner. Of course, a
winner in a still higher sense than what Kunti means. Kunti sees things through
a mother’s eyes, while Krishna sees things through God’s eyes. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Krishna wouldn’t let his friend be a loser. On
one occasion in the epic, Krishna says such is his friendship with Arjuna that
he would pull out his very flesh and give it for his sake. How can he then let
Arjuna act like a loser as he is doing now? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">O0O <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br /></div>
Satya Chaitanyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749603528440573740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2435755112654764920.post-35757678804908237542020-06-26T04:23:00.000-07:002020-06-26T04:23:05.978-07:00Living Bhagavad Gita 20: The Other Side of Death<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBUbTP54x9fY1iAdAPafp7-UX_b1jlAjgPdxNnvBkTUUeNB3yWGV-7XCwRLAaXaCOHeBFvTSGktyhSbsq_uKBvtj1lMjZnCBfyitotASY2f7_5op_vcmsmptPRwTuu0DsUVOEEEoBblMrX/s1600/radha+krishna+7+-+devender+malhotra.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="523" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBUbTP54x9fY1iAdAPafp7-UX_b1jlAjgPdxNnvBkTUUeNB3yWGV-7XCwRLAaXaCOHeBFvTSGktyhSbsq_uKBvtj1lMjZnCBfyitotASY2f7_5op_vcmsmptPRwTuu0DsUVOEEEoBblMrX/s320/radha+krishna+7+-+devender+malhotra.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A series of short articles on the
Bhagavad Gita for people living and working in our volatile, uncertain, complex
and ambiguous times filled with stress and fear. This scripture born in a battlefield
teaches us how to face our challenges, live our life fully, achieve excellence
in whatever we do and find happiness, peace and contentment.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></i></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[Continued from
the previous post]<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11.5pt;">I have heard, Krishna, that those who destroy their
family ways dwell in hell for boundless years. </span></i></div>
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<i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></i></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">BG 1.44</span><br />
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<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A samurai once came to Zen Master Hakuin and asked him, “I want
to know about heaven and hell. Do they really exist?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hakuin looked at the soldier and asked, “Who are you?” “I am a
samurai,” announced the proud warrior.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Ha!” exclaimed Hakuin. “What makes you think you can understand
such insightful things? You are just a brute soldier! Go away! Don’t waste my
time with stupid questions,” Hakuin said waving the samurai away with his hand.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The enraged samurai couldn’t take Hakuin’s insult. He drew his
sword, ready to kill the master and Hakuin responded calmly, “This is hell.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The soldier was taken aback. His face softened. Humbled by the
wisdom of Hakuin, he put away his sword and bowed before the Zen Master. “And
this is heaven,” Hakuin stated, just as calmly.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Exactly as this story tells us, the heaven and hell we are told
we will go to after death are states of mind, not geographical places. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let’s take a good look at what is meant by heaven and hell. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Greek mythology
talks about the Furies, also called the </span><span style="color: #202122; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Erinyes,</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> who punish those who commit grave sins or
crimes. </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: JansonTextLTStd-Roman;">According to some traditions
they were born from the drops of blood that fell on Gaia, Earth, when the Titan
Cronus castrated his father Uranus and threw his genitalia into the sea and it
is this horrifying nature of their birth that gives them their vengeful nature.
</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Their
descriptions and functions vary in different stories told about them but they
are generally described as ferocious foul-smelling winged females with burning
breath, snakes for hair, blood dripping from their eyes, bat wings and black
skin, who could also appear as </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">storm
clouds or swarms of insects.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are vengeful
and pitiless in their pursuit of justice, particularly justice for the dead. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: JansonTextLTStd-Roman;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the Greek playwright Aeschylus’ <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Oresteia trilogy, for instance, King
Agamemnon before sailing to Troy for the Trojan War sacrifices his daughter
Iphigenia to Goddess Artemis for getting good weather. While the king is away
his wife Clytemnestra takes Aegisthus as her lover. Later when Agamemnon
returns after the war, Clytemnestra and Aegisthus together murder him and
Aegisthus seizes the throne. Agamemnon’s daughter Electra fearing for the life
of her young brother Orestes takes him away and gives him to her father’s
friend King Strophius who raises him as his son. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-font-family: JansonTextLTStd-Roman;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a grown up man,
Orestes goes to the oracle of Delphi and asks him what he should do to avenge
his father’s murder and is advised by the oracle that he should murder his
mother and her lover. He now goes to his country Mycenae and there kills his
mother and her lover in spite of the mother’s pleas that a son should not kill
his own mother, after which the Furies pursue him relentlessly for his matricide.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-font-family: JansonTextLTStd-Roman;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Greek mythology also
speaks of Oedipus being pursued by the Furies for killing his father and
marrying his mother, though both actions were done unknowingly. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-font-family: JansonTextLTStd-Roman;">Greek mythology tells us
numerous tales of the Furies pursuing those who commit heinous crimes or sins. India
does not have the concept of Furies but India says the same thing in a
different way: what India says is that our evil karmas pursue us relentlessly.
A</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: JansonTextLTStd-Roman;">vashyam
</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-font-family: JansonTextLTStd-Roman;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>anubhoktavyam kritam </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: JansonTextLTStd-Roman;">karma
shubhaashubham: We must all experience the results of our karmas, both good and
bad. There is no escaping them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: JansonTextLTStd-Roman;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From
a psychological point of view, the Furies could be seen as our sense of guilt.
And guilt will be there whether the action was done consciously or
unconsciously and in that sense the Furies pursue you even for wrong actions
done unknowingly, which explains why Furies pursued Oedipus though his
patricide and matricide were both actions done unknowingly. That is true about
karmas too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-font-family: JansonTextLTStd-Roman;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But what exactly are
karmas then? Let us try to understand this with the help of Transactional
Analysis, since to many of us today the rational language of western psychology
is easier to understand than the language of ancient wisdom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-font-family: JansonTextLTStd-Roman;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Transactional Analysis [TA] is a branch of
psychology/psychiatry born in the 1960s and shot instantly to fame,
particularly because of what it told us about our interpersonal behaviour and the
intrapersonal processes that go on in our hidden depths on which our outer
behaviour is based. Among other things, TA speaks of what are called scripts,
speaking of which transactional analysts say that “in the life of every
individual the dramatic life events, the roles that are learned, rehearsed, and
acted out, are originally determined by a script.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">According to psychologists Muriel James and
Drorothy Jongward, these psychological scripts are very much like theatre or
film scripts. As they say in their best-selling book Born to Win, “Each has a
prescribed cast of characters, dialogue, acts and scenes, themes and plots,
which move toward a climax and end with a final curtain. A psychological script
is a person’s ongoing program for a life drama, which dictates where the person
is going with his or her life and the path that will lead there. It is a drama
an individual compulsively acts out, though one’s awareness of it may be
vague.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Transactional Analysis tells us that these
scripts begin to be written, or programmed, in early childhood, based on the
transactions between parent figures and children. Depending on the nature of
these scripts, children become “heroes, heroines, villains, victims and
rescuers and – unknowingly – seek others to play complementary roles.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Eric Berne, one of the founders of the Transactional
Analysis movement says: “Nearly all human activity is programmed by an ongoing
script dating from early childhood, so that the feeling of autonomy is nearly
always an illusion – an illusion which is the greatest affliction of the human
race because it makes awareness, honesty, creativity, and intimacy possible for
only a few fortunate individuals. For the rest of humanity, other people are
seen, mainly as objects to be manipulated. They must be invited, persuaded,
seduced, bribed, or forced into playing the proper roles to reinforce the
protagonist’s position and fulfill his script, and his preoccupation with these
efforts keeps him from torquing in with the real world and his own
possibilities in it.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Transactional Analysts explain how these
scripts are originally formed. Pointing out that children are amazingly
sensitive and pick up messages about their self-worth right from the beginning,
they explain that the first experiences of the infant are extremely important
in this. From whether they are touched and hugged or ignored, from whether they
are given warmth or left coldly alone, and later from other forms of behaviour
of the significant people around him, like whether they are crooned to or
spoken to without affection, from the messages in the eyes of these people,
from their smiles and frowns and other facial expressions and so on, the child
makes conclusions about himself and his self worth. These initial conclusions
he forms become powerful scripts in his unconscious and they influence his
future behaviour powerfully. In later stages, when they are grown enough to
understand, children write scripts based on the verbal messages they get from
their parents and other significant people. For instance, a mother’s comment
watching her child explaining something to her doll that she would make an
excellent teacher one day can become an unconscious script in her that
eventually leads her to choose teaching as her profession. Or it could be a
visiting relative’s unthinking comment that that the little boy is going to be
a terror when he grows up that takes the shape of a script.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These scripts are then based on our unconscious
reactions to our life events.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In whatever way they are formed, these
imprints on our psyches are non-verbal and are hidden deep in our unconscious.
That is, they are in the form of images, feelings and so on, and not in words,
and are hidden from the light of our consciousness. And they exert powerful
influences on us and shape us and our lives. These scripts decide what we
become, what our strengths and weaknesses will be, how we act and react,
whether we will be winners or losers, whether we will derive success and
happiness or defeat and unhappiness from life, whether we will be persecutors,
victims or rescuers, whether we will be heroes and heroines or villains,
whether we will be healthy, balanced and effective or suffer from
anger-proneness, assertiveness problems, communication problems, relationship
problems, sexual problems, violence, manias, phobias, neurotic behaviour and so
on.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ancient India refers to what transactional
analysts call scripts, the unconscious imprints on the psyche, by several
names. One of them is Chitra-Gupta, the accountant of Yama, the god of death.
According to Indian mythology, Chitra-Gupta keeps an account, much as Gabriel
does in Semitic mythology, of every deed we do on this earth and of every
thought we think. And when we die and go to the other world, Chitra-Gupta opens
the pages containing our account in his book and depending on whether we have
done good or bad, depending on whether we have acquired punya [merit resulting
from virtuous thoughts and deeds] or papa [sin], or it is a more or less equal
balance of the two, he sends us on our onward journey, to heaven to enjoy or to
hell to suffer or to the earth to be reborn.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Chitra-Gupta literally means pictures
[chitra] that are hidden [gupta] – what Transactional Analysis calls our life
scripts hidden deep in our unconscious. It is these that make us what we are at
all times, do what we do. Chitra Gupta decides our future not merely after our
death, but does so at all times. It is Chitra Gupta that has decided what we
are now. For, our present is a result of these hidden pictures generated in our
dark depths by our past thoughts, actions and reactions. And what we will
become in the future is being written now – in the same dark depths of our
psyche, by our present thoughts, actions and reactions, in form of images.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Indian philosophy uses other words to
describe what TA calls scripts. Karmas, vasanas [psychological dispositions]
and samskaras [inner culture] are nothing but TA’s scripts. Karmas are the deep
imprints that we write on our psyches through our thoughts, actions and
reactions. It is these karmas that give shape to our vasanas and samskaras.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Both Transactional Analysis and India believe
that while scripts are powerful, they are alterable. Millennia ago India
developed ways of altering our karmas, one of which was meditation, and TA
talks about re-scripting, which is essentially a method of altering our life
scripts. One of the aspects that I covered in Management Development Programmes
for corporate officers included sessions in which I helped the participants to
deep relax consciously and in that deep relaxed state to replace old scripts
with new ones using such western methods as the swish technique and so on. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, there is a major difference between
the approach of TA, essentially a product of western thinking, and Indian
philosophy. While transactional analysts say that scripts are decisive in
shaping our self perceptions, behaviour patterns and life events, they say that
the earliest scripts are formed in our early infancy, or, according to some, in
our pre-natal state. Indian philosophy, however, tells us that we carry these
scripts [karmas/vasanas/samskaras] with us from life to life.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just as our life when we are alive and our
rebirth after our death are decided by our karmas or life scripts, the life we
live in our post death state too is decided by these life scripts or karmas
that we carry with us when we leave the body behind and travel into what the
yogis of Tibet call the bardo state – except that in that state the experiences
are entirely mental since we do not have a physical body. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In our death and the journey into the bardo, we
leave behind just the physical body, everything else travels with us. That is
why it is said that death is no more than a change of clothes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since the experiences of the bardo are
bodiless, mental, they are very much like our dreams. Just as in our dreams our
experiences become intense, frequently far more intense than in waking life,
and absolutely real so long as they last, so are the experiences of the bardo. In
dreams beautiful things are far more beautiful than in real life, ugly and
repulsive things are far more ugly and repulsive, and so are our pleasures and
pains far more intense than they are in real life. And just as our dreams are
illogical, so are our post death experiences. And bardo time is exactly like
dream time – a dream that lasts just a few minutes of waking time can appear to
last years in the dream, sometimes beginning with us as children and ending
when we are old. That is why some cultures speak of hell and heaven, both of
which no than what we dream in the bodiless state, as eternal. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Indian culture speaks of hells as endless in
number – for instance, the Garuda Purana speaks of </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">andhatamisram,
rauravam, maharauravam, kumbhipakam, kalasutram, sukaramukham, andhakupam,
taptamurti, and so on and on. T</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">his
is because exactly as the life experiences of each of us are unique, exactly as
our dreams are unique, so are our bardo experiences. Each one of us experiences
our own unique pains and pleasures in what we call hell and heaven, but they
are experiences generated by our mind based on our thoughts, emotions,
feelings, memories, the life scripts we call karmas and so on, and all
experienced within our mind. Apart from this, we do not go to any heaven or
hell in any geographical place or separate dimension. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Arjuna’s fear that
those who destroy family traditions will have to spend endless time in hell
when he tells Krishna “<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">I have heard,
Krishna, that those whose family traditions have been destroyed will have to
live in hell for an indefinite period” is unfounded. In his desperate search
for justifying his decision to abandon war and run away from his duties, he is
giving this as yet another reason. Even if we go by the traditions of the day,
the belief in the Mahabharata world was that the kshatriyas who die
courageously in war go to the heaven of the heroes – the veeraswarga. Going by
the story of the epic, we find men like Duryodhana in heaven after their death
because he fought the war fearlessly as a true warrior should, even though he
is an atatayi, a felon who committed terrible crimes throughout his life and
was more responsible than anyone else for the millions of deaths in the
Kurukshetra war. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since our post death experiences depend on our present life and
thoughts, what religions and ancient spiritual traditions tell us is that just
as lust, anger, greed, pride, and other asuri sampada make us suffer while we
are alive, these will continue to torture us after our death too. So unless we
want to suffer in the bardo, we must live a life of love, kindness, compassion,
forgiveness and so on. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Desire for vengeance is one of the most powerful negative feelings we
can experience and so is guilt. These two can haunt us not only throughout our
life, but also across lifetimes, as the story of the Roman brothers in Tales of
Reincarnation tell us. Because the elder brother felt the need for vengeance at
the moment of his death and the younger one felt intense guilt about causing
his elder brother’s death though accidentally, the two of them are born again
and again innumerable times for two thousand years, in each life living out
their vengeance and guilt. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Forgiveness is the way out of vengeance and acceptance of the past, of
what happened, is the way out of guilt. That and never repeating our mistakes,
never causing harm to anyone consciously. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Atonement is another way, as thousands of cases tell us. One such case
is discussed by the English novel Atonement [and the movie of the same name based
on it]. Atonement tells the story of a thirteen year girl who lives in
pre-World War II England. She witnesses a scene of intimacy between her elder
sister and her lover, misunderstands it and commits a terrible crime against
the two. Her guilt when she realizes the truth of what she witnessed and what
she did eats away at her for years and she seeks atonement for her sin by
dedicating her life for reducing the pain of those who suffer. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Knowledge of the self, knowledge of what we are, not theoretical but
experiential knowledge, is the ultimate way to come out sins, says the Gita. It
is the mind that commits sins and we are not the mind. We are not touched by
the sins of the mind just as the waking man is not tainted by the sins he
commits in his dreams. We are something far beyond the reaches of the mind,
something that cannot be touched by sin or virtue, something that weapons
cannot cleave, water cannot wet, fire cannot burn, something that has neither
birth nor death, something that is forever beyond what is in the technical
language of Vedanta called doership and enjoyership, kartritva and bhoktritva. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sins are there only so long as the ego is
there, only so long as the mind is there. That is why Krishna says in the Gita
that even if you are the worst sinner of all sinners, you shall cross the sea
of your sins by the raft of knowledge: api ched asi paapebhyah sarvebhyah
paapakrit-tamah; sarvam jnaana-plavenaiva vrijinam santarishyasi. [BG 4.36] <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">To Hinduism, sin too is an illusion like everything else; there is no
everlasting sin and there is no eternal punishment, there is no eternal heaven
and there is no eternal hell. Once you go beyond the mind, you are freed from
all illusions, including the illusions of sin and virtue. There are no bad
karmas then, just as there are no good karmas. Continuing his earlier statement
about crossing the sea of sin with the raft of knowledge, Krishna says yathaidhaamsi
samiddho'gnir bhasmasaat</span> kurute'rjuna; jnaanaagnih sarvakarmaani bhasmasaat
kurute tathaa [BG 4.37]. Just as the blazing fire reduces everything it consumes
to ashes, Arjuna, the fire of knowledge reduces all karmas to ashes.<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Vivekachudamani,
the masterly poem of Shanakara Bhagavadapada has this to say about the nature
of the entire world:<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">na hyastyavidyaa manaso’tiriktaa<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">mano hyavidyaa bhava-bandha-hetuah<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">tasmin vinashte sakalam vinashtam<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">vijrimbhite’smin sakalam vijrimbhate <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is no Primal Ignorance other than the mind. The
mind itself is Primal Ignorance that causes the bondage to the world of
constant becoming. When that is destroyed, everything is destroyed. And when
that manifests everything becomes manifested.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All joys and sorrows are part of the illusory world
born of Primal Ignorance and for that reason, when Primal Ignorance is
destroyed, everything that causes the sufferings of the world as well as its
joys is destroyed. What remains then is our true nature: ananda, boundless
bliss.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">As has been very wisely said, we are not punished <i>for</i> our sins
but <i>by</i> our sins. Our sins are their own punishments. Anger is its own
punishment, lust is its own punishment, jealousy is its own punishment,
hostility is its own punishment, desire for vengeance is its own punishment,
and so are all the negative qualities Krishna calls asuri sampada in the Gita –
qualities such as pride, haughtiness, arrogance, crookedness and cruelty. Asuri
qualities are like the dementors of the Harry Potter series of books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">They</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> drain peace, hope, happiness, joy and serenity from the very air
around them, they drain people of all that makes life beautiful. They destroy
what Tibet calls drala, the beauty of ordinary things. They make it impossible
for you to relax – and without relaxation there is no joy in life, there is no
beauty, no peace. You don’t climb mountains anymore, you don’t sing and dance,
you don’t laugh from your heart, you don’t let go and enjoy yourself. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is as true of the other side of death as it is of this side of
death. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">O0O<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Satya Chaitanyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749603528440573740noreply@blogger.com0