Living Bhagavad Gita 008: Duryodhana and Asuri Leadership

A series of short articles on the Bhagavad Gita for busy, stressed people living and working in these volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times. This scripture born in a battlefield teaches us how to face our challenges, live our life fully and achieve excellence in whatever we do.

[Continued from the previous post]

Then, O Lord of the earth, seeing Duryodhana's men in position and the armies about to clash, Arjuna, raising his bow, told Krishna, “O Krishna, take my chariot between the two armies. I want to see the warriors I am about to fight. I want to have a look at those gathered here for battle wishing to please the evil-minded son of Dhritarashtra”. BG 1.20-23

The Mahabharata tells us that a year after the princes completed their studies under Drona and Arjuna gave him the guru dakshina he wanted in the form of Drupada defeated, captured, tied up and brought to him, Yudhishthira was appointed the crown prince of Hastinapura. He was the rightful heir of the throne as the son of the previous king, Pandu, and had impeccable ethical integrity, apart from total commitment to the welfare of his people, great self-mastery, steadfastness, determination, firmness, fortitude, patience, benevolence, and scores of other qualities that were considered essential in a king in those days. The Mahabharata tells us that this was done ‘moved by kindness to the people’, bhrityaanaam anukampaarthe, perhaps a way of saying that this was done in response to the desire of the people. He started ruling the kingdom with the help of his four brothers. His brothers subdued more kings than their father Pandu had done and soon his fame exceeded that of his celebrated father who was adored by the people.

Dhritarashtra is now filled with jealousy towards the Pandavas. Constantly thinking and worrying about them, according to the epic, “he could not sleep in the nights,” – sa chintaaparamo raajan na nidraam alabhan nishi.

One day he calls his minister Kanika and confesses to him of his jealousy. “The Pandavas are growing in fame every day,” he tells him, “and, O Brahmana, I am jealous of them “utsiktaah paandavaa nityam tebhyo’sooye dvijottama. He seeks Kanika’s advice about what to do promising he would do whatever Kanika asks him to. Kanika apologizes to him in advance for the evil nature of what he is going to say, seeks his protection in advance, and then gives him such dark lessons in grabbing power and retaining it that dwarf even Machiavilli in evil.

Kanika tells the blind king to use speech as a tool for deception. “Vaangmaatreṇa vineetah syaad, hridayena yathaa kshurah,” he tells him: Confine your sweetness to your words. In your heart, be like the dagger. He asks Dhritarashtra to be ruthless. “Putro vaa yadi vaa bhraataa pitaa vaa yadi vaa suhrd, arthasya vighnam kurvaaṇaa hantavyaa bhootivardhanaiḥ,” Kanika tells him: Kill the person who stands in the  way of your attaining goals even if he is your son, brother, father, or friend. The minister advices him to turn cruelty into an art, as the fisherman does. “Naahatvaa matsyaghaateeva praapnoti paramaaṁ shriyam.”  Without piercing the very vitals of others, without accomplishing many stern deeds, without slaughtering after the manner of the fisherman, one cannot acquire great prosperity. Another advice Kanika gives his king is to follow the ways of the razor. “Kshuro bhootvaa haret praanaan, nishitah kaalasaadhanah; pratichhanno lomahaari, dvishataam parikartanah,” he tells Dhritarashtra. “In the matter of destroying their enemies, kings should forever resemble razors in every particular; pitiless and sharp, hiding their intents as razors hide in leather scabbards, they should strike when the opportunity arises as daggers are used when the occasion demands, sweeping off their foes with all their allies and dependents as daggers shave the head or the chin without leaving a single hair.” 

After he finishes his teachings, Kanika winds up what he had to say by telling a fable.

Once there lived a jackal in the forest with his four friends: a tiger, a mouse, a wolf and a mongoose. There was a large herd of deer in the jungle and their leader was a male deer in the prime of its youth, big as a bull and faster than a tiger. Tempted by the majestic deer the five friends chased him several times but every time the swift deer outran its chasers. Even the tiger, fastest among the friends, failed repeatedly. Eventually, they sat together and devised a plan, elemental in its simplicity: when the deer sleeps, the mouse will crawl up to it and bite its leg. After that the deer will not be able to run at his normal speed. At that time the tiger can chase and kill it.

The brilliant plan was put into practice and the five friends sat around the killed deer to feast upon its delicious meat. The jackal now asked all his friends to go and have a bath and come back for the meal. He would guard it in the meantime, he told them.

The tiger came back first. The jackal incited him saying the mouse was laughing at the tiger’s strength. The tiger left the meal and went away saying he did not want any part of a meal caught with the help of a mouse. The mouse came next and the jackal incited him saying the mongoose has said the meat is poisoned because it has been bitten by the tiger and so he wouldn’t touch it. Instead, he would eat the mouse. The scared mouse retreated to its hole. When the wolf came next, the jackal told him the tiger was furious with him and had gone to fetch his wife and together they had plans upon him, hearing which the scared wolf ran away. The mongoose was the next to come. The jackal told him that he had driven away all the other animals with his strength and if he dared he should fight him, the jackal. A scared mongoose too ran away. And the jackal had the entire deer the size of a bull all for himself.

This is how the minister sums up his teachings to Dhritarashtra, the heart of which is to let no values stand in the way of fulfilling your selfish ambitions and to grab what you want without a thought of others.

And that is exactly how Duryodhana behaves with the Pandavas, showing them no sympathy or pity. He tries to destroy them again and again, refuses to give them even as much land as a needle tip though Yudhishthira was the rightful heir to the Bharata throne. He even goes to the jungle to eliminate the Pandavas while they are living there for twelve years following the foul game of dice he played with Yudhishthira.

We learn what we want to learn, what appeals to our heart. Numerous rishis and wise men try to teach Duryodhana dharma throughout his life, Vyasa himself tries it, his own mother and father try to on so many occasions, Vidura tries repeatedly, but he refuses to learn. What he learns and practices is what Kanika teaches his father, because his teachings appeal to him instantly, just as the ways of Shakuni appeals to him. During his peace negotiations, as requested by Dhritarashtra, Krishna tries to teach him what is right and what is wrong and that too has no effect on him.

Because Duryodhana is asuri by nature, only asuri teachings appeal to him.

Our sanskaras, vasanas and karmas that we bring with us into this life from our former existences decide what we are influenced by and practice in life, just as they decide whether we are born asuri or daivi. Krishna tells Arjuna in the sixteenth chapter of the Gita that he is born daivi: maa shuchah  sampadam daiveem abhijaatosi paandava – Do not grieve Arjuna, you are born with daivi sampada. But Duryodhana’s case is just the opposite.

In the Mahabharata war Yudhishthira is persuaded to do one single wrong – tell a lie about the death of Ashwatthama – and he feels guilty about it all his life. But Duryodhana commits wickedness after wickedness and he feels no guilt about it. Before telling Krishna in the Kuru assembly that he would not give the Pandavas as much land as the size of a needle tip, the speech Duryodhana gives Krishna is highly revealing. He does not see that he has done any wrong against the Pandavas in their entire life! What he has done is no more than practicing the ways of the kshatriyas as taught by the rishis, he believes. His asuri nature makes him blind to his own evil nature and evil deeds. Perhaps this is the reason why Krishna despairs in the Gita later, prakritim yaanti bhootaani nigrahaḥ kim kariṣhyati – all beings follow their own nature, what can suppression do? [BG 3.33]. Being blind to one’s own evil nature and being insensitive to other’s sufferings is part of being asuri in nature.

“You must speak, Krishna, after reflecting on all circumstances,” says Duryodhana in the Kuru Sabha. “You find fault with me alone and address me in harsh words without any reason, just because the Pandavas give you much respect. But before censuring me, have you assessed the strengths and weaknesses of both sides? [Duryodhana here equates strength with being right and weakness with being wrong!] You, Kshatri [Vidura], the king [Dhritarashtra], the acharya, and the grandsire all reproach me alone all the time, never another person. However, I DO NOT FIND THE LEAST FAULT IN MYSELF. And yet all of you hate me – and that includes my own father! I have been reflecting and reflecting on this and yet I DO NOT FIND ANY SERIOUS FAULT IN ME, NOR DO I FIND ANY SMALL FAULT IN ME. Not even the minutest!”

That is Duryodhana, the evil minded son of Dhritarashtra, the durbiddhi, as Arjuna refers to him while asking Krishna to take his chariot between the two armies.      

Duryodhana is proud of everything he has done in his life and believes and asserts proudly he has never erred from kshatra dharma, the way of the kshatriyas. But he forgets that kshatra dharma does not teach cheating, betrayal, treachery, lying, poisoning people, setting fire to their houses, and violating the dignity of women. 

Unfortunately, that he learnt and practiced the ways of Kanika and Shakuni and of no one else was not just his tragedy and the tragedy of the Pandavas, but the tragedy of all the kshatriyas born in India in his age, of this sacred land itself.

No culture gave more importance to leadership than ancient India did. Speaking of leadership India said raja yugam uchyate – the king is called the four ages. The Mahabharata says whether it is Satya Yuga in a country or Treta, Dwapara or Kali, depends on the king. When the king is what he should be, a man of integrity and other virtues, and does what is expected of him, we have Satya Yuga, the age of perfection, in his country. And we have Treta Yuga or Dwapara Yuga or Kali Yuga in the country, depending on to what extent the king comes near the ideals set for him. When the king fails miserably in being what he should be and doing what he should do, we have the Age of Kali.

During a lesson Yudhishthira receives from Bhishma in the Shanti Parva of the epic, the dharma king asks his grandsire whether the leader creates the age or the age creates the leader. And Bhishma says: kalo vaa kaaranam raajnah raajaa vaa kaalakaaranam iti te samshayo maa bhoot, raajaa kaalasya kaaranam. “Let there be no doubt in your mind as to whether the king makes the age or the age makes the king: The king makes the age.”

Whether it was in the past or today, whether it is in a kingdom or a family or an organization, the leader makes the age. Put in today’s terms:  Let there be no doubt in your mind as to whether the leader makes the age or the age makes the leader: The leader makes the age

I once worked for an institution in which the leadership changed and with it, almost overnight, the institutional climate changed too. Under the old leadership, if the institution was in Satya Yuga, under the new leadership it entered the Kali Yuga. The changes were instant and total and the only change that had happened was the change in leadership.

It is not that the asuri leadership principles Kanika taught Dhritarashtra do not work – they work, but only for a short time, and ultimately it destroys. It destroys those who practice it. Their effectiveness is short lived and eventually they backfire, as we see in the Mahabharata itself. That is why the Katha Upanishad speaks of the path of short term good as the path of preyas and the road widely travelled; and the path of long time good as the path of shreyas and the road less travelled. Speaking of these two paths, the Upanishad says:

shreyas cha preyas cha manushyam etas tau sampareetya vivinakti dheerah; shreyo hi dheero’bhipreyaso vrineete preyo mando yogakshemaad vrineete // - Katha  Upanishad, 1/2/2

Translated loosely, the mantra means that as man walks on the path of life, both shreyas and preyas appear before him and the intelligent man, differentiating between the two, chooses shreyas for lasting good, whereas the fool chooses preyas for immediate gains.

Much of the tragedy the world is facing today is because we have been ignoring shreyas and choosing preyas at the individual, at the family, at the community and at the national level, leading to dissatisfaction, frustration and unhappiness. Modern industry and business inspired by western models have for a while now been consistently choosing preyas over shreyas, which explains much of the tragedy in our world today, in spite of the great advances in science and technology, and why we our planet is on the brink of destroyed.

Power should not be in the hands of durbuddhis, nor should our leaders and leadership be of asuri nature.    

O0O

Photo courtesy: Devender Malhotra

Thank you in advance for your questions and comments. 

Living Bhagavad Gita 007: Duryodhana the Durbuddhi

A series of short articles on the Bhagavad Gita for busy, stressed people living and working in these volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times. The only scripture born in a battlefield teaches us how to face our challenges, live our life fully and achieve excellence in whatever we do.

[Continued from the previous post]

Then, O Lord of the earth, seeing Duryodhana's men in position and the armies about to clash, Arjuna, raising his bow, told Krishna, “O Krishna, take my chariot between the two armies. I want to see the warriors I am about to fight. I want to have a look at those gathered here for battle wishing to please the evil-minded son of Dhritarashtra”. BG 1.20-23

Arjuna here calls Duryodhana the evil-minded son of Dhritarashtra. The word he uses for Duryodhana is durbuddhi – dhaartaraashtrasya durbuddheh.

Sage Vyasa meets Dhritarashtra the night before the Kurukshetra war begins in a last minute attempt to avoid the slaughter of millions. He asks his son to stop the war and the blind king says he has no power over Duryodhana, he is helpless. Hearing these words Vyasa concentrates his mind using his yogic power and meditates for a short while. Coming out of his meditation he again tells Dhritarashtra he has the power to avoid the slaughter of the war by restraining his sons and asks him to do that. Of course Dhritarashtra does nothing of the sort because though he does have authority as king and as father, he had no real power over his son because of his weakness for him and the free reins he has given him throughout his life.

Dhritarashtra here is a warning for all of us who overindulge his children. Just as constantly criticizing and punishing children is bad, never restraining them when they start walking on evil paths too is bad. Love is not overindulgence. It is not freedom for licentiousness. Children have to learn from the beginning that they are responsible for their actions, that their freedom comes with responsibilities.  

Duryodhana’s story is also a warning to mothers who neglect their responsibilities as mothers and give those responsibilities over to others who do their job not out of love but for payment. Gandhari neglected her responsibilities as a wife – towards the end of his life Dhritarashtra bitterly complains about this in strong, emotion-filled words, saying how different things would have been had she been a good, caring wife for him, had she been his eyes for him. For all we know, she neglected her children too – unlike Kunti who lived for her children. The popular story in which she removes her blindfold and using her spiritual power and transforms Duryodhana’s naked body into vajra, makes it diamond-like, all of it except the part below his waste where he had worn a piece of cloth, has no place in the Sanskrit Mahabharata and is in fact against the spirit of the epic. She lives all her married life and eventually dies with those blindfolds on – without ever having taken one look at any of her sons, except once through the divine vision given her by Vyasa after the war. There is no substitute for a mother; there are certain things a child should get directly from its mother, like love, affection, care, the physical touch and so on. When the mother neglects these responsibilities, for whatever reason, calamities ensue. Modern sociology bewails what would happen to the generation of children now growing up in societies where mothers have no time or energy for their children.

O0O

The epic speaks of Duryodhana as an incarnation of the Age of Kali. Kali is the age of wickedness and darkness and it is wickedness and darkness we find in the actions of Duryodhana from a very young age.

Western psychology believes that we are all born with our minds like empty slates, with nothing written on them, whereas eastern psychology believes that we come into the world with memories, karmas, vasanas and samskaras from our past lifetimes. There have been countless cases where people are hypnotically regressed and when that is done, they relive their past lives, memories of which lie buried deep within us. Dr Brian Weiss has written several books such as Many Lives, Many Masters and Through Time into Healing in which he discusses real past life experiences as does Dr Rosemary Ellen Guiley in her book Tales of Reincarnation. Countless cases have been reported where children remember their past lifetimes in precise details. [Please see my article Reincarnation: Persistence of Memory available online.] Krishna in the Gita says: bahooni me vyateetaani janmaani tava chaarjuna; taany aham veda sarvaani na tvam vettha parantapa – “I have lived numerous lifetimes in the past and so have you; I remember them all, but not you, O Arjuna.” BG 4.5

The sixteenth chapter of the Gita speaks of people being born either with daivi qualities or with asuri qualities. None of us comes into this world as blank slates. We come into this world with the psychological tendencies and life scripts that we carry with us from our past lifetimes. While the life scripts and psychological tendencies lie dormant so long as right conditions are not available for them to sprout and grow, given the right conditions, the scripts ripen and the tendencies start unfolding one by one.    

Duryodhana had come into this world, like everyone else, with these scripts and tendencies. In his case they were predominantly dark and negative. The overindulgence of Dhritarashtra and the complete neglect of Gandhari in his early years provided the right atmosphere for these to sprout and grow, making him the durbuddhi that we find in the Mahabharata who in his jealousy and greed for power causes the death of practically the entire kshatriya varna of India.          

Once of the first incidents that the epic mentions in detail is the picnic at Pramanakoti which was plotted by Duryodhana along with Shakuni and Karna, which shows Duryodhana as an evil genius even as a child. The incident happens when he was very young – before he begins his studies under Drona or even Kripa. The thoroughness with which he plans the wicked deed is amazing and the ruthlessness he shows here is scary.

After plotting out the entire wicked plan in detail with Shakuni and Karna he goes to Pramanakoti on the banks of the Ganga, selects the place and gives orders for a beautiful mansion surrounded by rich gardens to be built there. Then, when the mansion is fully ready, he invites the Pandava brothers for a picnic there. By the time they reach there, on Duryodhana’s orders the best cooks have prepared all kinds of delicious food and drinks for the princes. Reaching there Duryodhana takes them all on a tour of the place and then the food is served. They eat with relish both the food cooked by expert cooks and fruits fallen from trees. Duryodhana and his brothers feed the Pandavas by their own hands and the Pandavas do the same to them too. Secretly Duryodhana has the deadly poison kalakuta mixed in Bhima’s food and it is this food that Duryodhana smilingly feeds him with his own hand. The innocent, unsuspecting Bhima, fond of food that he is, happily eats everything Duryodhana gives him.   

If in the Gita Arjuna uses the word durbuddhi for Duryodhana. the epic uses the word durmati for him here. Both words mean precisely the same: evil minded, of crooked intellect. The epic calls Dhritarashtra’s dark-hearted son here a papi, an evil sinner. Speaking of him the epic also says: hridayena kshuropamah,,,vaachaa amritakalpas cha, meaning, like a dagger in his heart and like nectar, like ambrocia, in his words.  

Following the meals, they all sport in the Ganga. As always, Bhima is more active than all his brothers and cousins. He gives himself totally to the sport in water and continuously encourages others to give all of themselves to the fun. Eventually, after a long time in water, they go back to the pleasure palace and lie down there to rest, relax and have a nap. Bhima soon enters a deep slumber. He is fatigued with all the swimming and encouraging others, and the deadly poison that would long ago have killed any other person has finally started having its effect on his strong body. Duryodhana now ties him up with forest vines and drops him into the Ganga from a cliff, hoping that if the poison does not kill him, he would drown in the torrent of the river.

However, contrary to his expectations, when deadly snakes bite him underwater the poison in his body is neutralized. Eventually Bhima reaches the land of the Nagas and there, recognizing that he is a kin of theirs through Kunti, whose mother Marisha was a Naga woman, they save him and give him medicinal drinks that make him far more powerful than before. Soon Bhima is back in Hastinapura.

But Duryodhana’s durbuddhi does not rest even after this. Once again Duryodhana plots to kill Bhima with poison that was even more deadly than the one used before. Yuyutsu, Duryodhana’s half-brother who had become friendly with the Pandavas realizing their goodness, informs Bhima of this and Bhima in spite of knowing his food is poisoned, swallows it all without being harmed in the least by it because of the medicinal treatments he had received in the land of the Nagas. Duryodhana keeps making attempt after attempt to end the life of not just Bhima but all of the Pandavas.

Speaking of this the Mahabharata tells us:

evaṁ duryodhanaḥ karṇaḥ shakunis chaapi saubalaḥ

anekair abhyupaayais taan jighaamsanti sma paaṇḍavaan

[MB BORI 01119042a-c] [MB GP Adi 129.40]

“Thus through numerous means Duryodhana, Karna and Shakuni the son of Subala repeatedly kept trying to kill the Pandavas.”

As we all know, not only in their childhood  but throughout their life Duryodhana treacherously tries to destroy the Pandavas, the house of lacquer and the cunning dice game being just two examples.

It is to see the forces of this Duryodhana that Arjuna asks Krishna to take his chariot between the two armies.

O0O

The sixteenth chapter of the Gita is a short chapter that discusses just one single idea: daivi sampada vs. asuri sampada. Among daivi sampada, noble or divine virtues, Krishna lists twenty-six qualities such as fearlessness, purity of heart, self mastery, tapas, straightforwardness, and so on. The list of asuri sampada or demonic qualities Krishna gives us is shorter, though it is the asuri sampada that he discusses in greater detail. The short list consists of just six qualities: hypocrisy, arrogance, conceit, anger, harshness and ignorance, but the discussion of the asuri people only begins with this list. The asuri people are slaves to hundreds of desires, he continues, and, given over to lust and anger, they constantly strive to amass wealth by unjust means and hoard it for sensual enjoyment. They are driven by power hunger, lust, anger and jealousy and are slaves to egoism and pride.  

Of course, Duryodhana is not all evil – no one in the Mahabharata is. The Mahabharata is not written in black and white, but in grey colours. There are positive qualities in him too, like courage  and so on which he displays on many occasions in his life. But if we look at Duryodhana’s life from his birth to his death, at his life as a whole, the description of people with asuri sampada Krishna gives in the sixteenth chapter of the Gita seems to fit him perfectly.

Such people create hell for themselves wherever they are and live in that hell perpetually. Because a man with endless desires in his mind, with constantly burning anger in his heart and filled with insatiable greed lives constantly in hell. Hell is not a geographical place, but a psychological state in which you are constantly haunted by desire, anger and greed, by hatred and the need for vengeance. The light of the joys of life is denied for them, he sees no beauty in the sunrise or the sunset, the cool wind does not blow for him, clouds do not shower rains for him, and when flowers bloom him do not see any beauty in it, nor does he see the beauty of a child’s smile. The Ishavasya Upanishad says: asooryaa naama te lokaa andhena tamasaavrtaah taams te pretya abhigacchanti ye ke chaatmahano janaah – Sunless indeed are called those worlds, steeped in blinding darkness. And whoever kills their own selves, they enter those worlds.

To kill oneself is to live a life without joyfulness, denying the ananda which is our true nature. Rather than living in the present moment, in the now, where alone all joy is, all happiness is, all ananda is, when we are constantly on the run seeking it, constantly living in the future, we are killing our selves.  This is the suicidal life that the Upanishad speaks about    

Today’s world is encouraging this kind of life. That is why there is less and less peace in the world, less and less joy. Stress dominates our life and we seem to be constantly on the run, to reach where nobody knows. The strange thing is that even after knowing we get nothing from all this running, we still keep running.

O0O

Modern Psychology and Organizational Behaviour speak of the Type A Personality. Type A people are highly competitive and lack the sense of joy in their life. They get easily wound up, tend to overreact, live with a sense of desperate urgency and are impatient with delays. Easily aroused to anger and hostility, they see only the negative side of others. They are full of envy and lack compassion. Hostile towards people in general, highly aggressive, they bully everyone over whom they have power. Restless, bulldozing through life, they drive people around them insane, spreading stress and unhappiness all around.

That reads like a description of Duryodhana.

Woe to you if you have someone in power around you like him, like a boss, your spouse or a parent. I know someone who had a boss like that. After three years of every day abuses, humiliations, threats, bullying, conflicts and tensions he finally resigned and left, moving into a new profession in which he was his own master.    

O0O

Photo courtesy: Devender Malhotra

Thank you in advance for your comments and questions.

Living Bhagavad Gita 006: Take My Chariot between the Two Armies, Krishna

Short articles on the Bhagavad Gita for busy, stressed people living and working in these volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times. The teachings of the Gita, originally meant for leaders, can help us improve our relationships, combat energy drain and solve our personal and professional problems. The scripture born in a battlefield teaches us to live fully and achieve excellence in whatever we do. Based on my years of experience as a Management Professor and Corporate Officer Trainer.

[Continued from the previous post]

O0O

Then, O Lord of the earth, seeing Duryodhana's men in position and the armies about to clash, Arjuna, raising his bow, told Krishna, “O Krishna, take my chariot between the two armies. I want to see the warriors I am about to fight. I want to have a look at those gathered here for battle, wishing to please the evil-minded son of Dhritarashtra. BG 1.20-23

Arjuna already knows who the main warriors on his side and on the enemy side are. But in spite of that he wants to have a look at them before the battle begins.

Arjuna could not have meant that he wants to have a look at the hundreds of thousands of ordinary soldiers gathered in the battlefield. Obviously, if he meant to assess his chances of victory and the magnitude of the challenge, he must have meant the leading warriors on the enemy side. And who are they? Karna will not be fighting so long as Bhishma stands in the battlefield, so Arjuna couldn’t have meant him. Could he have meant Bhishma, Drona, Kripa, Ashwatthama, Duryodhana, Dusshasana, Shalya, Bhoorishrava and so on? But he does not have to take a good look at any of them – they are his grand uncle, his gurus, his uncle, cousins and so on. He knows them only too well. Still he says he wants to take a good look at them: “I want to have a look at those gathered here for battle, wishing to please the evil-minded son of Dhritarashtra.” Why does he say so?

A lot of the time in our life, particularly on momentous occasions crucial for us, for others or for the world in general, words come out of us in spite of ourselves, we do certain things not originating in us but happening through us, for which we are just instruments, just nimittas.

Ancient Indian literature talks of several such incidents. In the Ramayana we have the example of Kaikeyi who loved Rama more than her own son Bharata but in a weak moment, under the influence of the jealousy and intolerance incited by Manthara, asks Dasharatha to exile Rama to the forest for fourteen years and in his place crown Bharata as the yuvaraja of Ayodhya. Kaikeyi’s action here is completely uncharacteristic of her. Reading the original Ramayana of Valmiki, we find that Kaikeyi is a loving, generous, talented, highly competent person untouched by cunning and other evils of the world – in fact, there is no one like her in the Ramayana, she is so beautiful as a person. Nothing she had done before that or anything she does subsequently explains her stubborn demand in those moments. Various Ramayana traditions explain her behavior in those moments as Goddess Saraswati sitting on her tongue and saying through her the words she speaks so that the purpose of the gods, the slaying of Ravana, could be achieved. Kaikeyi here is just a nimitta for the purposes of the gods.

In the Mahabharata itself we have the story of close friends Devayani and Sharmishtha, one the daughter of Guru Shukracharya who was the priest and advisor of the Asura king Vrishaparva and the other Vrishaparva’s daughter. The two girls go out to bathe and sport in a nearby river and enter the water after leaving their clothes on the bank. When they come out later, their clothes have been mixed up and Sharmishtha by mistake wears Devayani’s clothes. In the social order of the day the position of the guru and the brahmana was far above that of the king and socially Devayani, Shukra’s daughter was much superior to Sharmishtha, the princess. When Devayani angrily asks Sharmishtha why she wore her clothes, the princess arrogantly tells the guru’s daughter that she had no right to protest, after all she was the daughter of a man living on her father’s wealth. For her act of wearing Devayani’s clothes, and much more for her haughty words, Sharmishtha had to live her entire remaining life as Devayani’s slave. The consequences of this incident are far reaching and become the crux of several incidents in Indian mytho-history, including why the Yadavas [Krishna is a Yadava.] came to be considered of lower caste status than kshatriyas who they originally were.

The epic tells us the whole incident was orchestrated in the world of the gods. It was Indra who commanded the wind god Vayu to blow and mix up the clothes, thus confusing Sharmishtha and making her pick up and wear Devayani’s clothes. Sharmishtha and Devayani are mere tools for their purposes.

Sometimes we all become helpless tools in the hands of daiva, the samashti. That is what is happening here, which is one way understanding Arjuna’s demand to Krishna to take his chariot between the two armies standing ready to pounce upon each other. Had he not asked Krishna to do that, the momentous event of the birth of the Gita, the scripture that has guided vast chunks of humanity over millennia, would not have happened.

Sometimes the samashti, or God if you will, makes us do strange deeds and say strange things that puzzle us later. We wonder why we said or did such those things.  All of us experience moments when events happen through us, we say things that are not spoken by us but through us, for which we are mere nimittas.  

A few days ago the city in which I live celebrated Khatu Shyam Mahotsav, the festival of Khatu Shyam, also known as Barbarika, the son of Ghatotkacha and his wife Maurvi. In folk imagination, Barbarika was the fiercest of all warriors in the Mahabharata. He was sacrificed by Krishna before the Mahabharata war begins, with a blessing given to him that his head would, as he wanted, remain on a peepal tree in the Kurukshetra battlefield and witness the whole war. According to folk traditions, again, after the war was over an argument broke out among the Pandava brothers as to who among them should be given maximum credit for the victory and each of the five brothers claimed that honour. Krishna took all the brothers to the peepal tree and asked Khatu Shyam to tell them who among the brothers should be credited for the victory. Barbarika laughs and says during the entire war he saw only one thing: Krishna’s Sudharshana chopping off the heads of all the warriors and Draupadi drinking up all the blood.

According to this legend, the war was actually fought by the two did not actively participate in it: Krishna and Draupadi. All the others were nothing but instruments in their hands, or let’s say, instruments in the hands of the power that uses all of us for its purposes.

The Unknown makes us tools in its hands for the purposes of the samashti.  

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The Unknown works in mysterious ways.

I spent the summer months of 1979 in Uttar Kashi, staying in Tapovan Kuti, the ashram in which my param guru Swami Tapovanam used to live. One day hearing that the Mahamandaleshwar from Rishikesh had come to the nearby Kailas Ashram and was giving a lecture there, I went to listen to him. The Mahamandaleshwar was an engaging story teller and told us a beautiful story about a passenger in a bus on a Himalayan road.

From the moment this passenger got into the bus, the other passengers noticed strange, inexplicable things happening. Once they saw a tree just falling across the mountain road ahead of them, making further journey impossible until it had been removed and the road cleared. Another time the engine heated up and had to be cooled before the journey could continue. A third time the driver felt unwell and had to rest. On mystery filled mountain roads where danger lurks at every turning, people tend to be superstitious, as it happens whenever we feel in the presence of powers greater than ourselves over which we have no hold. Soon a whisper started making rounds among the passengers of the bus – it’s all because of the new passenger, before he boarded the bus everything was fine, now nothing seems to be all right.

Two more incidents, and the passengers started demanding loudly – the new passenger had to get down from the bus. It was because of him all these bad events were happening. They started threatening the driver too, saying that they wouldn’t allow the bus to proceed unless the passenger was sent out of the bus.

Eventually that is what was done. And after the passenger was forcibly disboarded on the lonely mountain road, the bus had travelled not more than five minutes more when all on a sudden the old bridge on which they were started loudly cracking and violently shaking. And then, before the driver or the passengers could realize what was happening, the bridge collapsed under them and the entire bus plunged into the deep gorge beneath, killing everyone on board.

The Mahamandaleshwar concluded the story saying all the passengers on board were destined to die, except the new passenger. It was destiny that made the passengers vociferously demand that the new passenger be thrown out of the bus, he said, so that the accident could take place.     

We do not do everything that happens through us. We become the corridor for much that the samashti does for its own purposes. We tend to take pride in those actions and incidents if they are good, and feel guilty when they are bad. Wisdom is neither taking pride for the good things that happen through us and nor feeling guilty about the bad things that happen through us.

Which does not absolve us from responsibilities for the actions originate in our ego.  We must pay the price for such actions, says the Indian tradition: avashyam anubhoktavyam kritam karma shubhaashubham. naabhuktam ksheeyate karma kalpakotishatairapi. “We must experience the results of actions we have done, both good and bad. Even after endless years our karmas are not exhausted unless they are lived.” 

Later in the Gita Krishna asks Arjuna to fight the entire battle without ego. In verse 30, Chapter 3 of the Gita, Krishna asks Arjuna: “Surrendering all your actions to me, with your mind rooted in the self, without any selfish motivation, without the sense of ownership and without feverishness, fight!”  

mayi sarvaani karmaani sannyasya-adhyaatma-chetasa
niraasheer nirmamo bhutva yudhyasva vigata-jvarah

This is one of the central verses that summarises of the philosophy of action Krishna teaches in the Gita.

Actions happen through us whether we like it or not. But by letting our ego come in between, we can disturb their free flow. The wisdom of the Gita asks us not to let our ego come in the way of this flow of the will of the samashti and to become free paths for actions originating in the samashti. That is what Krishna means when he asks Arjuna to become a mere instrument in the hands of God: nimittamaatram bhava savyasaachin.

Interestingly, modern neurobiology and performance psychology tell us that in our moments of the highest performance excellence, we are without our ego, we transcend the ego. In fact modern performance psychology insists: without ego transcendence high excellence is just not possible. And once the ego is transcended, whatever we do will have the stamp of excellence.   Ego transcendence is the basic requirement for excellence in action.

Ego transcendence is also the secret of all creativity. Our most creative ideas come to us in moments when we temporarily go beyond the ego. Ego transcendence is the secret of intuition. All scientific discoveries and all technological inventions are made by us in those moments when we are without the ego. So is all great art, all great music, dance, literature and everything else that is beautiful in the world.  

When Arjuna asks Krishna to take his chariot between the two vast armies, the samashti is acting through him so that the Bhagavad Gita could be born. Arjuna of course does not understand this, but Krishna does. I am sure Krishna’s beautiful smile must have appeared on his face as he obeyed his friend Arjuna’s ‘command’!

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Image courtesy: Devender Malhotra

Thank you in advance for your questions and comments.

Living Bhagavad Gita 05: War Conches Blown

Short articles on the Bhagavad Gita for the busy, stressed working people of today. The series discusses how to live the Gita in our daily life in these volatile, uncertain complex, ambiguous times.

[Continued from the previous post]

Then conches, kettle drums, tabors, trumpets and cow-horns suddenly blared forth from the Kaurava side creating a tumult.

Stationed in their splendid chariot with white horses yoked to it, Krishna and Arjuna too then blew their sacred conches – Krishna blew his Panchajanya and Arjuna, the Devadatta.

Bhima of terrible deeds joined them blowing his great conch Paundra. King Yudhishtira blew his conch Anantavijaya and Nakula and Sahadeva blew the Sughosha and the Manipushpaka.

Then Kashiraja, the outstanding bowman; Sikhandi, the mighty chariot-warrior; Dhrishtadyumna and Virata; Satyaki, the unvanquished; Drupada, the sons of Draupada, and the mighty-armed son of Subhadra, O Lord of the earth, all blew their conches.

The tumultuous bellow of the conches, resounding through the sky and earth, tore through the hearts of the Kaurava warriors. BG 1.13-19

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Just as the Gita does not tell us the names of the conches the Kaurava warriors blew, it also does not tell us anything about what effect the blowing had on the Pandavas.

As a rule, the warriors of the Mahabharata war were excited about wars. For them it was a parva, a festival, a celebration, a sacrifice in the Vedic sense of the term, a sacred ritual in which you offered yourself as the ahuti in the fire of the yajna that the war was. For, everyone in the Mahabharata society knew that death was no more than a change of clothes, as the Gita later says. They knew that no one ever really died nor did anyone ever kill anyone: naayam hanti na hanyate – “this [soul] neither kills nor dies.”  

Sage Vyasa describes with immense thrill the ecstasy the warriors experience in the battlefield as they meet with their heroic death. The only thing they were worried about was they should not die the death of cowards! Death was the bride they courted in war with as much ardour as a young man courts his beloved.

A warrior was taught from his birth to look upon glory in battle as the most desirable goal of life. To him battles were peak experiences, accompanied by rapturous ecstasies. The warriors lived for such experiences and when an opportunity arose, even the possibility of death did not deter them from courting these. If anything, that threat added excitement to the challenge. They believed that “the death that a Kshatriya meets with at home is censurable. Death on one's bed at home is highly sinful. The man who casts away his body in the woods or in battle after having performed sacrifices, obtains great glory. He is no man who dies miserably weeping in pain, afflicted by disease and decay, in the midst of crying kinsmen.”

Many people came to join the Mahabharata war without caring which side they joined so long as they got an opportunity to fight! Shishupala first approached the Pandava side requesting them to take him and when they refused, went to the Kauravas requesting them to take him on their side! Karna did keep the promise he made to his mother Kunti about not killing any of her sons other than Arjuna but apart from that, he fought to his best in the war calling the war a Vedic yajna, a fire sacrifice, though his heart is not in it because of the unethical ways of Duryodhana,

Howevr, speaking of the impact of the conches blown by Krishna and the Pandavas verse 19 of the chapter says that the tumultuous boom echoed and reechoed in the sky and on the earth and cleaved through the hearts of the warriors on the Kaurava side.

They were terrified by the power of the challenge thrown at them by the Pandavas.

Now, if warriors in the Mahabharata times excitedly looked forward to death and glory in battles, why should the Kaurava warriors be terrified all on a sudden?

Being on the side of right gives one immense strength whether it is while taking an important decision in personal life or in the corporate boardroom or while facing an enemy in the battlefield. In the previous article we saw how absolutely fearless ordinary Indians were as they faced the might of the British Empire in the freedom struggle, as when they did satyagraha in front of the Dharasana Salt Works in Gujarat.  “Rang de basanti chola, maiye rang de, mera rang de basanti chola,” our freedom fighters sang with a thrill in their voice: “Colour my clothes saffron, O Motherland, colour my clothes saffron!” “Sarfaroshi ki tamannaa ab hamare dil mein hai, dekhnaa ki zor kitnaa baazu-e-qaatil mein hai” – these immortal lines written by Bismil Azimabadi that spoke of the freedom fighters desire to offer their heads for their cause became the war cry of millions of soldiers of India’s battle for freedom from British shackles. That is the kind of fearlessness you have in your heart when you are on the side of the right cause.

The warriors in the Kaurava army knew they were on the side of the wrong cause and hence the fear in their hearts as they stand ready to battle and hear the sound of the battle challenge of the Pandavas.

Faith in dharma was strong in the Mahabharata society and they strongly believed that final victory will go to where dharma is: yato dharmas tato jayah.  Satyam eva jayate, said the Mundaka Upanishad [3..1.6] and they believed satya is the highest dharma and where satya is, victory will be.  

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Blowing conches at the beginning of all sacred acts is part of the timeless Indian tradition. Morning and evening worships in India both in temples and in homes begin with the blowing of conches. Even today in Bengal homes, for instance, no evening worship is conducted without the blowing of conches, traditionally done by women. Blowing conches here at the beginning of the war is thus not just announcing the war and challenging the enemy to fight but also declaring to oneself and to others that what is about to begin is as much an act of worship as a puja is.

For our ancestors, a dharma yuddha was a sacred yajna in which offerings of human life were made into the sacrificial fire of battle lit in the battlefield. And the goal to be attained through the yajna was the common good for the world and glory and the bliss of battle for the individual soldier.

Anything we do can be a sacred act if it is done with the right attitude. It is not the act that makes it sacred but the attitude behind it.

There was once a saintly old man who never ate or drank while the sun shined in the sky. And the people noticed that the heavens were delighted with his vow. For, there appeared a bright star above the nearby mountain whenever the man was in the village. The star remained in the sky not only at night but also throughout the day for everyone in the village to see. People revered the man and his penance that made this miracle possible.

Every once in a while the man made a solitary trip to the mountain top to spend some time there in solitude. But one day when he started a little girl from the village said she too would go with him. The man tried to dissuade the girl telling her the journey was very tough and also, he would neither eat nor drink during the entire trip. But the little girl insisted and the man did not know how to say no to her without hurting her.

As they started, people looked up at the mountain top: the star was bright in the sky above the mountain.  

The journey was indeed tough and the climb very steep. An hour or two after they started, the little child was very thirsty. The man told her to drink some water from one of the tiny streamlets of fresh water along the mountain path they were using. But the girl said she would not drink unless he too drank. This happened three or four times and finally the man realized the child will not be able walk another step unless she had a drink of water. Very reluctantly he decided to do what he had never done before – break his vow and drink some water so that the little girl too can drink.

The man was now afraid to look at the sky above the mountain. He had broken his vow!  The miracle star will no more be there! Shivering inside, the man slowly raised his head and looked up.

And the story tells us his eyes met with a greater miracle. Where the lone star used to be, there now stood two stars in the sky, each shining more brightly than the lone star ever did.

Keeping a religious vow is a sacred act. But breaking the vow can be spiritual too, if it is done for the right reasons.

Killing in battle can be a sacred act if it is done for the right reasons and with the right attitude.

The Mahabharata speaks of the professional butcher Dharmavyadha who climbs to such great heights of spirituality that a great ascetic is sent to learn from the butcher! The butcher had practiced butchery as his dharma, with the right attitude.

A war in which thousands of people are killed can be sacred too under the right circumstances. It can be fought as a sacred ritual.       

The Saundarya Lahari of Adi Shankracharya is one of most precious gems the acharya gifted to the world. It has this beautiful prayer made to the Goddess so that everything we do becomes an act of worship. The shloka says:

japo jalpah shilpam sakalam api mudraa-virachanaa
gatih praadakshinya-kramanam ashanaady-aahuti-vidhih
pranaamah samveshah sukham akhilam atmaarpana-drishaa
saparya-paryaayaas tava bhavatu yan me vilasitam. Saundarya Lahari 27

The shloka says: O Goddess, may all my meaningless talk be your prayer, all the movements of my body be the sacred gestures of your worship, my walk pradakshina around you, my eating and drinking oblations offered to you! May my lying down be prostrations to you and everything else that I do for my comfort and joy be acts of your worship and my surrender to you!

Yad yad karma karomi tattadakhilam shambho tavaraadhanam – “May every single act of mine become worship offered to you, O Lord,” says another famous shloka.

Krishna himself says in the Gita: yat karoshi yad ashnaasi yaj juhoshi dadaasi yat
yat tapasyasi kaunteya tat kurusva madarpanam – “All that you do, O Arjuna, all that you eat, all offerings you make and all that you give away, all austerities that you perform – dedicate all that to me.” BG 9.27  

While everything you do or have could be offered in worship, it is the best you have that you offer to the Lord, and in the life of a kshatriya there is nothing superior to a dharma yuddha. Certainly his offering of a leaf, or a flower, or a lighted lamp, or the words of a prayer is not superior to that. The highest worship is offering actions originating from the best in you. For an artist, the best he can offer in worship is his art, for a singer it is his song, for a writer it is his writing, for a leader it is his leadership. What better offering can a warrior, a kshatriya, make at the feet of the Lord than a dharma yuddha?

Krishna makes all this clear beyond a doubt when he says in the concluding chapter of the Gita: swakarmanaa tam abhyarchya siddhim vindati maanavah – “Man achieves the highest by worshipping Him through his actions.” Gita 18.46

Nothing would be more appropriate than the blowing of the conches by the chief warriors at the beginning of the Kurukshetra war.  

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Photo courtesy: Devender Malhotra

Thank you in advance for your comments and questions.

Living Bhagavad Gita 04

Short articles on the Bhagavad Gita for the busy, stressed working people of today. Discusses how to live the Gita in our daily life.

[Continued from the previous post]

Then Bhishma, the aged Kuru grandfather, roared like a lion and blew a powerful blast on his conch making Duryodhana’s heart leap with joy. BG 1.12

Bhishma thoroughly understands Duryodhana’s psychology and that is why without allowing him to continue, in a brilliant move, he roars like a lion and blows his conch powerfully making the whole war field boom with its sound.

In the Richard Attenborough movie Gandhi there is an amazing satyagraha scene which we cannot watch without holding our breath because of the intensity of the feelings it arouses in our heart. In May 1930, soon after the highly successful Dandi March against the salt tax imposed on India by the British, following a call given by Gandhiji, a large group of freedom fighters assemble to peacefully raid the British managed Dharasana Salt Works in Gujarat because, as Mahatmaji said, India’s salt belongs to India. We see a multitude of Indians waiting not far from the gate of the Salt Works ready to move towards the factory. There are several women volunteers waiting a little distance away to nurse those men who would be brutally beaten up by the policemen guarding the factory gate. And there are journalists present, covering the event.  The British want the event to turn violent, thus defeating Gandhiji’s determination to make the event non-violent. They arrest Gandhiji hoping it will provoke the people and turn them violent. But people are determined come what may they will not raise a hand: they will not fight back and they will not turn away and run.

As the first row of freedom fighters led by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad approach the gate, police batons come down brutally on their heads and shoulders. We hear the sound of bones cracking and people collapsing on the ground, blood flowing freely bathing their faces. As the women volunteers come forward and carry them away for first aid, the second line of freedom fighters move forward. Steel tipped police lathis come down heavily on their heads and shoulders too, crushing the skull and breaking bones. The scene is repeated again and again and we see the reporters turning their faces away, unable to stand the viciousness of the police and the silent, wordless superhuman endurance of the satyagrahis.

Here is how American journalist Webb Miller who was an eye-witness to the scene reports it:

“Not one of the marchers even raised an arm to fend off the blows... From where I stood I heard the sickening whacks of the clubs on unprotected skulls. The waiting crowd of watchers groaned and sucked in their breaths in sympathetic pain at every blow.

“Those struck down fell sprawling, unconscious or writhing in pain with fractured skulls or broken shoulders. In two or three minutes the ground was quilted with bodies. Great patches of blood widened on their white clothes. The survivors without breaking ranks silently and doggedly marched on until struck down. When every one of the first column was knocked down stretcher bearers rushed up unmolested by the police and carried off the injured to a thatched hut which had been arranged as a temporary hospital...

“Bodies toppled over in threes and fours, bleeding from great gashes on their scalps. Group after group walked forward, sat down, and submitted to being beaten into insensibility without raising an arm to fend off the blows. Finally the police became enraged by the non-resistance....They commenced savagely kicking the seated men in the abdomen and testicles. The injured men writhed and squealed in agony, which seemed to inflame the fury of the police....The police then began dragging the sitting men by the arms or feet, sometimes for a hundred yards, and throwing them into ditches.”

According to Wikipedia from which this quote is taken, “Miller later wrote that he went to the hospital where the wounded were being treated, and "counted 320 injured, many still insensible with fractured skulls, others writhing in agony from kicks in the testicles and stomach....Scores of the injured had received no treatment for hours and two had died."

There are several forms of courage, what we see here is without a doubt courage of the highest kind.  

What gives such extraordinary courage to ordinary people? What awakens in ordinary peddlers and street vendors, school teachers and office clerks, farmers and fishermen, carpenters and blacksmiths the courage to stand up against the mightiest empire the world has seen? It is one thing to be struck by the police lathi unawares. It is an altogether different thing to know that when you take the next step the lathi is going to come down heavily on you and break your skull causing unspeakable pain, to see this happening to the person right in front of you and yet take that step. While there are other reasons involved, the satyagrahis were able to rise to such superhuman levels of courage through they were afire with the cause for which they were fighting. 

In the Hindi movie Lagaan, we see ordinary village people who have never played cricket forming a team and beating the English who have played cricket all their life. The strength of the villagers: inspiration born of their cause.

The Hindi movie Chak De India shows us how, following the final speech by their coach, the members of the Indian hockey team forget their rivalries and personal goals and fight as a single team, again inspired by their cause of making India win.

What we find lacking in the Kaurava team under Duryodhana is this inspiring cause. And because of that, none of the leading men of his army is able to give himself entirely to his war, none of them is able to forget their personal rivalries or their personal goals.

And Duryodhana himself is weighed down by guilt. He knows full well his cause is not just, that his heart is full of bitterness and jealousy, that the ways he has been practicing all his life, right from mixing deadly poison in th food of a completely unsuspecting Bhima at Pramanakoti while they were both children, were  treacherous.

In the Udyoga Parva, sometime before the war becomes inevitable, Dhritarashtra gives a long speech in a Kuru meeting about who the rightful heir to the Hastinapura throne is and concludes it by telling Duryodhana: “I was not fortunate to have the right over the kingdom; how can you then desire to be king? You are not the son of a king and therefore the kingdom does not belong to you. You are coveting what does not belong to you and trying to snatch it away from its rightful owner. The noble Yudhishthira is the son of the king, and this kingdom has rightfully been inherited by him. He is now the lord of all of us Kauravas, and that generous one is the [rightful] ruler of this land.”

It is this inner ethical conflict that creates confusion in Duryodhana’s heart and undermines his confidence as he looks at the Pandava army assembled, to cover up which he starts talking, saying exactly what he should not be saying, like praising the opposition army and insulting his guru Drona who is one of his greatest warriors.

Unless your cause is right, you will have no inspiration. And unless your cause is right and you yourself are inspired, you will not be able to inspire others. This is a universal truth.

Bhishma understands what is going on in Duryodhana’s mind and does precisely what needs to be done to cheer him up and bring back some semblance of confidence in him.

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This ability to understand other people’s emotions is part of what is called emotional intelligence, which is intelligence in the true sense of the term because eighty to ninety percent of our success in life depends on emotional intelligence. The supreme example for emotional intelligence in the Mahabharata is, of course, Krishna. Each of his actions emerges from the brilliance of his emotional intelligence. And perhaps the worst case of emotional intelligence in the entire epic is Duryodhana who does exactly what should not be done most of the time in the epic, as he does at this moment, eventually leading not only his family and the Bharata clan into tragedy but all of India, sending this glorious land into a long age of darkness much longer than what Europe went into from around the fifth century of the Common Era.

Duryodhana was the most powerful man in Bharatavarsha when the war begins and he was the de facto emperor of the land, though officially he was not. Tragedy is what naturally results when the person at the helm of affairs in any organization lacks emotional intelligence – be it a war, a business, an industry or a nation.

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Thank you in advance for your comments and questions.