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.  

O0O

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’!

O0O

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

O0O

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.  

O0O

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.  

O0O

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.

O0O

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.

O0O

Thank you in advance for your comments and questions.

Living Bhagavad Gita 003: Arjuna Vishada Yoga

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 Living Bhagavad Gita: 002]

Praise in the right place is praise; praise in the wrong place is an insult. Praise at the right time is praise; praise at the wrong time is an insult.      

In these opening verses of the Bhagavad Gita, Duryodhana addresses his guru Acharya Drona using the word dvijottama, a word that literally means the best of brahmanas and in common usage means a noble brahmana. Since Drona is neither the best of brahmanas nor a noble brahmana, this definitely is an insult, or at least sarcasm. Unless of course he is trying to flatter his guru, which the context shows he is not.

The definition of a brahmana handed down for thousands of years through the karna-parampara, the oral tradition, is: one who knows the Ultimate Reality, Brahman, or in other words someone who knows God: brahma janati iti brahmanah. By an extension of the definition, the term could also be used for one whose aim of life is knowing God and treads the path that leads to God realization by living a life of nivritti – of serenity, quietude, acceptance, forgiveness, patience and so on.

This is not the way Drona has been living his life, though the society in his days expected a brahmana to live such a life. Instead, he had chosen to be a teacher of the martial arts and is standing in the battlefield fully armed to fight a war and kill Duryodhana’s enemies. Though he is not the commander-in-chief of the Kaurava army yet, he would become that once Bhishma falls. That definitely is not being a noble brahmana.

The Buddha is just stating the traditional perception of who a brahmana is when he says in the Dhammapada:   

One who has laid down the rod

In dealing with beings, moving or still,

Who neither kills nor causes to kill,

Him I call a brahmin. [James Carter translation]

And again:

Whoever endures abuse, assault, and imprisonment

Without animosity,

And who has forbearance as one’s strength,

As one’s mighty army,

I call a brahmin. [Jack Kornfield translation]

Forget about being a dwijottama, Drona is hardly a dwija at all, unless you go by birth alone, though even then you are expected to live a certain lifestyle which Drona has given up a long time ago.  Some of the basic virtues by which a brahmana lives are lack of vengefulness, forgiveness, great self mastery, endurance and so on.

Consciously or unconsciously, Duryodhana is just adding another insult to the list of insults he heaps upon his guru in these opening verses. And by doing that, he is not promoting his cause in any way. The only way to understand his behavior is by assuming he has temporarily lost mastery over himself and his actions are not emerging from his conscious self but from his unconscious, as it happens with all of us in our moments of great fear or stress.

Duryodhana here demonstrates complete lack of emotional intelligence. He is not in touch with his own inner feelings and naturally has no mastery over these feelings. He has got into such situations numerous times in the past too, thus incurring the curse of rishis and the anger of his elders.

The Kuru prince has throughout his life been a slave to his emotions, something no leader can afford to become, either in earlier times or today. Atma jeyah sada rajna – one should always be a master of oneself, says the Mahabharata, discussing one of the first principles of leadership. And self mastery means mastery over one’s body, one’s senses and one’s mind. It includes mastery over the six enemies of man – kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada and matsarya – lust, anger, greed, delusion, pride and intolerance..This is particularly true of a man in a leadership position, because he is responsible not only for himself but for others, sometimes tens of thousands of others, as in the case of an ancient king or the head of a modern corporate house, or the captain of a team of let’s say mountaineers, sportsmen, explorers, or whoever else.  One of the most striking examples of a sportsman losing mastery over himself and suffering great loss for himself, his team and his nation in modern times is that of the great Zinedine Zidane in the 2006 Football World Cup final in Berlin.

Why has Duryodhana lost mastery over himself? What could be the reason? Let’s look at his words to his guru Drona once again before we proceed further.

Among other things he tells the Acharya his own army is aparyapta and that of the Pandavas is paryapta. His words here are traditionally interpreted in two different ways. One, to mean his army is boundless and that of the Pandavas is limited. And two, just the opposite: his army is not sufficient to meet the challenge, and that of the Pandavas is adequate.

In my previous discussion [Living Bhagavad Gita: Short Essays 002], I had followed the first traditional interpretation of his words. Let’s now give his words the second meaning: that he feels his army is inadequate whereas that of the Pandavas is sufficient. Why does he say such a demoralizing thing when he and his people are standing in the battlefield ready to begin the war?

Well, Duryodhana has just counted the major warriors on both sides. While on the Pandava side he mentions several mighty warriors, he mentions only a few on his own side. Surprisingly he misses even such powerful warriors on his side as his brother Dusshasana, Bhurishava and Shalya, each one of whom is a truly mighty warrior, each capable of commanding large armies and causing great harm to the enemies. Shalya has in fact joined his side with an entire akshauhini of army and would eventually become the commander-in-chief of all Duryodhana’s forces after the death of Karna!

And he mentions Karna – who is not present on the spot to fight the war, has vowed not to enter the war field so long as Bhishma stands!

Has the presence of so many mighty warriors on the enemy side confused him? Has it made him doubt his chances of victory, lose his confidence?

A short while before the war was finally decided upon, Duryodhana was absolutely sure of his victory. When Krishna had gone to the Kuru assembly and negotiated peace, the language Duryodhana used throughout was the language of power. Every time Krshna would suggest a way to end the conflict and find peace, Duryodhana would ask: But who is more powerful, they or us? But all on a sudden, his sense of his own power, his army’s power, seems to have deserted him. What could be the reason?

Could it be that the sight of so many mighty maharathis on the Pandava side made him suspect his own power? It is possible that earlier Duryodhana had assumed that the Pandavas would not be able to procure the alliance of so many mighty warriors and such a huge army?

While I believe that is possible, there could be another important reason. Something related to his people’s commitment to him. 

Duryodhana has doubts about the commitment of his people to him and to his cause. In fact they have told him so openly several times in the past and he himself has accused them of being more sympathetic towards the Pandava cause than to his cause. This has lead to explosive scenes in the Kuru assembly numerous times in the past.

When he looks at the Pandava army, he sees people totally committed to one cause, all of them standing behind Yudhishthira as one. But on his own side he knows no one is really with him. No one, not totally. Except perhaps his brother Dusshasana, who was like his twin soul.

Let’s take a quick look at the important people on Duryodhana’s side, those he mentions and those he does not mention. The first person on his list is Acharya Drona himself. It is well known that Drona’s favourite disciple is Arjuna, loved so much by the Acharya that to make sure that he remains his best student he asks for the thumb of Ekalavya in gurudakshina, thus destroying Ekalavya as an archer forever and gaining for himself eternal notoriety as a guru. It is also equally clear that Drona has no love for Duryodhana. The acharya sees him as arrogant, impulsive, incompetent brat, a usurper of power.

It has been so from the beginning. In the crocodile test devised by him to check the devotion of his disciples, when a crocodile attacks Drona, it was Arjuna who saved him risking his own life while Duryodhana watched on helplessly. While Duryodhana failed to give the guru dakshina Drona wanted in the form of Drupada, captured, bound and brought to him, Duryodhana failed to do that and it was the Pandavas, led by Arjuna, who did it. Arjuna repeatedly proves his total devotion not only to his guru but also to learning, even defeating his guru in his cunning, unethical schemes to stop him from becoming his best disciple. Every teacher would love such a disciple.

Drona has repeatedly said that Duryodhana has neither any right over the Kuru crown nor the ethical requirements to wear it. The acharya certainly has no commitment to Duryodhana. Just before the war starts, as Yudhishthira comes to Drona seeking his blessings in the war and requesting him to join his side, Drona publicly announces he is on Duryodhana’s side only because of his financial indebtedness to him. Arthasya dasah – a slave to his wealth, that is how Drona describes himself then.

Kripa’s attitude in everything, including his commitment to Duryodhna, is the same as that of his brother-in-law Drona. Drona’s son Ashwatthama is close to Duryodhana as a friend, though he has frequently and bluntly questioned Duryodhana’s unethical ways.

It is too well known that Bhishma has no commitment to Duryodhana. Nor has Shalya, not mentioned here by Duryodhana, who is really Pandu’s wife Madri’s brother and thus an uncle of the Pandavas, who was waylaid and tricked to join the Kaurava side while he was on his way to join the Pandava side. His heart is with the Pandavas.

Vikarna, a younger brother of Duryodhana, is the only one who shows the courage to question what was being done in the Dice Hall to Draupadi, apart from Vidura. Though he fights for Duryodhana because they are brothers, his heart is not with him.

And Karna? His heart is definitely not with Duryodhana in this war, as he himself says openly to Krishna, because he considers Duryodhana ethically unfit to become king. When Krishna offers Karna the kingdom and asks him to join the Pandavas who are actually his brothers, Karna tells him he knows that and asks Krishna not to give him the kingdom because if it is given to him, out of his friendship with Duryodhana he would give it to him, and he does not deserve it, he is unfit to become king. True, Duryodhana counts on him heavily and perhaps believes he is with him fully, but he knows the fact that because of a quarrel with Bhishma, he would not be joining his side to fight the war so long as Bhishma stands. He may not know of the promise Karna has made to his mother not to kill any of her sons except Arjuana, but he certainly knows that Karna has put his own ego above Duryodhana’s interests by taking the decision to keep away from the war so long as Bhishma fights.             

Is there any wonder then if Duryodhana is shaken as he looks at both the sides as the war is about to start? He knows that wars are not won by skilled people, but by skilled people with commitment. A successful leader is he who is able to generate that commitment in people whether it is in the Mahabharata war, in any other war, or in a modern corporate house, a political party, an election, or whatever ‘battle’ it is. People contribute best to a cause when their heart in it.

Duryodhana knows he is a failure as a leader. His guide all his life has been Shakuni whereas the Pandavas have Krishna with them to give them strength and to show them their path. He also knows he does not have even the blessings of his own mother for this war in which she considers him on the side of adharma! She refuses to bless him as he goes to her seeking her blessings as he starts out.  As he bends and touches her feet, instead of the conventional vijayi bhava, be victorious, what she says is yato dharmah tato jayah – Victory will be where dharma is!  

O0O  

Rather than asking Duryodhana to shut up, Bhishma in a tactically brilliant act blows his powerful conch to stop Duryodhana’s babbling and to announce the war.  He has openly criticized Duryodhana all his life but does not want to do that again at this juncture and in front of all these people!

tasya sanjanayan harsham kuruvriddhah pitaamahah

simhanaadam vinadyocchaih shankham dadhmau prataapavaan // BG 1.12 //

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.

O0O

Thank you in advance for your comments and questions!

Living Bhagavad Gita: 002

Short articles on the Bhagavad Gita keeping in mind the busy, stressed working people of today

[Continued from Living Bhagavad Gita 001]

Responding to Dhritarashtra’s question, Sanjaya says:

Having seen the army of Pandavas drawn up in battle array, King Duryodhana then approached his teacher, Drona, and spoke these words:

“Behold, Oh Acharya, this mighty army of the sons of Pandu, arrayed by the son of Drupada, your disciple of great intelligence. 

“Here are the fearless mighty archers equal in battle to Bhima and Arjuna: Yuyudhana [Satyaki], Virata, the great chariot warrior Drupada, Dhrishtaketu, Chekitana, the valiant king of Kasi, Purujit, Kuntibhoja,  the great Shaibya, the heroic Yudhamanyu, the brave Uttamauja, Abhimanyu and the sons of Draupadi – all great warriors indeed.

“Now know, Oh Great Brahmana, the names of the leaders of my army, the most distinguished men on our side. Let me tell you their names for your information. Yourself, Bhishma, Karna, the war winner Kripa, Aswatthama, Vikarna, Jayadratha and Saumadatti. And then many other heroes too who have laid down their lives for me, all outstanding in warfare, all armed with all kinds of weapons.

Boundless is our army led by Bhishma, but their army under the protection of Bhima is limited. So in whatever formation the army is, all of you stand in your positions and make sure Bhishma is well protected.

Then Bhishma, the aged grandfather of the Kurus, roared like a lion and blew a booming blast on his conch, making Duryodhana’s heart leap with joy. Gita 1.3-12

O0O

The truly wicked do not abandon wickedness till the very end.

Along with Shakuni, Karna was with Duryodhana in all his dark deeds right from their childhood. The three of them together made numerous attempts on the life of the Pandavas even before they began their studies under Drona, says the Mahabharata. However, towards the end, sometime before the war, Karna’s transformation begins. He still fights on Duryodhana’s side, but his heart is not in his friend’s victory. In fact he says so when Krishna offers him the kingdom, asking him to join the Pandava side. He says openly to Krishna that Duryodhana is wicked and should not become king.

Seen in this light, his refusal to fight so long as Bhishma fights, his giving away of his armour and earrings that made him invincible and his promising his mother that he would not kill any of her sons other than Arjuna, all assume a different meaning. 

However, Duryodhana never gives up the path of wickedness until the very end. The epic says he was an incarnation of the Kali Age and perhaps that is the reason why he never abandons evil. Kali is evil.  

We see this darkness in Duryodhana’s heart right in the first words he speaks to his guru Drona in the Gita.

Behold, O Acharya, this mighty army of the sons of Pandu, arrayed by the son of Drupada, your disciple of great intelligence.

Every word he speaks here spits out vicious dark fumes of poison at his guru who is with him in the battlefield ready to lay down his life for his cause just out of gratitude for the Kuru wealth he has enjoyed for years and not because he believes in his cause. He has no faith in Duryodhana, no respect for his claims over the kingdom, no respect for him as a person, and does not consider him ethically fit to rule, still gratefulness compels him to fight on his side, as he says again and again openly. In spite of that, and perhaps partly also because of that, we see Duryodhana’s contempt for him in these words.

He does not forget to point out to Drona that the supreme commander of the Pandava army is his disciple and the knowledge and skills he is using against them are all taught by Drona himself. Not content with this, he also points out that he is the son of Drona’s arch enemy Drupada!

The placing of the words panduputraanaam and aacharya is interesting. Was it a Freudian slip that the two words could be read together thus making Duryodhana insult Drona further by calling him the acharya of his enemies?

O0O

One of the essential leadership qualities is to know when to speak and when to keep quiet, when to give advice and when to seek advice. Prattling reveals lack of confidence and reduces your credibility, respect and the ability to command as a leader. An able leader retains mastery over himself however difficult the circumstances are and holds back the tendency to babble and rattle. The war is about to begin and Duryodhana as the leader of the Kauravas, should have sought his acharya’s advice and guidance rather than telling him what to do, which is what he does in the nine verses he speaks in the Gita, all of which are said here. Besides, there is absolutely no need for him to tell Drona who the important warriors on his side are – that acharya knows every single one of them.

Speaking of great leadership, John Heider in his book The Tao of Leadership, which interprets for us people of today Dao De Jing, the ancient Chinese classic and the second most translated book in the world, says:

The wise leader speaks rarely and briefly. The leader teaches more through being than through doing. The quality of one’s silence conveys more than long speeches.

Be still. Follow your inner wisdom.

In order to know your inner wisdom, you have to be still. The leader who knows how to be still and feel deeply will be effective. But the leader who chatters and boasts and tries to impress the group has no centre and carries little weight.

By speaking when he should have kept quiet and allowed the acharya and others to speak, Duryodhana reveals his shallowness here. And by what he says, he reveals his meanness and wickedness.

What is the reason behind Duryodhana’s lack of confidence that makes him blather?   

Truth, integrity and uprightness give us strength and confidence. Guilt drains our confidence. Duryodhana is a swindler of power, a usurper. He knows he has no right over the Kuru throne. All of it belongs to Yudhisthira and he could have avoided the war if he was willing to give him just five villages, but he wouldn’t give them so much land as could be pierced by the tip of a needle. Deep in his heart he knows the warriors in the battlefield are all going to die for the sake of his ego, because of his power hunger. That guilt weighs down on him heavily. He tries to project confidence in his actions and speech, but his confidence is not real, it is only a put on. Just beneath his façade of confidence there is complete lack of confidence. All you have to do is scratch the surface and his lack of confidence becomes visible.

Duryodhana, in the words of the epic, is an incarnation of the age of kali when naked power hunger rules the world, as we can see around us every day. Our world believes that anything you do for power is justified. Our politicians earlier admitted secretly that there are no permanent enemies in politics, but today they openly and loudly proclaim it as their governing principle. 

Soon after the princes complete their education under Drona, Yudhishthira is crowned yuvaraja and he becomes famous as a competent ruler and his fame exceeds that of his father Pandu who was adored by his subjects. Dhritarashtra becomes jealous of his success and asks his minister Kanika to advice him how he can recapture power. Kanika gives a long lecture here on cunning, manipulative, asuri leadership and advises Dhritarashtra to practice it. It is as though Duryodhana did not have to learn such leadership but was a born master of it, for that is what he practiced all his life, right from his childhood, even before he became a student of Drona. And he knew all along what he was doing and that gave birth to guilt in him. There is a famous Sanskrit verse said by him, a verse whose textual source has been lost, which says: janami dharmam na cha me pravrittih, janami adharmam na cha me nivrittih; kenaapi devena hridisthitena yathaa niyukto’smi tathaa karomi - I know what dharma is but I am not driven to act according to that and I know what adharma is but I cannot keep away from it; I act as directed by some power that lives in my heart.

When you know what is right and do not act accordingly, when you know what is wrong and you still follow it all your life, there will be immense guilt in you. It is this burden of oppressive guilt that erodes Duryodhana’s confidence and makes him blabber on as he does here.

Duryodhana stands for the political philosophy Krishna fought to destroy all his life: power as an end in itself. He was told repeatedly by such elders as Bhishma and Drona and by his own mother and father that he had no right over the throne by birth and even if he had, he is not morally fir to become king. His father openly tells him in the Kuru court that he, Dhritarashtra, was never king and hence the kingdom cannot be his by inheritance.  

Poor interpersonal skills have always been one of Duryodhana’s many weaknesses because of which he made enemies throughout his life. He earns the curse of several sages and elders because of his arrogant ways of dealing with people. Though the Gita does not specifically say so but only indicates it, it is clear his words here ire and irk the revered acharya and creates confusion in the minds of other senior warriors on his side who could hear him, which is why Bhishma interferes at this juncture and blows his conch announcing the war, thus preventing him from continuing his senseless speech.

O0O

It is interesting that it is to his guru Drona that Duryodhana comes to speak, and not to his army’s supreme commander Bhishma, who is also his grand uncle, a member of the Kuru family, and the most senior warrior on his side. Bhishma is also perhaps the oldest man in the battlefield and the wisest man on the Kaurava side. His intention here is to stir up his guru, but what he actually accomplishes is to outrage the acharya, to insult him, disgrace him.

Duryodhana uses outrage and insult as a means of motivation repeatedly. All asuri leaders do so and Duryodhana is clearly an asuri leader. Such men like to humiliate and anger their people thus hoping to get the best out of them. Of course they also intend to demonstrate their power over their people. This is typical boss behaviour – something that a leader rarely does and a boss always does. This kind of motivation does work for a while, like whipped horses people give what they can out of their fear of insult and punishment – but it ultimately proves counterproductive because all of us resent wounds to our ego and would let down the leader and avenge the insult as soon as we get an opportunity.  Motivation through fear is the worst kind of motivation. It destroys relationships – and effective leadership is a relationship.

In his prattling, Duryodhana praises the enemy army and its warriors, which is tactically stupid at this stage. He says the strength of his own army is Bhishma. Even if this is the truth, saying so to Drona at this point is not the right thing to do from a motivational angle. For all we know, Drona is no less a warrior than Bhishma. What Duryodhana does here is to tell the acharya that he is not as important as Bhishma is, not as competent as Bhishma is. Demoralising a warrior like Drona at the beginning of the war and creating resentment in him is idiotic.

Krishna later in the Gita classifies people as daivi or asuri – daivi people are those who are rich in noble virtues and asuri people, in dark qualities.  Asuri people spread fear, distrust and resentment wherever they go, and that is what Duryodhana does all the time. Speaking of such people, Krishna says they are bound for hell. It is not only that they live in hell all the time, but also create hell for others.  

What Duryodhana does in the next few verses of the Gita is, apart from insulting the acharya, telling him what to do. Of course, Duryodhana has the right to do so since he is effectively the Kuru king and the acharya is working for him. Drona is an employee of the Kurus and Duryodhana is his de facto employer and as his de facto employer he has every right to tell him what to do.

But apart from being his employee, Drona is many other things too. He is Duryodhana’s guru, the greatest living teacher of the martial arts, and from all we know, knows the dhanurveda, including the war strategies it teaches, better than anyone else in the battlefield and you do not order about such people.      

Tom Peters is the author of the world’s first modern management best seller The Pursuit of Excellence. In his subsequent book A passion for Excellence, he talks of seven people truths, one of which is: “Listen to your people... Bosses don’t have all the answers.” This is a people truth Duryodhana forgets when he instructs Guru Drona what to do.

He also forgets another people truth that Tom Peters talks about: “People have egos and development needs…and they’ll commit themselves only to the extent that they can see ways of satisfying these needs.” Duryodhana’s words to Drona here crushes the achary’s self-respect by reducing his role in the war to that of someone second to Bhishma whose guard he should be throughout the war because if Bhishma falls, everything is lost. Drona is an ambitious person, had perhaps ambitions of becoming the commander-in-chief of the Kaurava army – later, after Bhishma’s fall, when he is given that position he celebrates it. It is that Drona who has been told what he should do in the war – protect Bhishma.

When you are guilt ridden, you lose confidence, become confused and say things you shouldn’t say and do things you should not do.   

O0O

 

Why does Duryodhana go to Drona here and not to Bhishma? Bhishma is not his employee and will not listen to him, instead will openly ask him to shut up unless he has something meaningful to say, whereas Drona is bound to listen to him, albeit unwillingly because even though he is Duryodhana’s teacher, but he is also his employee. And as his employer, Duryodhana can command him.

That is how the arrogant mind thinks. In India we worship our gurus, but once power goes to your head, the guru is no more a guru, the disciple is no more a disciple.  

O0O

Your comments and questions are most welcome!