Krishnas speech at the battlefield chapter six

THE BHAGAVADGITA CHAPTER -VI PERSEVERANCE IN WAR Written by Dr. Ramesh Chandra Mukhopadhyay Krishna says that he who acts ceaselessly without giving a thought to their consequences is the true renouncer of the world. At the same time such a person is truly attached to the world. To remain attached to the world and at the same time to refuse world is the right attitude towards the world as well as to renunciation. One who abandons all religious rites and worldly activities is never a renouncer. The renouncer and the doer are the same person. One who does not have the right purpose can never be a doer. Action is the means to the end of direct link with the Cosmic Being. Once the direct link with the Cosmic Being is established there is no work. Let us take a match-stick. The subatomic universe therein is always in great motion. But when the match-stick is taken as a whole there is no motion at all. Similarly we are ever active. We cannot be there on earth without action. But taken as a whole the immense universe has no action. Once we find the whole in the fragment, there is stillness in all action. Once we find the parts constituting the whole there is action in stillness. When one discovers oneself as a part of the Cosmic Being one does not act indeed. When one, who is not drawn to action by the senses, or mind or intellect or ego, one is the man who knows what he is about. His attention is titled in the right direction. He is in the state of direct communion with the higher self. No doubt this is a very hard task. But no one from outside can help him accomplish it. God helps those who help themselves. One must discover one’s higher self with the aid of the self only. The self can become both friend and foe to a person. It is a friend when it helps itself to conquer itself. It is a foe when it is in chains. The fault of our misfortune does not lie in the stars. Even the social force is not to blame. The millions who labour under hunger and pain, are their own enemies. If someone dies in a war the death is his own doing. No one else is responsible for that. If Arjuna is in the mire of despondency, he must lift himself up from there. He who has conquered the self with the self is perfectly immersed in the supreme self. Heat or cold, happiness or sorrow, honour or dishonour, have no difference for him. His being is full with knowledge and negation of knowledge. Knowledge always implies the knowledge of the past. We can know the dead only. We do not know the living person. One might be very faithful to his wife. But who knows what mischievous thoughts come and go through him? We cannot know anything unless we distort it. The object that modern medical science studies, for example is not obvious and natural, it has to be carved literally or mentally out of the body, by an unnatural act of violence against the body. Our studies are always technological. Our historians study the past as the parent of the future. The study of ancient Indian History and the Medieval Indian history has been as if they were a prelude to the unification of India in modern times. Every age was alight in it’s own way. But we do not look upon the past as it was. We make a mesh of the whole thing, when we impose upon the living what we learn from the dissection of the dead. However, when one knows the dead as dead and when one learns anything from the dissection of the dead body it is alright. The self along the course of its journey first learns about the outer world as though it were dead. The self learns how from Nature the particulars of the existence have evolved the particulars are interrelated among themselves in the being of the Nature; he learns how the sense, mind, intellect work. Then the self has to go higher up to commune with the Cosmic Being. At that point the self has to unknow the known; the mind of the self is no longer luminous; the mind dies out. The individual self simply works as the universal self. Yet it combines in itself both knowledge and negation of knowledge at the peak of realisation. It then looks upon friends, chums, enemies, the hateful saints and sinners as equal. Both friends and foes have something to do with a person. There may be the go-between. There are also those who do not take any interest in him. But they are all the same. Arjuna stands in the valley of ignorance. That is why he distinguishes wise men from the fools and the revered from the loathsome. Hence, he cannot like Bhisma nd Drona? That was his question. The right doer is always active. Still in the depth of his being, he is always alone. At heart he is always a denizen of a sequestered place. His intellect and self are contained. He has no hope. He does not accept anything from any one. Why should not Arjuna abhor his adversaries in the Hundred Brother? Why should he not shudder at the horrors of war? Why should he not hesitate to fight the venerable Bhisma and Drona? Arjuna should know at heart that we are the architects of our own fate. Duryodhana and his brother may have apparently wronged Arjuna and his brother. But this has been due to the latter’s action in earlier births. As we sow, so we reap. So does Arjuna,so does Duryodhana, so does the esteemed Bhisma and so do the vast gathering of the heroes at the battle-field. When our enemies make a hell of our lives, we must not blame them. Perhaps, in some earlier birth they were our creditors. They will exact the pound of flesh from us. Although, on the surface, events appear out of nothing and life seems to be a sequence of accidents, on a deeper level they are the results of our doings earlier. The law of cause and effect works through the apparently random sequence of happenings in life with an inviolable inevitability. That cannot be denied. Hence, Moses in the Old Testament warned that there should be a tooth for a tooth and a nail for a nail. When Jesus said, that one should love one’s enemy, he did not contradict Moses. Jesus came to complete the teachings of the earlier messiahs. What he meant was that one should not feel any animosity against one’s enemy. Rather one should rejoice that the enemy visits him. Let us repay our debts to our enemy without any malice. If we have a trace of malice in our heart when we meet our enemy, it will entangle us with our enemy further in the life to come. Because our thoughts are also action that dog after us through birth and death. So when a vast congregation of heroes meet at the battle- field, or when 600 million people interact on the earth, they only pay each other their dues. If everyone plays his part in this vast exchange-house of life without any ill-will to any one, everyone will be liberated from the commitment to his neighbour. We need not meet each other again in this jealousy ridden and stiff-torn hell of the worldly life. What else is worldly life than the interaction between man and man? When the interaction is no longer necessary, when we have nothing to do with one another, the worldly life will fade like a bubble. Or else a different kind of society will be born. The enemies are out to exact their dues. Once we know that we need not disarm ourselves to be thwacked and thumped and beaten by them. We have come to settle each other’s debt obeying the rules of the society in which we are born. The society of ancient Greece was different from that in America. We must act in this light. Arjuna should act according to the rules of the society of the Mahabharata. Fight he must. Thus Krishna does not prescribe a philosophy of life to one who does not believe in god. what he offers instead is a live philosophy to the agnostic. Krishna does not murmur against those who do not believe in god. On the contrary he asks the devotees to behave as the average men do in the society. They must not behave with any claim to supernatural knowledge. If we look upon life without any a priori belief about it, it seems that man is a mechanism doomed from the start to action in a mechanically closed universe. There is no escape from it. in the face of it, no general rule of behaviour could be decreed for everyone. Every situation is unique; one must react to it as an individual and as a member of the society having allegiance to the prevalent social code. Krishna does not advocate any blanket code for every society; it may change from society to society; it may change from time ti time. The pragmatists also do not believe in any universal social code. With them, that which works is truth. The pragmatists thus pursue future ends. But Krishna wants us to have no repentance for the past and no forefeeling of the future. We should act in the living present in conformity with the prevalent social code without any speculation of the future. In modern times, Mahatma Gandhi’s life and activities could be often cited as example of the way of life that Krishna prescribes. Presently before the independence of India the country was torn with riots between two communities. The situation was dire in Noakhali in Bengal (now in Bangladesh). Mahatma Gandhi at once hurried to the affected areas. But how did he think when he was on his journey to Noakhali? He writes in his Noakhali Diary that he does not know what he can achieve when he goes to Noakhali. But he will go there; he will not be at peace otherwise. That is, being a politician by profession, he must go to the sight of mass massacre at Noakhali and act. He is not concerned with what fruits will be borne by his action. He will simply perform his duties and say his says as a politician. That is all. Gandhi does not mind whether there will be a vast crowd to receive him or not in Bengal. But he will act according to the duties pertaining to a politician. He thinks that he is a servant of the nation. He will stay at Noakhali as long as peace is not restored there. If necessary he is ready to die there. He will do his duties all along. Everyone is not necessarily a warrior like Arjuna or a politician like Gandhi. The coolie and school-master should do their duties as prescribed by their social standing. Those who do not believe in an idealist view of life and posit that mind is the epiphenomenon of matter must also remember that body overleaps itself to discover a higher value in mind. The mind cannot be content with the transitory character of the existence which is largely mindless. Mind grudgingly plays the Time’s fool. So it seeks mind in everything; it seeks a mind that is changeless and eternal. Body should be its valet, instead of being its master. So, one may as well physically find out a pleasant and sequestered place and set his mat for sitting on it. It should be a little above the ground; that is, it shall be placed on a tool. But it must not be very high above the ground. It should have three layers above the stool. At bottom the mat should be made of a type of grass. On it there should be the mat made of deer skin. On top it should be a piece of cloth made of jute fibre. The three layers might mean the three qualities of Nature in the negative, positive and neutral. They might mean Destruction, Creation and preservation. The seeker must sit above all the forces of existence. There he will pull his mind together restraining his intellect and the sense. That is how he will try to set up communication with the higher self. He will keep his head and chin and the body in a straight line. That is the chin should tilt toward the chest. He must sit in that posture motionless and still. He must not look at the ten directions. He should keep his eye fixed on the root of the nose below the eyebrows. The purport of such a posture is very clear. It resists all temptation of the outer world on the physical plane. The mind being pressed by the body forgets itself. In such a posture one must keep one’s mind glued to Krishna’s. He should be happy and free from fear. He should be all for Krishna’s self. Regular practice of joining oneself with the higher self mentally will ultimately result in the permanent union with the higher self. Then there will be the total extinction of the fire of desire in a person. He will get ineffable peace. He will be like a rock unmoved in the midst of the raging seas and rough weather. The seeker must always follow the middle course in his life-style. He must not eat much. He must not fast for long. He must not be too much of a dreamer. He should not remain always awake. Dreams and waking state must be in right proportion. In short, there should be nothing exotic in his habits for eating, sleeping, movement etc. that is, one must not strain oneself in any ways. Too much of being n union with the higher self or being awake is not also conducive for a beginner. In this way one overcomes the miseries of life. When the mind properly controlled, takes its refuge in the self free from every desire, one is in union with the self. The mind then can be compared with the quite flame of a candle, in a place where there is no wanton wind. The flame looks upward. Where the mind becomes inactive through such practice, the self finds it’s other self in it and is in a rapture. In the worldly life we behave like children. We are never happy with a particular object. Just as a little boy now grasps a toy and now throws it away and cries for another so do we. In other words, we do not know what we are about. Actually we do not want what we want in this mundane world. Our quest is for something very far, that perhaps resides in the star. But our life’s star is in us only. We do not know that. The sights and sounds call us to the outer world. Every sense has its own object of love. Each one of them tries to carry us to its object of desire. Thus our mind summoned in ten directions does not know what to do. We are puzzled. Once we find that the wealth of the objective world is cheap tinsel, we seek to go inward. But our friends in the outer world its sights and sounds then grow furious. They try to force us to be with them just as peer pressure is there on the adolescent. We understand that the sense objects and the diverse senses scramble for power over us. We discover that we have been corrupted by the senses and their loves just as drug cartels corrupt, terrorize and paralyze the Columbian Government for years. The senses must be declared out-law. We must quarantine the terrorists and criminals, warlords and narco-killers. Once we close the gates to the burglars from the outer world through regular efforts and practice, once the mind is empty of the sense impressions, it has no thought. Any thought whatever is engaged with things in time and space. Anything in time and space is subject to decay and death. As soon as we get rid of thought, we get rid of time and space. When there is no thought content, there is no mind. Nothing is absolute particle in this universe. Everything exists through process and method. When mind loses its function there is no mind. And then we are face to face with the mysteium-tremendum – our life’s star. It is an everlasting experience and knowledge. It is making love through eternity. Being ever engrossed in one action, is no action. No wards can describe it. When suddenly we see a tree do we think that we are seeing a tree? The mysterium-tremendum is there in us. Once we rid our mind from other occupations, the gem within us shines. We need not learn anything. Knowledge suddenly puts the bone-house alight. We can never remove our eyes from it. It is the Krishna waiting for us hidden in the groves of our heart. The pleasure that the self finds meeting the self is qualitatively different from the joys derived from the senses. It is more the pleasure of the intellect. The seeker is never tired of such pleasure. He will never give up this pleasure for all the world. Even if the outer world tortures him with the lashes of happiness and sorrow, he remains constant in his love for his higher self. Then finally all sorrows disappear. The defeat of the demons of worldly life is complete. In order that one might attain such a state one should undergo certain regular practice in search of one’s higher self at heart. One must shun every kind of purpose in life. One has to withdraw the senses from the sense objects with the help of mind. Then the mind must be engaged with the higher self. Thought must be shut out from this state. Because the dull brain always perplexes and retards. It compares one’s fortune with this man’s scope and that man’s talent. Thus it pulls down one from the heights of ecstasy. The ecstasy of the union of the self with its higher self must be kept away from thought. The union takes place in a world beyond time and space. It is like unquenchable thirst drinking in illimitable manna. To attain this absolute bliss one must destroy the causes that divert the mind from its attention to the self. It is with the aid of self only that one must draw the mind from outer world to attend the self. The mind is a truant boy. One must discipline it. In course of time, the positive and the negative qualities will be repressed. The neutral quality will come to the fore. Then only one rises to the Cosmic Being. It is a state of eternal joy. What does a person see in such a state? He sees his own self in everything whatever the eye meets. He finds the whole universe in himself. This is not all. He finds Krishna in everything. He finds everything in Krishna. Krishna in an ecstasy declares that he will never let one down who sees all the world in Krishna and Krishna in all the world. Arjuna knows the truth of it. Earlier Draupadi the wife of the Five Brothers was being stripped of her clothes by Duryodhana, the prince among the Hundred Brothers. All her five husbands including the world- conqueror Arjuna stood there. But they were helpless. Nobody raised a finger against Duryodhana. But to their profound astonishment the whole assembly saw how they failed to remove the garments from her body. The more they pulled her flowing robes, the more of the cloth seemed to come from nowhere. At last they had to abandon their attempt. It is a pity that even then Arjuna does not obey Krishna without questioning him. Unless we are mentally prepared, we cannot understand what god is even when we see him do miracles. Krishna says that wherever one might remain, if one sees Krishna in fragments, one lives in Krishna only. In the face of the mirth and misery of the world, if a person can see everything in the image of his own self, he attains the height of attainment. Thus Krishna prescribes certain strict rules for the development of the self. They speak of avoidance of sexual pleasure and austerity in eating sleeping, etc. but no Krishna does not prescribe the austerity of a monk or the drill of the sergeant whether in the parade-ground or in one’s own self. Had Krishna prized the so called discipline where one represses one’s own self, he would have said about it at his earliest. Discipline implies conformity with set rules. Conformity with set rules can give one knowledge which is but the accumulation of the information from the dead past. The development of self is associated with learning. Learning is no knowledge. Because it is ever expanding unlike knowledge. Knowledge has its conclusions; but learning has none since through it emergent experiences are met in human being on the physical plane, on the plane, of vital air, on the mental plane on the psychic plane. Higher and higher still the self mounts in the skies of it own being. Learning has no end. When one learns about one’s own self and about the outer world, one’s mind is automatically controlled. When one knows that the world as such is a vanity fair with no intrinsic merit of its own, one naturally wants to shrink from it. But habit stands in the way. The teacher then prescribes certain rules observing which a counter-habit could be formed. That is all. But behind the harsh prescriptions of the rules, there seems to ring the most tender note of love and yearning. Over and over again he says, if you follow the prescription, you will be with the Cosmic Being. And later he identifies himself as the goal of such action. Over and over again he tells them that he is the mother, he is the father, he is the child, he is the husband, he is the wife. Whichever way one likes to have him, let one fly to him. He is longing for our company only to give us eternal peace. He will wipe the sweats of our foreheads. His motherly heart seems to know beforehand the sorrow mickle that we have suffered in the vale of tears called human life. And the mother will play any role whatever to humour us. How is it that one Krishna can give solace to six thousand million souls under the sun? Krishna had five wives. Besides he came by 16000 women. They were kept in prison by a cruel king. The cruel king was killed. The women were set free. Krishna unlike us did not think of raising any voluntary organisation to rehabilitate the women. He straightway married them. There was a sage named Narada. He was a great devotee of Krishna. One day the sage made up his mind to visit Krishna at Dwaraka. The purpose of his visit was to see with his own eyes how Krishna was getting on with 16005 women. So Narada came to the city of palaces in Dwaraka where each wife of Krishna had a separate palace to live in. Narada visited the first palace. There lived Rukmini. It was morning. As soon as Narada entered the palace of Krishna and Rukmini rushed out to receive him with great joy. Narada found that Krishna had left his morning tea unfinished to receive him with great joy. Narada found that Krishna had left his morning tea unfinished to receive him. After some time Narada left the couple and knocked at the door of the next palace. It was the palace where Satyabhama lived. Oh God! Narada saw Krishna also. Krishna was playing chess with Satyabhama. The husband and wife gave up their game in the middle and received Narada with great reverence. After sometime, Narada took leave of the happy couple and visited the third palace. There Narada saw Krishna engaged in a tiff with Jambabati, Krishna’s another wife. Thus, Krishna was there in 16005 palaces at the same time. He is in every heart. Though he belongs to all the world, every heart can get him exclusively. Once a heart is fixed on Krishna, it sees Krishna in everything that the senses perceive. To such a heart, the meanest flower that blows can give thoughts too deep for tears. Arjuna is now trying to understand Krishna seriously. He does not put forward any charge of ambiguity against Krishna’s speech. He, however, tells Krishna that it does not seem possible to keep the mind in a state of equilibrium for long. Mind is very restless. Once someone seeks to control it, the mind becomes stronger than ever. One cannot control the wind; one cannot control the mind also. Krishna says that it is indeed very difficult to control the mind. But once one knows that the world is all moonshine, one may achieve the control of mind through ceaseless practice. We have already told how Arjuna narrowed his attention to a point in the eye-ball of a bird, while he was shooting at it. Arjuna practised the art of fighting throughout the night. He could use both his hands equally in fight. This Arjuna also fumbles at the idea of controlling the mind. He however seems to have already begun to control his mind. That is why he asks Krishna what happens to those who take up the challenge, but cannot pursue it after sometime. In that case he cannot realise his cosmic self. At the same time he loses all his hopes for pleasures in this world and happiness in heaven. He is lost on the way itself like a tiny cloudlet. Arjuna asks Krishna to solve his doubts. Krishna says that a person who avails himself of the right path never comes to grief. Nothing can destroy him in this life or hereafter. Life does not end where it seems to end. The truths that awake in this birth will be carried forward to another birth. Because of righteous life here on earth, one may enjoy a long vacation in some other world. But thereafter he must come back again to undertake the unfinished task. He may be born in a rich and virtuous family. Often a person who left his quest in the middle, becomes a billionaire in the next birth. Or else, he might be born in a family where persons have already attained liberation. That is singularly lucky. The attainments of the earlier life persist there. They make their presence felt in the child. The child seems to be goaded along the path of penance from within. He needs no formal education to that end. Thus a person toils on through birth and deaths till he reaches the end of the line. Krishna is eclectic in his idea. We never get bored with his speech. He leaps from one idea to another with great logical precision and still we cannot predict it beforehand. He speaks of war as knowledge. But knowledge is incomplete in itself and leads Krishna to deliberate on war as action. And onward he moves along the path of dialectics. And every time he reaches a new peak of idea he says that this is the greatest of all. In this chapter he taught us to persevere in fighting our enemies in the outer world to discover the Cosmic self in us. The war at hand is but the beginning of the new course that Arjuna should undertake in his life. The Jews were prepared by earth by certain experiences to enter into the promised land. But they were unable to do so until they had joined in mighty battles with Hivites, Jebusties, Perizites and Amalakites. The Five Brothers cannot enter their home at Hastinapur till they fight their enemies – the Hundred Brothers. Arjuna cannot go back to Krishna, who is our home, until he perseveres in his fight. Click here to Reply vvvv