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

Krishnas speech at the Battleground chapter eight

CHAPTER - EIGHT THE BHAGAVADGITA THE WORLD BEYOND DEATH What is the Cosmic Being? What is work? What are the many levels? Arjuna asks these questions? In reply Krishna seems to sum up what he said earlier. Cosmic Being is that which does not wear out. It is all in all. This Cosmic Being becomes the phenomenal world which is impermanent. This is the Being-in-the –world. The Being-in-the-world is many-in-one, unlike the Cosmic Being. Each of the numberless fragments of the Being-in-the-world has a self in it that dons and doffs the body. Thus there are myriads of selves. The selves are nothing but the image of the multitude of selves that are free, wise, pure and eternal, mirrored on the Nature consisting of the three qualities. They are the spiritual selves. These selves are but the one self – the Being. Nature is but the distortion of the Cosmic Being into the illusion of many. The atoms are shot from the primeval fire-ball or the Cosmic Being in all direction and the primeval point multiplies into numerous points of the expanding universe. This expansion and contradiction is work. Seen from one standpoint, this work is illusion. Because the Cosmic Being alone is. The work and everything else are but illusion like the oil-film on oil. Seen from the viewpoint of the absolute or the Cosmic Being there is no work. Seen from the human standpoint the universe is dynamic; everything from the Cosmic Being down to the smallest particle of the earth is giving and taking . The Cosmic Being must give some part of itself to the illusion that is created out of it. So the whole existence is a kind of grand offertory where the smallest particle also participates. Getting and spending is the function of the smallest particle even, participating in the great fiesta of sacrifice of the world. Krishna is the spirit of the offering that takes place in every particle, every being and in the universe. Thus Krishna defines his position in a reality that has many levels. Life is itself a sacrifice. Days in days out men inhale and exhale. Thereby a sacrifice is being enacted. And Krishna is its presiding deity. Krishna is the personal god. If one could remember Krishna at the moment of death one becomes a companion of Krishna; there is no doubt about it. But how could that be? Where is the guarantee that I will not forget Krishna at the moment of death? Surely I went my way through thousands of births and deaths; I have experienced thousands of birth pangs and thousands of cradles. Many a farewell I have taken. I know the heart-breaking hours. But why could I not remember Krishna ? Because, the world seems more sweet than ever, when we are conscripted by Death. The only way out from forgetfulness is to make a habit to chant Krishna’s name with every inhalation and every exlalation of our breath. If we could breathe Krishna’s name as easily as we breathe, if we could identify our chanting of the name with our breathing, our last desire will surely be the name of Krishna. Mahatma Gandhi was the votary of Lord Rama. And it was perhaps no mean achievement on his part when he uttered the name of his Lord when he was shot mortally. Mahatma Gandhi’s last word was “Ram”. That one will be in the company of the Lord Krishna is nothing strange. Krishna says that with whatever in mind one dies, one attains that after one’s death. This is very much like the three wishes that a fairy fulfils. There was a poor man. He met a fairy who granted him three wishes. The man hurried back home. He was very hungry. He forgot to tell his wife about the three wishes. While he was taking the soup, he thought that it would be nice if the soup were pudding. At once the soup turned into pudding. At this sight the wife became excited. The poor man told her about the three wishes. The wife became angry as he had wasted one of the three wishes. So she said that the pudding should be on the head of the man. At once the pudding went up the head of the man. So the third wish was to get rid of the pudding from the head. Thus all the three wishes came to nothing. Krishna grants us one wish only at the time of death. In fact the world that we perceive is the creation of the mind only. In the sky there is no distinction between east and west; people create the distinction; it belongs to the world they perceive. Similarly there is nothing called cause and effect or birth and death. People create such distinctions. All this happens because of their ignorance and delusion. Similarly after-life is also the construct of mind. So mind’s last wishes are always fulfilled. It is the last wishes that lead a man to the next birth. Human wishes always spring from ignorance and greed. The delusion becomes a habit of mind that journeys through numerous lives. Being in delusions, life with them is always grasping and attachment. So they must assume the illusion of pain and suffering. Let, each one of us, in the meantime decide our last wish before death. Because who knows the world may end tonight. So Krishna asks Arjuna and thereby to all the heroes at Kurukshetra to remember Krishna always and fight. If mind and heart are with Krishna, one is sure to attain Krishna in life hereafter. How is that one can fight with Krishna at one’s heart? Let us suppose that a widow works as a house-maid. She is as good as a member of the family of her master’s. She looks after the children of the master with such care as if they are her own. She is always only looking after the household of her master. But does she not know that her own children live in a remote village, far away from her work-place? She works here only to earn bread for the little ones. Similarly one can plunge into the battle of life with all care. Still one may have in his heart of hearts a longing for Krishna. Krishna asks over and over again that one must see to that no desire occupies the mind. Because death comes without warning and we must stand up to death with our last wishes. A sailor’s wife was in the habit of putting on her finery everyday. Her neighbours asked her, “for whom did she dress herself in such a fine manner?” because her husband was away in the ship. She said that a sudden gale could bring him any day to the port. So he might be at her doorstep before she knew it better that if he found her attractive than messy. Krishna says that if we could harness the loving mind and engage it in the contemplation of the supreme being, we win the company of the supreme being. How is the supreme being like? He is the poet par excellence. He creates the universe in his own image. He is the law-giver. If we could hear him in our heart, we might be able to sympathise with hopes and fears that the world had not heeded heretofore. The poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. He is the primordial being. He speaks of the primordial emotions in man. We are living selves. It is a pity that our intellect, plays truant to the self and hugs sense- objects so much against the nature of the self. We are never satisfied with our sense-objects because they are not what we ask for. We do not want any object as such. We want pleasure. We want eternal happiness. And that should determine our quest. Traditionally they say that we want sense objects, the attainment of which gives us pleasure. But Krishna reverses the attitude. He says that it is the seeking after the eternal pleasure that gives fillip to our desires and it is desire which uses the physical body. The desire at the bottom of our hearts is to know our selves. And to that end the body must go through penance. The penance is nothing but resistance to the imposed power over the body by the world external to us – the world of senses. The supreme being who leads us from the forests of worldly life is in us in the finest form. He is smaller than the smallest particle in the universe. The Hindus postulate that every particle of earth has ten finer particles in it of water. Each particle of fire has in it ten particles of air. Each particle of air has ten particles of ether. Each particle of ether has ten particles of the nihil in it. And the supreme being is thus indescribable nothing. It is this smallest of the small, present in everything, which holds everything in its arms. The traditional approach is that the larger is the mass, the greater is its power. But, nowadays, things have been reverse. There came a fairy to a little boy. She was carrying a very box in her hand. The boy asked her to open the box. And she opened it to reveal a larger box in that. The boy asked her to open it also. There was a still larger box in it and so on till the boy found an infinity large box in the small one; the box contained the whole universe in it. Modern science has proved this fairy tale to be real. A small atom has in it the energy of a sun that can burn a whole Troy of the worldly life. One cannot think of the supreme being. Because while thought always belongs to the past, the supreme being is in eternal present. He is as bright as the sun beyond the realm of darkness. This supreme being must be sought within one’s heart. Hence the reins of vital energies must not be let loose in the open field of worldly life. They must be concentrated at the middle of the two eyebrows. A devotion to the eternal pleasure – an aesthetic devotion indeed, should be its controlling power. Only then one realises the supreme being which is joy or ever. No doubt Krishna is this supreme being. He describes himself from a detachment. Those who follow knowledge are tired of words. The signified associated with the signifier is mundane and materialistic. It is ugly through over-use. Hence they are in search of a signifier that is its own meaning. There are men who are tired of joy that results from possession. They want to love something for its own sake. The same quest has led them to observe celibacy. Krishna says that such a man shuts out all the nine doors of the bone- house to the outer world. It needs a special physical feat. For example, the feet should close the penis and anus in a particular sitting posture. The eyes should be closed and so on. Thus the doors of the body being shut to the attack of the outer world, the mind must be imprisoned in the heart. The vital air has to be placed in the head. The intellect should at this hour chant the half-articulate sound Aum, meditating on Krishna. If someone dies in such a state, he surely attains the cradle of bliss forever. Krishna assures that whoever thinks of him ceaselessly without being distracted by the invitation of the outer world is sure to get him. Once someone attains him, one has no fear of ever being born again in this waste land. The birth and death cycle is the law of the existence. Not only that man journeys through one body to another, but everything whatever in this existence dies is born again to die again. Even the sun and the moon and the sky the heaven, totter to their fall to be rebuilt again. The universe itself is destroyed to be renewed from time to time. The present earthly existence of man is the result of the previous ones. It is said that after a long sojourn through sub-human bodies for 8.4 million births one is born a man. Similarly the present earth is the result of the previous earths; the present solar system is the result of the previous ones. There are myriads of infinite universes in this existence. At the centre of each universe, its creator is seated. It is from the creator that the universe expands as the flower gradually blooms. The aim of the expanded universe is to realise its presiding deity or the creator which sits at its heart. Once this realisation is complete the expanded universe is contracted into the point from which it sprang. After a time the point also vanishes to be reborn in a different plane. This is just like that of a blue star becoming smaller and smaller and red. Soon the mass in it is drawn inwards. The star is dead. But nothing dies. The mass travels through short cut straight road avoiding the road along the curved space only to be a new-born star in its lived flame. The space that the mass avoids in its expedition to be born again is made up by time. Hence what is born just now, seems to have been born long time back. What Krishna asks us to do is to become black holes, withdrawing all our energy inward to be born again in the deathless firmament of Krishna’s mind. There was a king who had two wives. He loved the younger wife very much. So the other wife was neglected. The latter had a child in Dhruba. Once the king was caressing his child Dhruva. Right at that time, his younger wife came. Scared of her the dropped the child Dhruva from his arms. The little child was touched to the quick. He left his palace for the woods and sought eternal happiness. His journey into the woods symbolised his withdrawal of energies inward. At once eternal joy appeared to him in the form of Krishna. And he remained ever close to Krishna’s heart, being permanently fixed in the starry cope of Krishna’s mind. Hindu mythology observes that Dhruva died to be born as the Pole-Star – the star that remains ever fixed in the north. Krishna says that one thousand four ages on earth, (each four ages consists of 4320000 solar years) make one day time for the creator. With the day-break of the creator, the unmanifest becomes manifest. With the sundown the manifest becomes unmanifest again. In that indeterminate night the multitude of the show of things is converted again to their primal cause which is but one. And Krishna the primordial self lies stretched on the boundless deep of the primordial cause lost in deep sleep. The thousand hooded snake that supports the world spreads its head to cradle the self-of-all-selves, Krishna. With the day-break again the creation shoots forth. The innumerable selves are irradiated at once like countless light particles from a fountain of light. Every self is not, however, born to undergo births and deaths in the world. There are some sages like Narada who are always free as soon as born. They need not pass through the pangs of endless births on earth, or anywhere else in the world. But Krishna says that there is a world beyond this world. It is beyond the powers of change. Mortal eyes cannot see it. it is eternally unmanifest and it is the supreme goal of everyone. Once the self attains it, it need not come back to the universe to ride the merry-go-round of birth and death. Krishna says that this world beyond the world is his home. Thus the more we hear the speeches of Krishna referring to himself again and again like a poem referring to itself again and again, we are drawn to Krishna the more to know him for its own sake just as we often read a poem for the sake of it. And it becomes imperative to know Krishna. He is not surely the man that stands in front of the assembly of heroes at the battle-field of Kurukshetra. He is not merely the man who speaks to Arjuna. What is he then? In every human heart there is a lake of milk. There Krishna reclines on the hoods of a hydra-headed snake. The hoods of the snake represent the bevy of desires lurking in the caves of the unconscious. There is a sea at the heart of each universe. It is the causal sea from which the universe arose. Krishna lies down there stretching himself on the distended skull of the snake. There is no one universe. There are countless universes. There are as many universes as the pores in a human body. All these universes float on a lake which is at their heart. This is the causal lake where Krishna lies on the hoods of the snake. This is the causal lake where Krishna lies on the hoods of the snake. When one crosses the lake there is another universe. But if we seek to describe it in spatial terms we must invoke ancient cosmography to our aid. The ancients say that the land and the salt sea that we call the earth is only a part of the real earth. There are six more such domains across the salt seas, studded with hills and rivers. While our earth floats on the salt seas, the six other earths respectively float on the waves of sugar-cane, wine, honey, milk and nectar. The seven earths or the seven domains together make the real earth. Around the seventh domain is the sea of nectar. Once we cross it, we shall find the vast sands of gold particles. Beyond that there is a high mountain. It is so high that the skies and stars are below it. that mountain is the end of a universe. It floats on a sea from which it sprang. One finds Krishna lying on this causal water. Multitudes of such universes are there. They together float on a larger causal ocean. And Krishna can be found there also lying on the waves. Once we cross the larger causal ocean we are in a vast world beyond the grasp of time and space. This has also many layers. In its innermost expanse there is a region spread infinitely which is ever the same. Here space is infinite, because times policing is absent. It is here that Krishna is ever engaged in erotic enjoyment with multitudinous women; the sovereign powers of time do not apply here ; time also is present at the echoing green lorded over by Krishna. Time is there a minion of Krishna, changing the seasons and changing the hours of the day at Krishna’s will. Krishna is here eternally sporting with his myriads of lovers in never-waning ecstasy. Our human bodies have finer bodies hidden inside. When we die, we put off our fleshly body only. The finer body still imprisons our self. Once we get rid of that finer body, there is the causal body that covers our self. Thus the self puts on three bodies, one over another. Unless we unrobe ourselves we cannot take part in the cosmic merriment of Krishna. When Krishna in his speeches to Arjuna promises to give any devoted self eternal company, he only means that the aspirant self will be given passport to his charmed abode. Krishna there possesses the trousseaus of his sweet-hearts; he will not let them go back to the world where births and deaths, creation and destruction are the rule. Gods are never ashamed of being naked. One must not be naked before one’s friend. The myth of Krishna sporting eternally in his garden has been told in the male way. But actually, once we put off our fleshly garments we are neither males, nor female. The self is neither male nor female. It is the self of the self in Krishna that sports with the multitudinous selves in his garden. This eternal sport of Krishna with his women is at the heart of the dynamic universe. It is the essence of the ceaseless work being done in the universe. The sporting Krishna is the presiding deity of all work or sacrificial rites ceaselessly being done in the universe. The earth, the air, the trees and the plants everything of the charmed garden of Krishna emanated from him only. The legion of lovers around him in their aureoles is but manifestations of Krishna. The love game among them is not what it is like on the earth. Once we get rid of the three bodies, we forget all mundane emotions. The joy in that promised land is one of intellect. Just as traditional vocabulary of physics fails to describe the sub-microscopic universe so do we falter to set forth the world beyond time and space. Krishna says that the supreme has the whole universe in it. it pervades the whole universe. Once someone seeks this supreme soul to sport with, one must seek it with love and devotion. So long Krishna has dwelled on where one should seek to go after death. To this end the timing of death is important. The devotees, who have Krishna at their heart, should die during the six months when the sun traverses the northern hemisphere. White hot fire is alight at that time. The days are long. Death in that case will lead the self entranced with the cosmic self to the cosmic self only. When the sun sets out for the southern hemisphere, the night becomes longer and darkness becomes thick. The world looks dim. Death during this season leads one to the land of Moon. There from the self has to come back on earth. These are but the vision of a meditating self. If the meditating self gets at the vision of the sun in the northern hemisphere he unites with the Cosmic Being. If the sun in the southern hemisphere flashes upon his inward eye, he will have a short while to rest in the paradise of the Moon; then he has to come back upon earth to continue his efforts for the union with the supreme. It all depends with what mind Arjuna will go forth in the battle- field. If he takes it for a sacrifice where the holy fire is alight in the sun he is sure to unite with the supreme. If he still cherishes the human scruples, he must come back to the world to wage further battles to absolve himself of the earthiness of the earth. Light and darkness are the two eternal paths. One who chooses light reaches the world of everlasting joy. The other path leads one back to life on earth along a vicious circle. There is an archetypal struggle between the forces of darkness and light to conquer our minds. Our life is at the cross-road of these two paths. Krishna says that one who knows the secret of these two roads will no longer be confused with life. He will no longer waver between to do or not to do. Lot of studies and activities, or charity and penance cannot reveal what such effort to unite with the supreme being can bestow upon one. Click here to Reply

krishnas speech at the battleground chapter seven

krishnas speech at the battleground – VII CHAPTER – VII WHAT BEST COULD WE GET OUT OF DEATH Krishna, the cosmic mind asks Arjuna, the ego, to be drawn to Krishna only. Krishna here describes what gains Arjuna will derive if he tries to be in unison with Krishna, the cosmic mind. Krishna tells him what knowledge he will acquire and what un-knowledge he will attain. Very few, indeed, know Krishna even after they strive for that. Krishna says that the phenomenal world or the Nature itself leaps forth from his own nature. It has eight primordial elements in earth, water, air, fire, ether, mind, intellect and ego. The first five elements go to forge nature; the eight elements together make man. The observer of the world, man is but conditioned by the world itself. But he has three additional elements in himself which are called human faculties. He enjoys the universe with them. Man is drawn to the phenomenal world because much of him is in common with the phenomenal world. But one must go beyond the phenomenal world to know the truth beyond it. According to Hindu notion, 432,ooo solar years make four ages. 4320,000,000 solar years make a day for the creator. During the end of the day all life in the existence become unmanifest; they live in that state for the whole night consisting of 4320,000,000 solar years. Thereafter they are manifest again. The creator lives for hundred years. Creator’s hundred years amount to 1,5552 x 1014 solar years. When the creator himself dies the elements of Nature also become unmanifest. At that time water devours up the smell of the land. Fire annuls the taste of the water. Wind puts an end to the sun which is the fountainhead of all fire. The ether then does away with the touch of wind. Sound which is the quality of the ether disappears into ego. Nature destroys the ego. The manifest Nature then becomes unmanifest. The unmanifest Nature vanishes into the ineffable one and its dreams. Thus the manifest Nature is but the epiphenomenon of the unmanifest Nature which is the Superior Nature. It is this Superior Nature that holds this existence in its arms. And this Superior Nature is Krishna’s own. Krishna says that everything whatever in the phenomenal world including life is the creation of these two types of Nature. Krishna is thus the creator and the destroyer of the universe. There is nothing beyond Krishna. Everything whatever in the phenomenal world has been woven into a pattern with the thread of Krishna’s being. Thus the particulars in the universe make a whole. And Krishna is the unseen wrap on which the woof of the phenomenal world has been woven. Krishna says that he is the taste of the water. He is the luminosity of the sun and the moon. He is the primordial sound from where all knowledge proceeds. He is the sound that animates the ether. He is the human nature in man. He is the holy fragrance of the much loved earth of ours. He is the fire that burns. He is the life in all living things. He is the fire of penance that burns in the sages. He is the primordial and deathless seed of all existence. He is the ineffable one. There are numerous theories about the creation. One of them is the theory of Big Bang. It posits that from an indeterminate point the atoms were rushing out in all directions and the universe is expanding like a balloon. This can be testified through the observation of stars moving away from galaxies. But the distance between galaxies A and B is always proportionately the same as the distance between galaxies B and C. Some scientists opine that the rate of expansion is slowing down. And a time may come when the universe will start contracting till after aeons it comes back to the starting point, the one. Taking the present rate of expansion of the Universe as constant, the scientists surmise that the age of the present Universe is 10 thousand million years. The total time span of the expansion and contraction of the universe as envisaged by Hindu sages is 432 million years that constitute the creators one day. The atoms will rest in the primeval fire ball for another 432 million years, the night of the creator, and then they will rush out again with the birth of a new universe. Those scientists, who believe that the universe will contract, know that the universe will begin anew. The idea of periodically contracting and expanding universe is both found in the world of the Mahabharata and in the modern times. The primeval ball of the universe, the ineffable one from which the universe springs, remains in the diversity that is the universe. It is Krishna who is the perennial seed, from which everything began and which remains in everything. Krishna is the intelligence of the intelligent. He is the glory of the most glorious. He is the prowess of the valiant which is free from desire and sexual urge. He is desire also. But he is the type of desire that does not stand in the way of the cosmic order. Earlier Krishna debunked all desire on our part. Because he is very possessive. He does not want us to do anything but love him. He wants Arjuna to leave all thoughts aside and act to please him only. If it is war that Krishna wants war he must for the love of Krishna. But Krishna knows that however much he loves them, the common herd will not hear him. Hence Krishna agrees to be lenient to them. He acknowledges the fact that he is the seed of desire in us. But he identifies himself with the desire that is in harmony with Nature. The world of the Mahabharata speaks of four goals in human life. They are (1) the understanding of the laws of the universe and the society (2) wealth (3) carnal desire and (4) liberation. Life has to be lived after all. There everyone has to play the many roles that life and society asks for. In the childhood one has to learn how to fight the battle of life. At this stage the child imbibes the existing do’s and dont’s of the society. He learns the prevalent interpretation of his life and times. He keeps his seed up and conserves his energy. Thus having necessary education and conserved energy our hero has to go forth in the wider world. There he marries and becomes a family man. Repressed nature takes revenge. So his desires must be given an outlet to manifest. Hence his marriage. He marries to procreate. In order that he can support the family he has to earn money. But the goal set for life in the early childhood in liberation, and the conscience that has been already created in the childhood through the teaching of the prevalent social order act together as checks. Wealth and sexual desire are not the end in themselves. The hero, through his youth and middle age learns to become the stay of his family, relatives and children. Gradually he grows in strength to support a bigger community. His love for his own family expands to his love for the larger family called the society. He then gives himself up to the contemplation of the well-being of the society. He leaves his home for the woods. This is the third stage of life. The woods here might mean symbolically the larger life of the society. Gradually he sets up his communication with the cosmic mind. The fourth stage is attained. Death awaits every living being. He dies in perfect peace being in communion with the world-soul. What is world order was taught to him as a child. In the old age he realises the world; his life thus comes full circle. Such a scheme of life makes ample room for the desires of life to manifest. But they have to be manifested in a controlled way to the end of peace and liberation. Desires are like steam having great power. But unless we drive the stream through a small passage it cannot move piston and the steam engine does not roll. We have to use the great power of the energy called desire to move our beings towards the realisation of our higher self. Let a scientist attain great knowledge. But may his knowledge be used to the end of the benefit of humanity. Indeed, science has already advanced to such extent that if we could use its discoveries to the full, the world would not suffer from any scarcity of wealth, even if only those who are willing to work among us worked; let those be alone who choose to remain idle. Let the capitalist make more money, let the politician have more power. But they must see to that the getting and spending of the society is not disturbed. If the whole world is impoverished where will the capitalist sell his goods? If the society dies of starvation what will the rich man do with riches? We want to be rich in relation to others. It is a pity that humanity is writhing under the yoke controlled by a coterie consisting of scientists, politicians and rich men who are very egoistic. They must first realise that they have not been the architects of their own fate. Despite all the qualities of head and heart, man does not succeed in the world, unless luck favours him. It is Nature that worked through the unknown factor called luck. The scientist discovers a law through accident. The capitalist finds his speculation more result oriented than he expected. But let man do whatever he can, Nature works through man and the society. The shape of things are changing fast. Multinational companies are now being transformed into transnational ones with people from different nations having shares in it. The economy of one country is welded with another country more closely than ever. For example the U.S. Government has become dependent on Japanese investors for nearly a third for the funds needed to finance its deficits. Japan and America are so close to each other economically, politically and militarily that the decisions in the Senate may affect Japan. The decisions in the Diet might affect America. Democracy presupposes that those who are affected by a decision have a right to participate in the decision- making body. In that case Japan may ask for a seat in the Senate and America may ask for the right to representation in the Diet. The nation states are being undermined. The United Nations is a trade union of the nation states. Tomorrow it may have to make provision for the representation of other organisations also including trans- national corporate bodies. No one willed such a pass. But the information revolution that takes place will bring about such changes on its own. Krishna says that this is the doing of Nature. Man is a fool when he brags that he has done all these. But man must participate in history with his desires and limited visions. Krishna says that desire, if any, should be controlled towards the betterment of self and the society. Of course the positive, the negative and the neutral qualities of the nature, history and man spring from Krishna. These three qualities of creation, preservation and destruction are omnipresent in the nature and life. Nothing in universe is free from them. But Krishna asserts that although they spring from his own nature only, he is not bound by his nature. He is not therefore subject to any change. In order to embrace Krishna one has to therefore surpass the powers of nature. Krishna, however, warns that the superior Nature and the inferior Nature which spring from his nature, create such an illusory universe which is difficult to cross. Only those who have prayers to Krishna can achieve that. Those who are egoistic and dull, do not take refuge in Krishna. They are devils. Their wisdom is stolen away by the superior Nature. Krishna says that the sorrow stricken, the inquisitive, the pleasure-seeker and the wise- these four types of men worship him. The wise man is the noblest among them. The wise man looks upon everything in the world with even temper. He worships the one. Krishna says that he is very much fond of the wise man. The wise man also loves him in turn. Men of other types are also good. But the wise man is Krishna’s self. The wise man is like Krishna himself. Because he knows that there is no higher goal than attaining Krishna. Even such a wise man finds the consummation of his love for Krishna after numerous births and deaths. The like of him who finds Krishna in everything whatever in the universe is rare indeed. People have other objects of love in this world. They ask for beauty power, wealth, and fame. To that end they pray to their gods. There are thousands of such gods worshipped by the Hindus. There is the goddess of snakes. There is the goddess of smallpox and chicken pox. People pray to them and appease them. Many such gods are there among other religions also. The Aztecs of Mexico, for example, prayed to Uitzilopochtli as the god of sun and fire. Tezcatlipoca is their god of the dry season of sereness. The Aztecs have the gods of growth, the rain gods, the god of the luminaries and planets, the drink gods and so on. But those who do not worship idols have their own gods as well. They are the object of their pursuit. Thus power is itself the god that the politician pursues. Yes, Krishna says he is all these gods. He rewards the devotee in the shape of the god that the devotee worships. This poses a number of questions. First What is Krishna? He is the mind of the universe. He is the universe. The universal mind or Krishna lies in everyone’s heart. Each one of us, could we know ourselves, in the universal mind and the universe and Krishna. But we do not know ourselves. In our ignorance, we imagine other gods. They are real. Because, nothing in the universe can be imagined which is not made of the stuff of Krishna. When we ourselves are the universe we do not ask for anything. When we take the fragments that we are for truth, we create gods out of our own imagination and no doubt they are the parts of the body of Krishna himself. We could picture Krishna to be a great man with his head above the stars and arms in all directions. All the gods, stars, planets, men, animals, insects and elements of the existence form his body. So whichever god we choose to worship Krishna appears to us in the form of that god only and gives boon. This is why one aim, one longing for anything, be it wealth, power, scholarship, or skill in football is often rewarded. Of course, in real life there is no definite co-relation between input and output. Many boys are working hard. But there is only one Brain Lara among these hard-working cricketers. The great South African cricketer Barry Richards, despite his great talent did not get his due from the world. Much of it happens because of the carry forward of the results of earlier births to this birth. But we who fail in this life are sure to succeed in the life to come provided our aim does not change its name. At the same time Brain Laras in the field of cricket, Michael Jacksons in the realm of songs, who have god’s plenty in them, must desire in a way so that their talents are directed towards the common good. Or else, in life to come there might be retrogression in his state and fortunes. Every desire, however, has its own gods. When men are like imps, devils are their gods and Krishna humours those imps and pimps too in the form of devils. In short Krishna disowns no one. Every man, every desire and every god are the part of his being. Krishna says that let a man worship any good. Krishna strengthens his devotion to that god till he gets his heart’s desire through that god. However, such desires are for tangible things. So their attainments do not persist for long. Once you taste of success in one field, you rush for another. In India the successful film actors therefore try to make a mark in politics. The politicians seek to earn more money in illegal way and so on. No one is satisfied with one’s lot. Because, success in Cricket or share-market cannot give one the taste of ambrosia. Once a man has the taste of ambrosia he does not long for anything else. Surely, those who live in the light of higher values of altruism and worship the gods in consonance with that, go to heaven the abode of gods, after death. Heaven, hell and numerous other worlds are there. They are the creations of our own imagination only. But we cannot stay long in the world of our fancy. Thus our stay in heaven also has to be for a short while. Our pious deeds reap their harvests in heaven; we must come back to earth to begin where we had ended in our last birth. Even gods are not permanent. Kings who could perform one thousand sacrifices for the well-being of the world would become the Kings of gods. The kingship of gods is also a temporary post, even the heaven is not eternal. It is destroyed during the mighty cataclysm with the end of the day and the beginning of the night for the creator. On the contrary, those who worship Krishna attain Krishna only. The fools do not know who Krishna is. He is the supreme being; he has no death. Krishna says that he is hidden by his own Superior Nature. That is why the fools cannot find him out. Krishna says that he knows everything, the past, present and future of the universe. But the universe does not know him. At the hour of creation, the contradictions and the delusion that sprang with the emergence of desire and hatred clouded their eyes. They cannot see through the cataract. They remain ever in ignorance of the god-head of Krishna though it is always there before him. Krishna assures Arjuna and assures the world that those who seek to get rid of the birth and death cycle will come to understand and Cosmic Being, the spiritual plane plane of the universe and the nature of work in the universe. Those who understand Krishna on different levels can commune with Krishna even at the moment of death. The great battle of Kurukshetra will cause death to many. But no one can escape death. Death can be deferred. But death cannot be avoided. So, if die we must, let us not fly from its invitation. Let us see what best could we get out of death. Can we dare realise our higher self Krishna through death. One must die to be born stronger than ever. One must realise one’s higher self to usher in an age of super- man. Click here to Reply

Krishnas speech at the battleground chapter nine

HE SLAUGHTER-HOUSE COULD BE THE BRIDAL BED FOR THE SELF When Krishna says, “I am the world” or I rule the world” he does not say it the way LOUIS XIV, the king of France said, “I am the state”. The ‘I’ OF Louis xiv was but located in human frame. The ‘I’ of Krishna is the realisation of his own self in every self and of every self in his own self. Any one from the prince to the beggar can say like Krishna if he has the same realisation. When Krishna says that he is the world, he means that everybody can say like that. He wants everyone to be like him. Everyone should understand that he is the world. Then nothing goes wrong with the world. Man is however, thereby unburdened of the weary weight of this unintelligible world. The whole universe is a unity despite its particulars. The particulars are meaningless if there is no system ruling the universe. One cannot locate man as something independent of his environment like Newtonian particles, just as a particle is a wave and at the same time a particle, similarly a man is and yet if he does not fit in the dynamic scheme of the universe he does not exist. In order to understand this one must ascend the height of Krishna’s realisation. Of course, Krishna began his arguments taking into account the particulars like the feelings of heat and cold. His discourse was initially about “That” or ‘the truth’. Gradually he argued that my person could identify the ‘Me’ with ‘That’ and vice versa. Right now he speaks of truth as if he is himself the truth. He now speaks about himself only more frequently than ever. However his words may not go down with the rabble. Hence he again and over again reminds that the common run of men cannot understand his god-head. Though a man of many miracles and never out of wit in his lifetime Krishna has been the object of slander and jealousy. The world knows not its great men. He, who never wept in public, perhaps shows his hidden grievances against the world for not recognising him as the soul of their souls. Yes, the supreme being is ever in tears lamenting that the world does not hearken to his summons to home. He is our home. But Krishna does not say it from a pulpit. He betrays his own emotions to his friend Arjuna. Or else Krishna is not that fool to say before all the world that he is their supreme god. Krishna asks for submission from Arjuna his friend. Let each one worship one’s own god as the supreme being. One will get all that one could derive from the worship of Krishna. Krishna now tells Arjuna that he will be expounding the royal road to the realisation of the higher self. Arjuna has already been free from envy. So he can see the road. The road consists of knowing and unknowing. It is in consonance with the laws operating in the universe. That is why it is easy. It gives one the direct experience of the higher truth. The arguments begin with an a priori proposition. Krishna says that it is he who pervades the world. The world abides in him. But he does not abide in the world. The myriads of the lives in the universe spring from him and are sustained by him. But they do not serve any purpose of the supreme being. The supreme being is beyond any world whatever. He needs no shelter. He is his own shelter. How is it that the world and its myriads of lives abide in Krishna and yet do not abide in Krishna? The wind blows through the skies. And still if the wind were not there the skies would be as ever. The whole existence as such melts away after a period in the very nature of Krishna. Then with the beginning of a new period, the world begins all over again at his will. Conjuring with the aid of his own nature Krishna creates the world again and again. The world is but mesmerised with the powers of the nature employed by Krishna. But this act of the world and the maintenance of the same with the aid of nature and its spell does not bind him. He frankly disowns his responsibility for what he does. That Krishna disowns his responsibility may sound very queer to us. The ideal gentleman in our society is one who has the sense of responsibility. We want a responsible government. The government wants a responsible rabble that will be all for war when there is war and all for peace when there is peace. Women want responsible husbands and husbands want responsible wives. The children want a responsible father and a father wants responsible children. But Krishna is the greatest of the deconstructionists. He says that the sense of responsibility is a value like other values such as beauty and ugliness truth and falsehood, good and bad chastity and unchastity. They are all man’s own creation. They are hollow sham. He says that one must not take the responsibility of the acts of his senses even. One walks and one knows that one is walking. One sits one knows that one is sitting. One is aware of one’s body. One sees a sight and knows that it is the eye that sees. One smells something and knows that it is the nose that smells. One contemplates on the death of one’s body. The vultures gorge the hunger with one’s putrified flesh. One knows that one is not the body. One should sit in meditation with all attention to one’s breathing. One knows that one’s body breaths. The body is not one’s own self. Let desires pop in and pop out of the mind. Let happiness and sorrow come and go in his mind. He is aware of that. He knows that they are the winds that enter into his bone-house from without. He can just shut them out by closing all the nine doors of his bone-house. One must neither defend any value judgment, nor protest against it. The sense of responsibility is a creation of the mind. It at once underlines the irresponsibility of the mind. In order to become a friend one has to be an enemy. If we look upon life through the gaze of different eyes we will find different value judgments. There are men with whom virtue means writhing under the lash. There are men with whom virtue is lashing others. There are men with whom the will to equality is a virtue. They say that they will bring storms of vengeance upon earth to destroy those who are not like them. There are others who call virtue the slothfulness of their vices. And again there are those who love attitude. They think that there is virtue. They show their sympathy to those who are poor. At the same time they joy in the joy of a scoundrel who thrives on the blood of their follow men. They talk to humanity. They kneel before gods. They speak high flown flamboyant. But they do not understand a single word that they utter. So there is no universally applicable virtue at all. But Krishna does not say that the society with all its values should be undone. On the other hand let everything be there as it is. Just as it is with the explosion of the neutron bomb. Nothing is destroyed thereby in a city; all the houses and roads remain intact. One need not shirk off one’s responsibility in the face of such a world view. One need not assert one’s responsibilities as well. One should go with the times; but one should look upon one’s acts from a perspective of detachment. One need not worry for any misfortune. Whatever misfortune, if any, is the seed of action carried forward from earlier birth. The seed will sprout and then die. One should observe how it occurs without being affected by it. One need not be happy also for one’s victorious in life. Just as Krishna asks us to be indifferent to what our senses and mind do, similarly he also remains indifferent to what leaps from his nature. Just as we observe that we are happy or unhappy. Similarly Krishna observes what happens to his nature and to world. Just as the senses operate with the aid of the self, although the self is not a partaker of its pleasure and grief. Similarly, nature creates the world using the self of Krishna. But Krishna in no way is affected by the joys and sorrows of the world. Men cannot gauge him from outside. He is the supreme lord of the existence. Those who do not understand this are fools. Their hopes, activities, knowledge, judgment come to naught. They go to blaze. Their devils draw them. Nature itself becomes the devil. The great men however take refuge in the superior nature of Krishna and worship him with all their heart. Even Krishna creates through his nature. Since the whole environment of self, its mind, body, the society, the outer nature are created by the being of the nature itself; every self must act through nature. When we strive for Krishna, nature stands between us and Krishna (nothing binds Krishna however; he can see through nature also; no veil can bar him. He can reveal himself to the bedevilled heart at his will). Nature is of two types. One is the superior nature that is intimate with Krishna. The other is the inferior nature born of the superior nature only. The inferior nature takes the shape of devils at its will to waylay the errant. The great man however takes refuge in the superior nature of Krishna and worships him with the whole heart. They always sing in praise of Krishna. They prostrate before him with love and submission. Thus they are always in contact with him. Others worship Krishna through their efforts to understand him. One may take Krishna as identical with the world and with one’s self. Another might try to understand Krishna as separate from the world and yet he is one with the world. Actually no one knows what Krishna is. Even if one knows one cannot describe him. He is this and that. He is not not-this; he is not not-that. He is neither not not-this nor not not that. When a revolving circle is projected on a screen, it looks like an oscillation between one point and another. But the Krishna, the wheel, combines the opposites and transcends them. Krishna says that he is himself the paraphernalia of a business activity. He is himself the labour and capital. He is himself the entrepreneur and the labourer. He is himself its management principles. He is himself the product. He is himself marketed. He is himself the market and the customers. He is the father and the mother and the nurse of the existence. He is the object of all knowledge and experience. He is the sacred word or Aum. He is himself the three principles of creation maintenance and destruction. He is himself the goal and the guardian, master and the witness, shelter and protector friend and creator destruction and the site of destruction. He is the undying seed of the phenomenal world. He is the sun that heats the earth. He is death. In the form of death he robs the earth of its waters only to give the same back to earth thousand-fold in life-giving rains. Those who, however, lead a life without taking heed of Krishna also worship him. They enjoy themselves long in the heaven. Once their virtues are worn out they have to come back to the journeys of life again. It is just like doing well in the Olympic, one can enjoy the rewards of one’s victory for five years only. Thereafter one must return to the Olympic contest again. This does not mean that those who are good and virtuous do not go far because they do not worship Krishna. Krishna does not ask anyone to go over to him. Let the Hundred Brothers stand to their stance. What Krishna means is that those who are good and virtuous are limited by their faith in goodness and virtue. They do not have equal love for everybody. They observe rituals in life. They get out of life what they themselves desire. On the other hand Krishna says that one looks upon all value judgments as equally empty of content will get Krishna only, even if they do not believe in any god. But spiritual achievement is difficult for them who do not believe in any god at all. Krishna the personal god takes the charge of the past accumulations and future prospects of one who worships him whole heartedly. Krishna affirms that those who worship different gods also worship him. But their worship is not proper unless they take their god to be supreme being. Those who know that worshipping any god whatever means worshipping the supreme being attain eternal peace. But those who do not know that go to gods at most. Others who worship their ancestors as their ancestors, only go to the abode of the ancestors and not beyond. Some others might worship power for the sake of power only. They will become Prime Minister or Presidents some day in this life here or in lives to come. But those who pursue power knowing that thereby they serve the supreme being or Krishna, are sure to get eternal joy. In other words the awareness of the supreme being in every action is the point. But what is awareness? I see a cup. It is a perception based on the awareness of the cup. If I am excited over the cu, the awareness is blurred. If I try to be aware of my awareness, I find that it is the Me which is aware of the cup. What is me? Me is the construct of the past which has seen many a cup before it sees the present one. So the Me is not I. When I observe myself, I am not the myself which I observe. But could there be no awareness of things without the awareness of the ‘I’? When such awareness is attained there is attention. It pleases Krishna. Krishna does not want lip service to him. The attention of his devotee must be directed to the supreme being, call it by any name, Bachhus, Apollo, Christ, gold, sex, power, Krishna. One need not worship Krishna with great ceremony. He is happy with leaves and flowers and fruits and water whatever the devotee can afford to give him. The Maharaja airlines must serve its passengers in the first class with pate de foie gra and param ham and croissant, accompanied with red wine, Lanson Rose and White wine Schloss Johannesburgher. Red wine must be served at 45 degree Farenheit and white wine must be served at 65 degree Farenheit. But no such rules apply to Krishna. He can take poison even, if offered with devotion. Once upon a time the gods and te demons churned the ocean greedy of nectar. Once one seeks nectar one is sure to find poison as well. Then the great god of destruction drank the whole poison to save the world. Lord Buddha in course of his wide wanderings met a poor man, who offered him pork with great devotion. It was not fit for digestion. The lord asked his devotee not to give the pork to anyone else. But he himself took it gladly. Buddha died for that. But he asked his nearest disciple not to wail over it. Rather he said that he who gave him the last food, should be happy for that. One can give one’s god whatever one chooses to. A chain-smoker should offer his Krishna packets of camel cigarette every day. There was a great saint in Banaras in the 19th century. His name was Trailangya Swami. One day he found to piss before god. When a devotee was surprised at this, the saint communicated to him in writing that it was the holy water of the Ganges that he offered to his god. The saint was always plunged in the meditation of the supreme being. So he had no distinction between the sacred and the profane, the clean and the dirty. We offer sweets to a friend when he visits our house. But god is always with us and in us. We need not offer anything specially to god. Here is Krishna, the deconstructionist. He says that let life be as it is. The devotee may be very much busy in different activities of life. A man may chase woman. But let him offer the pleasures of womanising to his god. Krishna says that, “Do whatever you choose, eat whatever you like, bestow wealth upon anyone you prefer”. (There was a king who gave away gold. Who received it? Who else but the queen). Krishna says, “Work hard for any pursuit whatever. But remember that the pleasures thereof must be offered to me”. So everything will remain intact as it has been. The house-holder will count his coins after his whole day’s bone-breaking labour. Only thing is that the pleasures of counting the coins should be Krishna’s. There is lot of difference between the possessiveness of Krishna and that of the mortals. If a man loves his woman he asks her to earn for him to get wine for him, to prepare food for him, to lie down with him, to make publicity for the books he writes and so on. Can a man tell his wife that even if she lies down with somebody else, keeping him in mind, he will remain ever happy with her? The answer is an emphatic ‘No’. Instead of bestowing on Krishna all the pleasures and pains resulting from one’s activity, if one shoulders them on one’s own, one must be bound by such actions. They will raise walls on the path of liberation. But if one does whatever one chooses and thinks that one does only in the capacity of a servant of one’s god Krishna, one has renounced the world. Actions will not bind such a person. Krishna says that no one is dear to him. He hates no one. He looks upon everyone with equal regards. Nevertheless, those who worship him reside in him and he also resides in them. Even if it is a rogue who worships, he should be deemed as a saint. Because he has been intelligent enough to choose the right vocation. He will be transformed in no time. He will attain eternal bliss. Krishna proudly announces that his followers are never destroyed. Krishna, however, hereby does not guarantee any material security for his worshippers. Often the devotees of the supreme being are poor and hated. They are often killed by men. But that does not mean that they are destroyed. Women, merchants, workers and those who are outcastes, all of them will attain the highest bliss, if they worship Krishna. Needless to say that the priests and the kings will be rewarded with bliss. Thus clearly Krishna says that he is the god of the down- trodden and the backward class. But that does not mean that Krishna asks them to be docile to their master. They may choose to fight for women’s rights or for socialism, if they will. Only thing is they should do it as servants of Krishna. They should give away the joys and tears of their venture to Krishna. Krishna now asks Arjuna to think always of Krishna only. Arjuna should be always devoted to him. Arjuna should always worship him. Krishna asks Arjuna in front of the whole assembly to prostrate at his feet. If Arjuna takes refuge in Krishna like that, Arjuna will be ever in communion with Krishna. Even in the midst of gory strife, while man is slaughtered by man, the self unites with the self in an ecstasy. Click here to Reply VVVBHAD