We need not go into the details of this theory of evolution. Krishna’s point is to show that the field or existence as we perceive it is created from the modifications of Nature. If we introspect, we feel the truth of it. We are neither body, nor mind, nor intellect, nor ego. So we are consciousness. When one is consciousness itself, nothing else remains. Even the awareness of consciousness does not remain. It is neither conscious, nor unconscious. When consciousness becomes conscious of itself, creation starts; consciousness gives its seed to the non-self. Stage by stage, there is the efflorescence of the universe from the non-self or Nature. Nature is eternal. But the modifications of Nature are short lived. The self is the knower of this field. The self is eternal like Nature; but unlike Nature it does not go through any modification. While the objects of Nature on the field are subject to birth and death, self has none. Self is reflected on the Nature and its evolutes take place. The Self is reflected on the Nature puts on the qualities of Nature and undergoes experience. No one can understand how it is like to become a porter, unless one puts on the robes of a porter and waits along with other porters for the customers. Unless one is bitten by a snake, or by love, one knows not how bitter its pangs are. In order that there is an experience, there must be a knower and an object of knowledge or a subject and an object. Krishna says that the field is the object of knowledge and Krishna is the knower. Krishna the knower is the self of the universe as a whole also. Krishna, in order to know Nature, humours it, putting on the robes offered by it. But at the same time Krishna remains apart from it. Krishna is amused to see his own reflections undergoing changes under the sway of Nature. If Krishna or the higher self wants to know us intimately, the lower self of each one of us belonging to the field should seek to know Krishna. Once the reflected image knows who it is, it becomes Krishna, set free from the thrall of Nature. How do we know Krishna? We must withdraw ourselves from the Nature then. But no one can get away from Nature physically. People think that they will hie to some monastery or to the forests to escape from Nature. But that is impossible. A man’s body , mind and intellect are made of the stuff of Nature. Nature has made us forget our celestial glory. It gave us body, mind, intellect, senses and the object of senses, so that we forget ourselves and remain ever in her power. In fairy tales, little boys stray from their way to school and reach a beautiful fairy. The fairy turns them into chirping birds and keeps them in the cages of her enchanted palace. The same is our predicament.
Now what we can do is to refuse the pleasures and pains offered by Nature and be ourselves. We can realize our Krishna self. Once there was a trader who caugt birds and sold them in the city. Now there was a bird that was caught by the trader. It was there in the cage with other birds. When the trader gave food to the birds, the bird, we are talking about, did not eat any thing. Thus the bird became weak and emaciated. The trader thought that this bird would not sell. It would die any day. So it set the bird free. We should learn a lesson from the bird and try to give the slip to Nature.
Similarly if Arjuna gives up the war there is no escape from the groans of existence. Because he cannot be away from his body, mind etc. He had better fight, without being provoked by Nature. We need not change our places in the society. That will be a change from frying pan to fire. Every position in the worldly life has its own pleasure and pain. Pleasure and pain go together; it is pain. The president of America has as much groans as a Negro barber has. We are all equals. Why seek equality with the white president of America?
To know Krishna, the higher self in us, we have to develop certain qualities in us that will resist nature. We can look upon honour and dishonour as the same. Often we leap into action to defend our honour. This is sham. If someone is scholar, he is. He will reap the fruits of his knowledge. There is no point in proving itself before fools. Or else he will get involved with the trammels of nature. In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar honour was the theme. There Brutus for honour’s sake joined the conspirators against Caesar and came to grief and dishonour.
One should get rid of boasting. We are all egotists. We are fond of talking of ourselves ceaselessly. And surely we exaggerate ourselves. Thus we have ourselves made the vanity fair of human society.
Non-violence is another quality that we should inculcate. There are people who do not kill a mosquito even, in a country like India, where once the government sent a whole army to kill them. But that is not the non-violence to be practiced by everyone. An army officer was challenged to duel for love. He accepted it coolly. There was the choice of arms. While his rival opted for a sword, he would take his revolver with him. He would see to that his rival was not killed. This army officer was the son of a rich hotel-keeper. His father possessed one thousand table cloths, two thousand spoons, two thousand knives and so on. When a boy he fled from his father’s house and joined the army. He did not join the army, because they came on his way. He fought in the war, because fight he must. Similarly everyone is a child of a hotel keeper. The world is a grand hotel run by our father or our higher self and join the hotel as an employee(we cannot run away from the hotels laid out by our father) let us accept that job only which is offered to us. If one is given the job of room cleaning, that is fine for him. Thus there are barbers, butchers, cobblers and the Prime Ministers and Presidents. Let us play our part well. If we are soldiers, let us fight. But let there be no hatred for our enemies. That is non-violence.
We should have fortitude. Mahatma Gandhi was once beaten black and blue by a white man in Africa. He did not resist. When the beating was over the Mahatma asked his tormentor whether he was not himself injured in the action of beating. This is fortitude.
Simplicity is another quality to be cultivated. People go to god-men in quest of miracles. They are disheartened. One of the chief marks of a god-man, that could be easily descried, is his simplicity. He is like a child, always agog with activities. Still he has no purpose in the contingent. He knows what he knows. He does not brag.
One should serve one’s teachers. Those who serve in schools and colleges are not necessarily the teacher we mean. A teacher is one who kindles the lamp of knowledge in one’s heart. Once, a teacher along with his disciples went to a river. There a corpse was floating along the current. The teacher asked his disciples to swim to it and bring it down and eat its flesh. When he ate the flesh, he found that it was not a dead body, but an edible of superb taste and fragrance.
One should be clean. It was said that cleanliness is next to godliness. That is, if you cannot be a god man, try to be a clean man. We must have a clean mind and body. But now a days, cleanliness is something which goes against godliness. People are clean to show up in parties among the glitterati of the society.
One should try to be constant in his love and pursuits. To have one aim and one desire impels one to be listless to the many diversities of Nature. There was a scholar. It struck him that he should learn the gypsy lore. Once he learnt it, he would come back to the society. So instead of knocking at the preferment’s door, one fine morning, he left the university hostel to wander with the gypsies. He was no more found in the so-called civilized society. Only the birds knew him. The country girls met him at the village fair. Thus we should pick up any offer by Nature and pursue it ignoring any other offer from Nature. We can thereby outwit Nature, using Nature only. That is the strategy.
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