GITA – CHAPTER – III
Written by Dr. Rameshchandra Mukhopadhyay
CHAPTER – III
WAR AS ACTION
Arjuna knows Krishna for a long time. In the interaction between
Krishna and the society although he has ever put his person last, he
comes first. For example, he drives the chariot; Arjuna rides it. This
personality of Krishna may have been oppressive to Ajuna. Hence he
ignored Krishna’s commands to go to war. Krishna then sets out to
argue. His arguments seem to laugh at Arjuna’s sagacity as
foolishness. For Arjuna speaks with contempt about his enemies and yet
he will not fight them. They are his own; how could he live without
them. Krishna observes, fight it you must, but for God’s sake let
there be no hatred among you. You can call one enemy but not villain.
You can call one invalid but not wretch; you can call one a fool, but
not a sinner. If Arjuna thinks that the Hundred Brothers are his own,
that is good. But Arjuna must kill pride and hatred in him; they are
the part of his being. Why not then kill the brothers, if it is the
call of the hour? No one is killed. For body is not the thing-in-
itself. Besides what matters a long life? What warrior wants to be
spared? So Krishna asks Arjuna to choose and to obey the commands of
his station and duties which others follow blindly. In order to
choose, what others do involuntarily, one must use one’s intelligence
and grow beyond oneself. Arjuna must fight like others and yet he must
fight in the light of the knowledge of the self. Thus a warrior could
become a forerunner of a saint. But Arjuna pulls Krishna and asks why
the hell Krishna goads him to the horrid war, if the cultivation of
the intellect is more important than action. Krishna had earlier
observed in a round about way that Arjuna’s notions were confused. Now
Arjuna straightway charges that Krishna’s words confound him. Arjuna
asks Krishna to tell him unequivocally what course he should follow.
The relation between Krishna and Arjuna is one of deep love; but they
do not spare each other. And surely Arjuna will not be convinced,
before he is convinced.
Krishna takes the question posed by Arjuna easy. He lovingly calls
Arjuna as one who has no sin. He tells Arjuna that in ancient times,
he classified human tendencies as of two types. Some people are
introvert. They seek knowledge. Others are extrovert. They want to act
in the outer world. But knowledge and action cannot be separated from
one another. If Arjuna thinks that he should understand his own self
with the aid of his intellect and then go to act, he cannot. The one
will be of no help without the other. One must cross the bridge
dividing theory and practice. One must act in the outer world and grow
within simultaneously, just as a bird often wings and sings at the
same time. Those who lean upon knowledge seek to abandon the worldly
activities. If one does not act in the real world; it does not follow
that he does not act in the real world; it does not follow that he
does not act at all. No one can stay without action for a fraction of
a second. One cannot but act; one acts being impelled by nature. Who
says that one who keeps his hands and feet under check, with feline
modesty does not act? If one behaves like an ideal parish priest and
yet covets the neighbour’s maid-servant one acts. Such a fool is no
doubt a hypocrite. Modesty is a thief. He steals softly in the night
of his mind. Krishna asks one to be bold and wrest one’s object of
desire. Often men withdraw from the din and bustle of worldly action
to have conversation with the higher self; but the light of other
days, joys and sorrows, lovers who came near the lovers who refused
flash upon the inward eye; in short they participate in the worldly
life through recollections in solitude; they ruminate patient as cow;
it is like going to the husband only to ogle at the wife. This is
mischievous. On the contrary if a man is at heart indifferent to the
objects of the world and if his senses are perfectly under control, he
can do anything whatever; still he is a gem of a man. Because a man
must be judged not by his actions, but by his motives. And the motive
redeeming all actions is motivelessness unless it is the motive to act
according to the conventions of the society. Krishna asks Arjuna to
act, act in the living present. Any activity whatever is better than
inaction stuffed with day-dreams. Even the body cannot survive without
activity. The heart beats ceaselessly. Blood circulation knows no
rest. The lungs breathe in and breath out. Awake or asleep, the mind
is also restless always. It does not take rest even when we are in the
state of sleep. How is it that we could then live without work? Work
is a biological necessity. Why do they sleep at their chairs in the
office then? This is very frequent in India. That is a kind of protest
against the system. They are at work; the poor fellows do not enjoy
rest. So since, work is sine qua non with human existence, one should
work, one should work whole heartedly.
But any action binds one in chains. Think of Shakespeare’s Machbeth.
He was a great general. It was natural for him to go higher up. But
the next rung above was the highest rung- it was kingship. Kingship
was hereditary in Machbeth’s world. So it was unattainable. Machbeth
was very imaginative. During as he was in war, daring was he in the
realm of imagination. He wanted to attain the unattainable. Had it
been a modern democracy, he would not perhaps try for American
presidentship. Because it is attainable legally through cunning. But
kingship was not an elected office. So in order to become the king he
killed the king. Had it been a vile king, regicide would be alright.
But the king wore all the royal qualities so meekly that it was a
sacrilege to kill the king. Machbeth knew it. He vacilliated. But his
vaulting ambition got the better of his love and respect for the king.
He assassinated the king and became king himself. He killed the king
and killed sleep. Machbeth heard a voice from within crying out.
Machbeth shall sleep no more. Blood cries out for blood. He killed
other generals and thanes. He was world-weary. Because, when he
realised his ambition, he found it was not the infinitude he thirsted
for. But he could not doff his sceptre and crown, at will. He was much
advanced along the river of blood. Tracing his steps back was as
difficult as pushing ahead. So Machbeth was in a net which was his own
doing.
Everyone of us is a Machbeth. There is the pro and con of every
action. But our desires are apt to violate the super-ego. Arjuna also
seeks to violate the biddings of his station and duties. The
compunction wrought thereby eats into our hearts. Because the superego
has a parallel structure in our minds. While the external world reacts
in the form of the society that speaks unseemingly against us or that
rises up arms against Machbeth, at heart we suffer from self-pity.
Because, we cannot get rid of the values of the society that have been
engraved in our hearts. What is virtue or vice? It is always created
by man himself through the legitimations of the society. But there
have been other ages and another evil and good. If they got an inkling
of Machbeth’s imagination, even if he had not actually killed the
king, they would call him a villain. But who debunks the chief of the
Indian Navy if he expresses the wishes of becoming the president of
India in a democratic system? We do not live in a world of vacuum
where values do not exist. We try to cultivate in us the many virtues
upheld by the society. What is evil but that which grows out of the
conflict of such virtues. Machbeth is ambitious. That is a virtue. Who
but ambitious men dare do great things in the world? It is in direct
conflict with his innate loyalty to his king-another virtue taught by
the society. We, in the middle class society in India go for
competitive examinations to have a comfortable berth in the work-a-day
world; we wrest our studentship with the best engineering college in
India. We wrest a good job with a multinational company. Despite
ourselves we thus kill many others who do not get it. the deprived
organise themselves into a horde of have-nots who abuse us with their
slogans, “Down with the elite”; we feel pain at that. We grind our
teeth at that. No act in this contingent world is without result. That
fetters us further as a slave to the world. A business man starts his
business. Soon the business flourishes on its own. It delivers bread
to a whole army of workers. Just as blood cried out for blood with
Machbeth, so does money bring further money. The world-weariness that
tied Machbeth down could visit the businessman also; he is now a
tycoon. Even when he is tired of money he cannot get rid of it. He is
bound to it by numerous commitments to his family, to his friends, to
his clients and customers and to his workers. One is at liberty to
raise a business organisation. But one cannot shut down his company at
pleasure. The state will prevent him from doing that. Every one of us
is responsible for what we are. Here is a man who enters his home only
to walk on burning tar; his wife is a fierce maenad. The children are
distanced away from him, through the machinations of their mother. Who
is responsible for that? The man himself. Why did he marry? Is not
misery that he undergoes his own making? All who have sought to teach
them the truths about the universe have suffered persecution and vile
abuse. Such cruelties like crucifixion or inquisition are, however,
unknown in India. But they took place in other parts of the world.
They are also the doings of these saints themselves. They took up arms
against a sea of troubles. Thus the condemned cell of the world, where
we groan, is the creation of our imagination. The causal connection
between the deed and its result might not be always visible to the
eye. In a tale from ancient India, there was a child that
intentionally pinned an insect to the wall. In later years he became a
begging friar. He was suddenly arrested by the king’s men; he was
produced before the court and was proved guilty of theft although
apparently he had committed none. He was sent to the stake where a
trident should be thrust into his head. While the sharp heads of the
trident had already pierced into his head the truth was found out. The
real thief was arrested. And the king and his men apologized to the
friar. But they could not pull out the trident from the friar’s head.
Then the friar asked them not to try for that. Because he must bear
the burnt of his actions done in his childhood. He had pinned an ant
to the wall. Call it fantastic? Modern psychology says those who had
strict toilet habits in the childhood, become chain smoker in their
adult-life. The present author is a chain-smoker himself and he had
indeed a strict toilet in his childhood. His mother was like Mrs.
Murdstone of the David Copperfield. She would not allow me food if I
had to go to the toilet more than once a day. Every bit of thought and
day dream thus act through us silently and create the life that we
undergo. Just as they remain as subtle codes in the ROM of our beings
to fulfil themselves through their manifestations in the external
world, similarly our hopes and desires, every bit of them, not
realised in this life might lead us to another life. Thus perhaps we
are doomed to undergo infinite cycles of birth and death. The class,
the society, the culture, the environment and the time that we are
driven into when we are born was but what we willed in our earlier
birth. Since our hopes and desires are linked with the environment
where we have been born, we are born in the same environment again. If
my desire for an Indian dame remains ungratified in this birth, I must
be born somewhere in her neighbourhood in India. That is why, rarely
is a Calcutta born in California during his next life.
Let us take a Prime Minister. Let it be a woman without a name. She
sought to rise into the height and nobody trusts her any longer. How
does that happen? She changed too quickly. Her today refused her
yesterday. She often overleaped the steps when she clambered. For
doing so none of the steps pardons. When aloof she finds herself
lonely. No one speaks to her. The frost of solitude chokes her. She
had a husband. His life was cut off in the prime. She has children but
they live in hostel away from her. She is always surrounded by a bunch
of personal body-guards called the Black Cat. Suppose she is on her
way to a public meeting. No civilian can approach her because of the
exigencies of her security. She finds a happy couple along with a
child standing at distance. They have perhaps come to have a glimpse
of her only. But she might think that how happy such families are,
free from the uneasiness that the crown wears. In her next birth she
might be destined to be an office-clerk. The standard of living that a
college teacher in India enjoys, is less than that of a pet-dog hugged
by an American. No wonder if a college teacher in India dies to be
born as a pet dog in the kernel of an American!
If whatever one does binds him with further chains to the earthiness
of earth. Where is the way out? Krishna says that if a person is
engaged in the sacrificial rites only, his actions do not recoil upon
him. Earlier Krishna seemed to have looked askance at the Vedic rites;
in many parts of the world beyond India in the remote past. Although
Moses ordained sacrifices for the Jews, the Christian abolished it.
Jesus, however, was of the opinion that “not one jot or title of the
law should pas until all these things were fulfilled”. And when it is
said, “it is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul”(Lev. XVII
2). One wonders whether a scape-goat has been referred to, to be
sacrificed at the alter, to make atonement for one’s sins.
But does Krishna simply ask one to devote himself throughout his life
in such rituals? Arjuna should then instantly give up his fight to
raise an alter for the sacrificial fire to be lighted. But that is not
what Krishna means. He must have taken war as the signified and the
sacrificial rite as a signifier. Let us hear him.
Krishna observes that when the creator made the first man and woman
he bestowed upon them the faculty of self-sacrifice. He also ordained
them to observe the sacrificial rites. What else is the sacrificial
rite but the externalisation of the sacrifices enacted in our beings.
We have the unknown and unknowable caverns of mind in us where resides
the coils of snakes that generate desire. There is in every one of us
the beast of prey. Creator has given us the faculty to sacrifice the
best at the alter of the gods. When the drama at our heart is
externalised, it takes the shape of an animal sacrificed at the alter.
Everyday the devout Brahmins in their prayers three times a day,
breath out into their cupped hand, imagining that the demon of
viciousness is expelled from the body along with the polluted air. Now
they throw the imaginary demon into the ground and think that the
demon is dead. This could be easily expanded into a tale for children
or a drama or a religious rites. The creator asked us to create
through this sacrifice. We men cannot but act. We cannot but observe
the sacrificial rites every second that we live. We cannot but create.
The sacrificial fire burns all over the body. There is the metabolism
going on constantly in the living organism. Every desire is a kind of
sacrifice of ourselves to either gods or devils. When the creator
uttered the word ‘god’ its counterpart was also created in the devil.
Just as we often use religious rites to secular end, similarly we
learnt from the creator the science o sacrifice often to worship
devils. The Greek drama was born of the religious rites in ancient
Greece. It was removed from its progenitor to be offered at the alter
of aesthetic pleasure. Now the worship of the devils that are but the
extrovert faculties of the senses created the evil. The worship of the
gods or the introvert faculties of mind might help one in the external
world. Because the deeper the roots of a tree go into the earth, the
higher goes its trunk into the sky. The extrovert mind might set
higher programmes for itself like teaching the men about the A B C OF
morals, or about the rudiments of the management principles. The mind
set a goal to set up an empire like Henry Ford’s. Any organisations
like the General Motors could give employment to so many jobless men
all over the globe. Or else the mind might set up a missionary
organisation to serve the poor, the ailing, and the illiterate. But
these altruistic activities also bind one.
Once there was a great king in ancient India named Bali. He would
readily give away anything whatever from his possessions to anyone who
asked for it. He was something like the historical king
Harshavardhana. As the Chinese traveller Hieun Tsang who visited
Harshavardhana’s court reports, the king would give away even his
apparels to one who begged it of him at the fair at Prayag. Now the
fame of king Bali spread far and wide. One day a small dwarf came to
him for alms. The king promised to give him whatever he wanted. The
dwarf asked for land only three feet in area; the standard of
measurement would be his own foot. The king laughed and asked him to
beg more. No, replied the dwarf. The king smiled and agreed to give
him what he wanted. The dwarf laughed in his heart. Lo! In the
twinkling of an eye he grew taller than the skies. With one of his
feet he possessed the earth; with the other he possessed the heaven.
But the giant had another foot yet which was not found in the dwarf.
The giant planted his third foot on the head of the king only. The
poor king had no more than the heaven and earth in his possession. The
Buddhist Jataka narrates the story of a great king like Sibi. A pigeon
flew to him and asked for shelter. The king gave shelter readily.
Presently a vulture rushed to the king and composed its wings. The
vulture asked the king to give away the pigeon. The king would not
give it away to the vulture. Instead he happily gave away flesh from
his own body equal to the weight of the pigeon to appease the hunger
of the vulture. Still the person of Sibi had to undergo numerous
transmigration till it attained its perfection in Tathagata Buddha of
Kpilavastu – the Enlightened one. Thus any desire whatever binds one
to birth and death cycle. Not to commit oneself to the activities that
bring about birth and death is the summum bonum. What then is the
action that brings about birth and death? Asked a monk to Daishu
Ekai(Ta-chu-Hin-hai) one of Tang masters. To desire activities not
committed to the activities that bring about birth and death was the
answer. That is, desire to become desireless is also a desire that
commits one to birth. Hence, the sacrificial rites should be observed
for the sake of it. Let the Christians go to the Church. Let the Jews
go to the synagogue. That is, everyone should follow the rituals
belonging to his station in the society. He may be a Jew. He may be a
follower of Shinto religion. He may be a Buddhist. Let him observe the
ritual as prescribed by his religion. But this is not all. Everyone is
born in a station in the society, which entails certain duties. For
example, a man of the warrior class is expected to fight. When he
fights he observes his sacrificial duty. Of course, he must not fight
either to win or to lose. He joins in the battle because the battle
comes on his way.
If one could observe one’s station and duties without any hope for
fruition, one reaches the state of undying joy. But this is a
mathematical point for the common run of men. We must try to
approximate it and undergo births and deaths with better opportunities
to realise the self in each one of us.
The five Brothers and the Hundred Brothers lived together in their
childhood, Drone, who is now one among the generals with the Camp of
the Hundred Brothers, used to teach them in the art of war. One day he
asked the boys to appear for a test. He placed a bird on the tree and
asked them to shoot an arrow sharp at a point on the eye-ball of the
bird. Each one of the boys took his chance. Finally Arjuna’s turn
came. When Arjuna concentrated on his target, Drona asked what Arjuna
could see. Arjuna said that could see only the eye of the bird. After
sometime he could see the point only and nothing else of the bird.
Similarly through different births and deaths we should strive for
narrowing the number of desires. We should strive for more and more
altruistic desires. First I might desire the welfare of my family.
Later I might the welfare of my locality. Higher and higher up the
lark of our self should go. The higher it goes, the larger the
landscape it sees and prays for the welfare of what he sees in its
song. Finally it seems to metamorphose into a cloud of fire symbolic
of the blithe spirit whose race is just begun. It showers a rain of
melody upon the earth.
There was a Buddhist monk. His name was Honen. He went to many wise
men and asked each one of them about the road to freedom. They told
him that elaborate disciplines have to be followed. But Honen was
aware of his poor capabilities. So he thought that he was not fit for
becoming their disciple. He went to the library; he read many books in
search of the easier path for lesser men. To his great joy he found
that one has to do nothing else but to simply repent the name Amida,
walking, talking, sitting, standing, eating. If one could always
repeat the name Amida Amida . . . . as long as one breaths, one is
sure to attain freedom. Repeating the name over and over again is a
sacrificial rite of great merit. The name may be Jesus with the
Christians or Krishna with the Hindus. The chanting of the name always
functions like the Chinese wall to keep away the call of the worldly
life from the domain of mind. When one is left on the lonely couch in
passive or pensive mood, a horde of worldly thoughts flock into one’s
mind like numberless scorpions. The repetition of the name Krishna
will prevent one’s mind from barren thoughts. We often think two
things at the same time. I talk to the husband; at the same time I can
think of his wife. Similarly when I work in the office or talk
business, I can simultaneously repeat the name at my heart. In that
case the mind clinging to the name covertly, does not wander
aimlessly, when I am talking business with someone overtly. The
repetition of the name gradually robs the mind of the desires. Even if
someone repeats the name Krishna out of hatred for Krishna the person,
one will get rid of one’s desire in course of time.
The creator asked man to create with the faculty of sacrificing
himself at the alter of god. Every action is a kind of sacrifice. Good
and evil both were created. Those who sacrificed themselves at the
alter of demons, created evil on earth!!
The creator desired us to strengthen the gods through the observation
of sacrifice. The gods should in turn think of the welfare of men.
Thus both the gods and men will attain supreme good. It is said that
sacrificial rites are no longer observed. So the gods must have been
weak than ever now a days. True that the gods live on the sacrifice
offered by men. But it is the Dark Age according to Hindu mythology.
It is the age when men do not offer sacrifice to their gods. They are
godless. The Hindus believe that this Dark Age began with the demise
of Krishna, the protagonist of the Bhagvad Gita, in the year 3101 B.C.
It will continue for 4,32,000 years since then. This Dark Age is the
fourth age in the cycle of history as conceived in Hindu mythology.
Truth was followed by all men during the first age. The proportion of
falsehood and truth, the two constituents of an age will be seventy
five and twenty five respectively when the Dark Age touches its rock-
bottom. Now, if sacrifices are not observed in the Dark Age, gods must
have fled to other worlds to help themselves. Or else, gods can look
after themselves, when men do not recognise them.
to be continued . . .
Written by Dr. Rameshchandra Mukhopadhyay
CHAPTER – III
WAR AS ACTION
Arjuna knows Krishna for a long time. In the interaction between
Krishna and the society although he has ever put his person last, he
comes first. For example, he drives the chariot; Arjuna rides it. This
personality of Krishna may have been oppressive to Ajuna. Hence he
ignored Krishna’s commands to go to war. Krishna then sets out to
argue. His arguments seem to laugh at Arjuna’s sagacity as
foolishness. For Arjuna speaks with contempt about his enemies and yet
he will not fight them. They are his own; how could he live without
them. Krishna observes, fight it you must, but for God’s sake let
there be no hatred among you. You can call one enemy but not villain.
You can call one invalid but not wretch; you can call one a fool, but
not a sinner. If Arjuna thinks that the Hundred Brothers are his own,
that is good. But Arjuna must kill pride and hatred in him; they are
the part of his being. Why not then kill the brothers, if it is the
call of the hour? No one is killed. For body is not the thing-in-
itself. Besides what matters a long life? What warrior wants to be
spared? So Krishna asks Arjuna to choose and to obey the commands of
his station and duties which others follow blindly. In order to
choose, what others do involuntarily, one must use one’s intelligence
and grow beyond oneself. Arjuna must fight like others and yet he must
fight in the light of the knowledge of the self. Thus a warrior could
become a forerunner of a saint. But Arjuna pulls Krishna and asks why
the hell Krishna goads him to the horrid war, if the cultivation of
the intellect is more important than action. Krishna had earlier
observed in a round about way that Arjuna’s notions were confused. Now
Arjuna straightway charges that Krishna’s words confound him. Arjuna
asks Krishna to tell him unequivocally what course he should follow.
The relation between Krishna and Arjuna is one of deep love; but they
do not spare each other. And surely Arjuna will not be convinced,
before he is convinced.
Krishna takes the question posed by Arjuna easy. He lovingly calls
Arjuna as one who has no sin. He tells Arjuna that in ancient times,
he classified human tendencies as of two types. Some people are
introvert. They seek knowledge. Others are extrovert. They want to act
in the outer world. But knowledge and action cannot be separated from
one another. If Arjuna thinks that he should understand his own self
with the aid of his intellect and then go to act, he cannot. The one
will be of no help without the other. One must cross the bridge
dividing theory and practice. One must act in the outer world and grow
within simultaneously, just as a bird often wings and sings at the
same time. Those who lean upon knowledge seek to abandon the worldly
activities. If one does not act in the real world; it does not follow
that he does not act in the real world; it does not follow that he
does not act at all. No one can stay without action for a fraction of
a second. One cannot but act; one acts being impelled by nature. Who
says that one who keeps his hands and feet under check, with feline
modesty does not act? If one behaves like an ideal parish priest and
yet covets the neighbour’s maid-servant one acts. Such a fool is no
doubt a hypocrite. Modesty is a thief. He steals softly in the night
of his mind. Krishna asks one to be bold and wrest one’s object of
desire. Often men withdraw from the din and bustle of worldly action
to have conversation with the higher self; but the light of other
days, joys and sorrows, lovers who came near the lovers who refused
flash upon the inward eye; in short they participate in the worldly
life through recollections in solitude; they ruminate patient as cow;
it is like going to the husband only to ogle at the wife. This is
mischievous. On the contrary if a man is at heart indifferent to the
objects of the world and if his senses are perfectly under control, he
can do anything whatever; still he is a gem of a man. Because a man
must be judged not by his actions, but by his motives. And the motive
redeeming all actions is motivelessness unless it is the motive to act
according to the conventions of the society. Krishna asks Arjuna to
act, act in the living present. Any activity whatever is better than
inaction stuffed with day-dreams. Even the body cannot survive without
activity. The heart beats ceaselessly. Blood circulation knows no
rest. The lungs breathe in and breath out. Awake or asleep, the mind
is also restless always. It does not take rest even when we are in the
state of sleep. How is it that we could then live without work? Work
is a biological necessity. Why do they sleep at their chairs in the
office then? This is very frequent in India. That is a kind of protest
against the system. They are at work; the poor fellows do not enjoy
rest. So since, work is sine qua non with human existence, one should
work, one should work whole heartedly.
But any action binds one in chains. Think of Shakespeare’s Machbeth.
He was a great general. It was natural for him to go higher up. But
the next rung above was the highest rung- it was kingship. Kingship
was hereditary in Machbeth’s world. So it was unattainable. Machbeth
was very imaginative. During as he was in war, daring was he in the
realm of imagination. He wanted to attain the unattainable. Had it
been a modern democracy, he would not perhaps try for American
presidentship. Because it is attainable legally through cunning. But
kingship was not an elected office. So in order to become the king he
killed the king. Had it been a vile king, regicide would be alright.
But the king wore all the royal qualities so meekly that it was a
sacrilege to kill the king. Machbeth knew it. He vacilliated. But his
vaulting ambition got the better of his love and respect for the king.
He assassinated the king and became king himself. He killed the king
and killed sleep. Machbeth heard a voice from within crying out.
Machbeth shall sleep no more. Blood cries out for blood. He killed
other generals and thanes. He was world-weary. Because, when he
realised his ambition, he found it was not the infinitude he thirsted
for. But he could not doff his sceptre and crown, at will. He was much
advanced along the river of blood. Tracing his steps back was as
difficult as pushing ahead. So Machbeth was in a net which was his own
doing.
Everyone of us is a Machbeth. There is the pro and con of every
action. But our desires are apt to violate the super-ego. Arjuna also
seeks to violate the biddings of his station and duties. The
compunction wrought thereby eats into our hearts. Because the superego
has a parallel structure in our minds. While the external world reacts
in the form of the society that speaks unseemingly against us or that
rises up arms against Machbeth, at heart we suffer from self-pity.
Because, we cannot get rid of the values of the society that have been
engraved in our hearts. What is virtue or vice? It is always created
by man himself through the legitimations of the society. But there
have been other ages and another evil and good. If they got an inkling
of Machbeth’s imagination, even if he had not actually killed the
king, they would call him a villain. But who debunks the chief of the
Indian Navy if he expresses the wishes of becoming the president of
India in a democratic system? We do not live in a world of vacuum
where values do not exist. We try to cultivate in us the many virtues
upheld by the society. What is evil but that which grows out of the
conflict of such virtues. Machbeth is ambitious. That is a virtue. Who
but ambitious men dare do great things in the world? It is in direct
conflict with his innate loyalty to his king-another virtue taught by
the society. We, in the middle class society in India go for
competitive examinations to have a comfortable berth in the work-a-day
world; we wrest our studentship with the best engineering college in
India. We wrest a good job with a multinational company. Despite
ourselves we thus kill many others who do not get it. the deprived
organise themselves into a horde of have-nots who abuse us with their
slogans, “Down with the elite”; we feel pain at that. We grind our
teeth at that. No act in this contingent world is without result. That
fetters us further as a slave to the world. A business man starts his
business. Soon the business flourishes on its own. It delivers bread
to a whole army of workers. Just as blood cried out for blood with
Machbeth, so does money bring further money. The world-weariness that
tied Machbeth down could visit the businessman also; he is now a
tycoon. Even when he is tired of money he cannot get rid of it. He is
bound to it by numerous commitments to his family, to his friends, to
his clients and customers and to his workers. One is at liberty to
raise a business organisation. But one cannot shut down his company at
pleasure. The state will prevent him from doing that. Every one of us
is responsible for what we are. Here is a man who enters his home only
to walk on burning tar; his wife is a fierce maenad. The children are
distanced away from him, through the machinations of their mother. Who
is responsible for that? The man himself. Why did he marry? Is not
misery that he undergoes his own making? All who have sought to teach
them the truths about the universe have suffered persecution and vile
abuse. Such cruelties like crucifixion or inquisition are, however,
unknown in India. But they took place in other parts of the world.
They are also the doings of these saints themselves. They took up arms
against a sea of troubles. Thus the condemned cell of the world, where
we groan, is the creation of our imagination. The causal connection
between the deed and its result might not be always visible to the
eye. In a tale from ancient India, there was a child that
intentionally pinned an insect to the wall. In later years he became a
begging friar. He was suddenly arrested by the king’s men; he was
produced before the court and was proved guilty of theft although
apparently he had committed none. He was sent to the stake where a
trident should be thrust into his head. While the sharp heads of the
trident had already pierced into his head the truth was found out. The
real thief was arrested. And the king and his men apologized to the
friar. But they could not pull out the trident from the friar’s head.
Then the friar asked them not to try for that. Because he must bear
the burnt of his actions done in his childhood. He had pinned an ant
to the wall. Call it fantastic? Modern psychology says those who had
strict toilet habits in the childhood, become chain smoker in their
adult-life. The present author is a chain-smoker himself and he had
indeed a strict toilet in his childhood. His mother was like Mrs.
Murdstone of the David Copperfield. She would not allow me food if I
had to go to the toilet more than once a day. Every bit of thought and
day dream thus act through us silently and create the life that we
undergo. Just as they remain as subtle codes in the ROM of our beings
to fulfil themselves through their manifestations in the external
world, similarly our hopes and desires, every bit of them, not
realised in this life might lead us to another life. Thus perhaps we
are doomed to undergo infinite cycles of birth and death. The class,
the society, the culture, the environment and the time that we are
driven into when we are born was but what we willed in our earlier
birth. Since our hopes and desires are linked with the environment
where we have been born, we are born in the same environment again. If
my desire for an Indian dame remains ungratified in this birth, I must
be born somewhere in her neighbourhood in India. That is why, rarely
is a Calcutta born in California during his next life.
Let us take a Prime Minister. Let it be a woman without a name. She
sought to rise into the height and nobody trusts her any longer. How
does that happen? She changed too quickly. Her today refused her
yesterday. She often overleaped the steps when she clambered. For
doing so none of the steps pardons. When aloof she finds herself
lonely. No one speaks to her. The frost of solitude chokes her. She
had a husband. His life was cut off in the prime. She has children but
they live in hostel away from her. She is always surrounded by a bunch
of personal body-guards called the Black Cat. Suppose she is on her
way to a public meeting. No civilian can approach her because of the
exigencies of her security. She finds a happy couple along with a
child standing at distance. They have perhaps come to have a glimpse
of her only. But she might think that how happy such families are,
free from the uneasiness that the crown wears. In her next birth she
might be destined to be an office-clerk. The standard of living that a
college teacher in India enjoys, is less than that of a pet-dog hugged
by an American. No wonder if a college teacher in India dies to be
born as a pet dog in the kernel of an American!
If whatever one does binds him with further chains to the earthiness
of earth. Where is the way out? Krishna says that if a person is
engaged in the sacrificial rites only, his actions do not recoil upon
him. Earlier Krishna seemed to have looked askance at the Vedic rites;
in many parts of the world beyond India in the remote past. Although
Moses ordained sacrifices for the Jews, the Christian abolished it.
Jesus, however, was of the opinion that “not one jot or title of the
law should pas until all these things were fulfilled”. And when it is
said, “it is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul”(Lev. XVII
2). One wonders whether a scape-goat has been referred to, to be
sacrificed at the alter, to make atonement for one’s sins.
But does Krishna simply ask one to devote himself throughout his life
in such rituals? Arjuna should then instantly give up his fight to
raise an alter for the sacrificial fire to be lighted. But that is not
what Krishna means. He must have taken war as the signified and the
sacrificial rite as a signifier. Let us hear him.
Krishna observes that when the creator made the first man and woman
he bestowed upon them the faculty of self-sacrifice. He also ordained
them to observe the sacrificial rites. What else is the sacrificial
rite but the externalisation of the sacrifices enacted in our beings.
We have the unknown and unknowable caverns of mind in us where resides
the coils of snakes that generate desire. There is in every one of us
the beast of prey. Creator has given us the faculty to sacrifice the
best at the alter of the gods. When the drama at our heart is
externalised, it takes the shape of an animal sacrificed at the alter.
Everyday the devout Brahmins in their prayers three times a day,
breath out into their cupped hand, imagining that the demon of
viciousness is expelled from the body along with the polluted air. Now
they throw the imaginary demon into the ground and think that the
demon is dead. This could be easily expanded into a tale for children
or a drama or a religious rites. The creator asked us to create
through this sacrifice. We men cannot but act. We cannot but observe
the sacrificial rites every second that we live. We cannot but create.
The sacrificial fire burns all over the body. There is the metabolism
going on constantly in the living organism. Every desire is a kind of
sacrifice of ourselves to either gods or devils. When the creator
uttered the word ‘god’ its counterpart was also created in the devil.
Just as we often use religious rites to secular end, similarly we
learnt from the creator the science o sacrifice often to worship
devils. The Greek drama was born of the religious rites in ancient
Greece. It was removed from its progenitor to be offered at the alter
of aesthetic pleasure. Now the worship of the devils that are but the
extrovert faculties of the senses created the evil. The worship of the
gods or the introvert faculties of mind might help one in the external
world. Because the deeper the roots of a tree go into the earth, the
higher goes its trunk into the sky. The extrovert mind might set
higher programmes for itself like teaching the men about the A B C OF
morals, or about the rudiments of the management principles. The mind
set a goal to set up an empire like Henry Ford’s. Any organisations
like the General Motors could give employment to so many jobless men
all over the globe. Or else the mind might set up a missionary
organisation to serve the poor, the ailing, and the illiterate. But
these altruistic activities also bind one.
Once there was a great king in ancient India named Bali. He would
readily give away anything whatever from his possessions to anyone who
asked for it. He was something like the historical king
Harshavardhana. As the Chinese traveller Hieun Tsang who visited
Harshavardhana’s court reports, the king would give away even his
apparels to one who begged it of him at the fair at Prayag. Now the
fame of king Bali spread far and wide. One day a small dwarf came to
him for alms. The king promised to give him whatever he wanted. The
dwarf asked for land only three feet in area; the standard of
measurement would be his own foot. The king laughed and asked him to
beg more. No, replied the dwarf. The king smiled and agreed to give
him what he wanted. The dwarf laughed in his heart. Lo! In the
twinkling of an eye he grew taller than the skies. With one of his
feet he possessed the earth; with the other he possessed the heaven.
But the giant had another foot yet which was not found in the dwarf.
The giant planted his third foot on the head of the king only. The
poor king had no more than the heaven and earth in his possession. The
Buddhist Jataka narrates the story of a great king like Sibi. A pigeon
flew to him and asked for shelter. The king gave shelter readily.
Presently a vulture rushed to the king and composed its wings. The
vulture asked the king to give away the pigeon. The king would not
give it away to the vulture. Instead he happily gave away flesh from
his own body equal to the weight of the pigeon to appease the hunger
of the vulture. Still the person of Sibi had to undergo numerous
transmigration till it attained its perfection in Tathagata Buddha of
Kpilavastu – the Enlightened one. Thus any desire whatever binds one
to birth and death cycle. Not to commit oneself to the activities that
bring about birth and death is the summum bonum. What then is the
action that brings about birth and death? Asked a monk to Daishu
Ekai(Ta-chu-Hin-hai) one of Tang masters. To desire activities not
committed to the activities that bring about birth and death was the
answer. That is, desire to become desireless is also a desire that
commits one to birth. Hence, the sacrificial rites should be observed
for the sake of it. Let the Christians go to the Church. Let the Jews
go to the synagogue. That is, everyone should follow the rituals
belonging to his station in the society. He may be a Jew. He may be a
follower of Shinto religion. He may be a Buddhist. Let him observe the
ritual as prescribed by his religion. But this is not all. Everyone is
born in a station in the society, which entails certain duties. For
example, a man of the warrior class is expected to fight. When he
fights he observes his sacrificial duty. Of course, he must not fight
either to win or to lose. He joins in the battle because the battle
comes on his way.
If one could observe one’s station and duties without any hope for
fruition, one reaches the state of undying joy. But this is a
mathematical point for the common run of men. We must try to
approximate it and undergo births and deaths with better opportunities
to realise the self in each one of us.
The five Brothers and the Hundred Brothers lived together in their
childhood, Drone, who is now one among the generals with the Camp of
the Hundred Brothers, used to teach them in the art of war. One day he
asked the boys to appear for a test. He placed a bird on the tree and
asked them to shoot an arrow sharp at a point on the eye-ball of the
bird. Each one of the boys took his chance. Finally Arjuna’s turn
came. When Arjuna concentrated on his target, Drona asked what Arjuna
could see. Arjuna said that could see only the eye of the bird. After
sometime he could see the point only and nothing else of the bird.
Similarly through different births and deaths we should strive for
narrowing the number of desires. We should strive for more and more
altruistic desires. First I might desire the welfare of my family.
Later I might the welfare of my locality. Higher and higher up the
lark of our self should go. The higher it goes, the larger the
landscape it sees and prays for the welfare of what he sees in its
song. Finally it seems to metamorphose into a cloud of fire symbolic
of the blithe spirit whose race is just begun. It showers a rain of
melody upon the earth.
There was a Buddhist monk. His name was Honen. He went to many wise
men and asked each one of them about the road to freedom. They told
him that elaborate disciplines have to be followed. But Honen was
aware of his poor capabilities. So he thought that he was not fit for
becoming their disciple. He went to the library; he read many books in
search of the easier path for lesser men. To his great joy he found
that one has to do nothing else but to simply repent the name Amida,
walking, talking, sitting, standing, eating. If one could always
repeat the name Amida Amida . . . . as long as one breaths, one is
sure to attain freedom. Repeating the name over and over again is a
sacrificial rite of great merit. The name may be Jesus with the
Christians or Krishna with the Hindus. The chanting of the name always
functions like the Chinese wall to keep away the call of the worldly
life from the domain of mind. When one is left on the lonely couch in
passive or pensive mood, a horde of worldly thoughts flock into one’s
mind like numberless scorpions. The repetition of the name Krishna
will prevent one’s mind from barren thoughts. We often think two
things at the same time. I talk to the husband; at the same time I can
think of his wife. Similarly when I work in the office or talk
business, I can simultaneously repeat the name at my heart. In that
case the mind clinging to the name covertly, does not wander
aimlessly, when I am talking business with someone overtly. The
repetition of the name gradually robs the mind of the desires. Even if
someone repeats the name Krishna out of hatred for Krishna the person,
one will get rid of one’s desire in course of time.
The creator asked man to create with the faculty of sacrificing
himself at the alter of god. Every action is a kind of sacrifice. Good
and evil both were created. Those who sacrificed themselves at the
alter of demons, created evil on earth!!
The creator desired us to strengthen the gods through the observation
of sacrifice. The gods should in turn think of the welfare of men.
Thus both the gods and men will attain supreme good. It is said that
sacrificial rites are no longer observed. So the gods must have been
weak than ever now a days. True that the gods live on the sacrifice
offered by men. But it is the Dark Age according to Hindu mythology.
It is the age when men do not offer sacrifice to their gods. They are
godless. The Hindus believe that this Dark Age began with the demise
of Krishna, the protagonist of the Bhagvad Gita, in the year 3101 B.C.
It will continue for 4,32,000 years since then. This Dark Age is the
fourth age in the cycle of history as conceived in Hindu mythology.
Truth was followed by all men during the first age. The proportion of
falsehood and truth, the two constituents of an age will be seventy
five and twenty five respectively when the Dark Age touches its rock-
bottom. Now, if sacrifices are not observed in the Dark Age, gods must
have fled to other worlds to help themselves. Or else, gods can look
after themselves, when men do not recognise them.
to be continued . . .
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