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July 13 - July 31, 2024
The great sage, Vedavyasa, never portrayed Krishna as God or an avatar in his original version, Jaya. It was only later, in the Mahabhagawatam, that he is seen as an avatar of Vishnu. There were many criticisms voiced about Krishna in the Mahabharata. Characters like Shishupala, Suyodhana, Gandhari, and even Balarama, his brother, sometimes made scathing verbal attacks on Krishna. Vyasa effectively used these opposing viewpoints to create a rounded story.
The Mahabharata, in essence, is a narrative without a hero. Rather, every character is a hero.
This demonstrates how critical thinking is the basis of all our philosophy. We have no concept of blasphemy. This openness to criticism is what makes the Hindu religion and its traditions unique. Vyasa did not hide Krishna’s faults, nor did Valmiki remain silent on Rama’s shortcomings.
Teaching was not about making rebels who would challenge and change the established order. He was sure that ultimately everybody, including the Gods and god men, conspired to pull down such rebels and crush them into the dust.
Life is a gamble. You do not know how the dice will fall. But once they have, how you move the pieces is in your hands.
There are people who will offer you many things and demand nothing in return. Fear them the most, for they are the ones who will take the things that are most precious to you and then their demands will come at a time when it is most inconvenient to you.
“Daughter, our dharma is sanathana. They cannot destroy it. No man can. They are merely redefining it to suit our times. Dharma keeps evolving to suit the needs of people in different ages. Some may even say it is our own Priests who are destroying dharma, by stifling it and misinterpreting our scriptures.
Not all things spoken are true. The Truth changes. Wisdom lies in understanding this.
The dharma of a warrior was to shoot where his superiors told him to, not to question why.
Stithapranja is the aim of the ideal man – to remain calm in all circumstances, all the time – in birth, death, love, war or peace. Live in the world like a drop of water on a lotus petal, thinking only about doing one’s duty, irrespective of the results, and not getting bothered about success or failure. That is the meaning of life!’
Never associate any evil with a group. Hate their sins, but not the people. Be generous. Keep giving and the world will return those favours manifold.
When an arrow was shot with skill, it did not ask whether the hands that held the bow were those of an Untouchable or a Prince.
‘Perhaps I am being harsh about our modern times, since history has a tendency to scatter gold dust over mundane things. Who knows what those heroes were really like in real life? Some may have been tyrants or despots. Myths acquire colour over time.
Bhanumati suspected Suyodhana loved his friends more than they loved him back. He was the Crown Prince and he would inherit a vast kingdom. He had nothing to gain by befriending a chariot driver or a poor Brahmin, whereas they stood to gain much. Yet nobody could have been more loyal than Suyodhana towards them.
When someone loves my Lord sincerely, the Lord loves him back manifold. The first thing He does is take away wealth. He gives his devotees unhappiness and suffering, for He knows that only in suffering can we remember His glory. If we have wealth and happiness, we will not think about Him and will thus remain immersed in worldly pleasures. He gives us misfortunes so that we hate the illusory world and strive for moksha. He is compassionate.
How then was he different from the Pandavas he hated? Was there a Yudhishtra hidden inside Suyodhana and vice versa?
The Gandharans lived in the moment, without bothering about the afterlife or the eternal soul. For them, there was no moksha, sanyas or brahmacharya. There were no seekers or philosophers in their midst. Life was now.
Remember my words and see how you will be treated. You can earn respect in two ways – by force or by deeds. The choice is yours. Either way, you will be remembered.”
Times were changing and one could not always expect the same people to rule always. If an idea was to survive, it had to adapt with the times – bend but not break, show it was changing, yet never really change.
The bloodiest wars were when both sides thought they were the righteous ones.
“A good politician knows when to act noble and when to be ruthless. Politics is the art of using others to achieve your goals.”
“Follow your heart, son. That is your dharma. Do not worry about what the world thinks. The world is transient, but you are eternal.”
“You Yadava should be the last person to preach dharma. I know what your dharma is and I know what you mean by adharma. If you are an avatar of Vishnu as you claim, then it is you who dwells in my heart and I follow my heart. That is my dharma.
“The entire universe is an illusion – maya. Life is just a dream.” “The pain of life is real, the joy of living is real, and the myriad emotions that make life worth living are all real.”
“What is born will die, brother. What dies will be reborn. Day gives way to night and night to day. It is the eternal cycle of life. Why mourn the unavoidable?”
“Brother, by desiring an object, attachment is born. From attachment, wrath is born. From wrath comes want of discrimination. From want of discrimination arises ruination of intelligence. From loss of intelligence springs loss of understanding, and then man is ruined.”
“There are three qualities in nature, brother – satva, rajo and tamo. All three are present in all of us. But it depends which one we nourish. Satva is the quality of light, knowledge and equanimity; rajo is the quality of bravery, chivalry and power; and tamo is passion and desire.”
“Then know that I am the Unborn. I am the Lord of all creatures. Whenever there is loss of piety and evil men like Duryodhana rise to power, I am born, again and again, age after age, for the protection of the righteous and the destruction of evil; to establish piety and devotion to God.”
“I am the Father and Mother of the universe, and I am the Creator. I am Immortality. I am Death. I am that by which this universe is held. I am the life force, the source of evolution and dissolution. There is nothing greater than me. I am Om.”
“I am Death, the destroyer of worlds. Behold the sight of the sons of Dhritarashtra, Bhishma, Drona and the great warriors from both sides entering the mouth of Time. See how their heads are crushed, their limbs torn apart. Behold the future and the spectre of the past. Behold me for I am TIME.”
Karna knew in his heart that such ruthless enemies would not fight fairly. His friend would lose, but he, Karna, would ensure it was a glorious defeat and far better than a shame-filled victory. It was the least a Suta could do for his Kshatriya friend.
“Partha, just as boyhood, youth and old age are in one’s body and manifest themselves at the appropriate time, so is death. But what dies is born again. That is the eternal law of karma. Death and birth are like day and night. Do we mourn the night when we rejoice at the birth of a new day? To the wise, just as day and night are part of nature, so are life and death.”
Consider pleasure and pain, victory and defeat, gain and loss, life and death, as equal and insignificant. Fight the battle in the name of duty.
“Do not get attached to the results of your work. Be devoted to the work alone. Misery is an illusion.”
The senses are superior to an inert body, the mind is superior to the senses and the intellect is superior to the mind. You must be the man who walks the path of intellect. That is the path of devotion to one’s cause.
If you are omniscient, you should know what adharma is. If you are omnipresent, why take birth at all or come to the world, when you yourself are the world? If you are omnipotent, why create evil at all? Why create adharma if you have the power of creation and destruction? If adharma is a mistake, then you are not omnipotent or omniscient. But if you created adharma by design, then you are not the compassionate Supreme Soul, having known the suffering that would ensue. It reeks of sadism. If adharma arose on its own and you have to fight to vanquish it, you are not omnipotent but just like any
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Dharma and adharma are but different manifestations of the same energy. What is dharma today will be adharma tomorrow. That is why a yogi does not bother about the results of any action.”
The four varnas I have created are not based on birth but the nature of human beings. Those who walk the path of knowledge are Brahmins, those who take the path of action are Kshatriyas, those who travel the path of devotion are Vaishyas, and those who indulge in sensory pleasures are Shudras, destined to serve all others.
Perfection is stillness, perfection is death.
lessons. I find that instead of striving to become a stitaprajna, it is easier to cry when I feel sad, to laugh when I feel happy, to shout when I am angry and to embrace when I feel love.
The victorious warrior sat sobbing at Bhishma’s feet, trying to find solace in Krishna’s advice that the soul was immortal and nobody could kill anyone. Then why did he not feel detached from his actions? If dharma had prevailed, why did his heart drown in sorrow?
Krishna’s obsession with dharma as he defined it, was the reason for all this carnage. How much more blood would flow for an idea nobody understood and each person defined in his own fashion? Both sides passionately believed they had dharma on their side. The tragedy was that no one was going to win, not even Krishna.
His history and that of his people did not matter to Bharatavarsha. They belonged to the wrong side of the Vindhya mountains.
As the celebrations continued on both sides of the great field of Kurukshetra, darkness cloaked the Rakshasa in silence.
Shalya had been right, he should have taken the opportunity when it had come. But then he would have been like Arjuna, another puppet, another Kaunteya.
Karna, the man whose life the Gods were fond of playing dice with; the man who had chosen to remain a low-class Suta when an empire was offered to him on a platter, died in his friend’s arms. The war lost all meaning for Suyodhana.
I have had a good life for I feared no God or avatar, but lived as my heart told me to. No priests dictated what was right and wrong to me. I lived like a man and will die as one.
“Fate? No, do not blame fate for this, Mother. Remember the night at Varanavata when we trapped five Nishadas and their mother and left them to the fire? They were innocent, like our sons, yet we sacrificed them quoting karma and dharma. Well, our karma has caught up with us. The flames that took the Nishadas have taken our sons, too.”
“Yadava, your dharma brought misery, war and death to Bharatavarsha. Your dharma made brother fight brother, cousin fight cousin; it pitted nephew against uncle and father against son.
“Arjuna, time is God, time is dharma. Fame, victory, wealth, infamy, defeat, poverty – all are but manifestations of time. Kalapurusha acts with prakruti, nature, to set the rhythm of life. Just as seasons come and go, like winter follows the rainy season, which follows summer, which follows spring, time brings different stages. Your time as a warrior has ended. Your karma will catch up with you. Krishna’s time will end soon; even he is not free of his karma. Prakruti and Kalapurusha, the God of Time, together bring change.”
