Step : 1
Dhritarashtra : ( Asks) “ O Sanjaya! Tell me, whatever my sons
and the sons of Pandu, who
were eager to fight, did on the sacred battlefield
of Kurukshetra?”
B. Geeta, 1 / 1
It’s
Hastinapur, a small town to the north – west, half an hour for a car journey
from Delhi, the present capital of India. Hastinapur, too, was the capital of
Kauravas and Pandavas.
Dhritarashtra
was the King at Hastinapur. He was a blind, inborn, unable to see the war
between his sons, the Kauravas and his nephews, the Pandavas. But he was too
eager to perceive the incidence, as he was the root cause of the battle;
therefore, the writer of the epic ‘Mahabharat’ vrishi Vyas blessed Sanjaya, a
man from the Royal Court of Dhritarashtra, with the power of remote television
and telecast, so as to narrate the live commentary of the battle to the King,
sitting in the palace.
As the war
was scheduled on the barren land at Kurukshetra, a small village at the
outskirts of Hastinapur, Dhritarashtra and Sanjaya stayed in the palace of the
capital to review the forthcoming incidences.
It is a
single opening question asked by King Dhritarashtra to Sanjaya, that starts the
discourse of ‘Shrimadbhagawadgeeta,’ which is shortly referred as ‘B. Geeta’ by
the present writer in this book.
Sanjaya : ( Replies ) “ Your son, Prince Duryodhan,
with Dronacharya, the teacher of Kaurava’s, viewed the army of Pandavas. ………..
…………. …….”
B. Geeta, 1/2 to 1 / 20
Unlike many other common battles, this battle was not
fought among apposing armies of different religions, different casts or
cultures, nor was it to extend the existing boundaries of the kingdom; but it
was only outbreak of the expanded manifestation of the dispute among the Royal
Family.
King
Dhritarashtra and King Pandu were the sons of Vichitravirya. They were kin
brothers, Pandu being the younger. After Vichitrvirya, Pandu, though younger
that Dhritarashtra, was crowned on the throne of Hastinapur, because Dhritarashtra
being inborn blind by both eyes, was deemed unfit to be a king. Because of some
consequences, when Pandu decided to leave Hatinapur for ever and proceed to
jungle, he crowned his elder brother Dritarashtra as the King of Hastinapur.
Dhritarashtra, further, denied the inborn right of the five sons of Pandu over
the kingdom. Dispute began and worsened with advancing time. When all the attempts
of mediation failed, battle was the only way out. Naturally, some relatives and
friends who were the kings of different territories of Bharat, gathered with
their armies, on the side of Pandavas and, similarly, others on the side of
Kauravas.
Obviously,
the armies on the opposing sides were composed of a mix of mutual relatives,
teachers and friends. The strength of the soldiers on the side of Kauravas was
considerably vast than that, on the side of Pandavas. The Commander- in- Chief,
on the side of Kauravas was Bhishma, the great; and on the side of Pandavas was
Dhrishtadyumna.
As the
formal beginning of the cataclysmic war, renowned warriors blew their conches,
tabors, drums and horns. The echoes, so sounded from the Pandava’s side, fluttered
the hearts of everyone on Kaurava’s side. As the soldiers adjusted their arrows
on the arches, Arjuna requested Krishna to drive his chariot between the two
armies. Krishna, as an intimate friend and as a charioteer of Arjuna,
immediately drove the chariot in the open space between the two armies. Arjuna
paused a while, turned around to see the endless list of his relatives,
brothers, uncles, grandfathers, companions, teachers and friends in the
opposing armies. Everyone was astonished at Arjuna’s abrupt move and watched
standstill, curiously, for his strange strategy.
Step : Two
Arjuna: “ O! Achut ( Krishna ), hold my chariot
steady until I see and recognize those warriors
who are enthusiastic to fight with me in this
war.
B. Geeta, 1 / 22
Krishna : “ O Arjuna, See carefully the Kauravas and the warriors
assembled on their side.”
B. Geeta, 1 / 25
Apparently,
it is in disguise, why Arjuna desired to
drive and hold his chariot amidst the two armies. Probably, Arjuna was
overcome by great compassion. He watched his teacher, Drona;
his
grandfather, the Bhisma; all sons of paternal uncle ( the Kauravas ), fathers
in law, maternal uncles, their sons, grandsons, kings from different kingdoms,
all over the sub continents of Bharata and their armies which joined either the
side of Kaurava’s or Pandava’s.
Arjuna
observed carefully. After he surveyed them all, he was distressful, To him it
appeared that the war meant a slaughter of
one’s own people, which can result into unidentified and unanticipated
outcome. He was surprised as to why nobody out of those gathered here, can’t
look vividly the ultimate result of this devastating war.
Apart from
the attitude of all others, Arjuna turned distraught and distressed, and said :
Arjuna : “ O Krishna! I did see all those, my relatives who are
gathered here to fight.
……………….. ……………..
… ……………………….” B. Geeta, 1 / 28
to 1 /31
“ Krishna!
Well, I have seen, but my body is trembling. There are tremors along my legs,
feet and arms. My mouth and the tongue in it, is becoming dry .My hair stand
stiff. I can‘t hold the
the arch (
the Gandiva ) in my hands, it is
slipping down. My skin is burning with hot flushes all around. I can’t stand,
even. My mind is puzzled. Can’t say
why I realize these adverse symptoms.
I do not think it creditable for me to kill all these relatives. Hay Krishna! I
do not long for any victory and the kingdom of Hastinapur.”
Arjuna : “ Hay Govinda! Why should we become the king
of a kingdom?
Why should we be the proud
owners of pleasure and luxury?
What for we desire to live (after
killing the relatives )? ”
B. Geeta, 1 / 32
“ O Janardan! What would be
manner that we will be blessed after killing the
Kauravas? ”
B. Geeta, 1 / 36
“ O Madhava ! How can we
be happy after killing our relatives? ”
B.
Geeta, 1 / 37
“ O Janardan! Why are we
unaware, to refrain from the sin of destruction of our
family and our clan? ”
B. Geeta, 1 / 39
Arjuna was
so confused that he, at a short time, asked a bunch of questions to Krishna,
without
permitting hardly any time to Krishna to reply. He was unsteady, physically and
mentally. He had lost the power of self reasoning. He felt like a storm over
the usual calm and quite state of his mind, to rouse the abundant waves over it,
big and small, blurring the view at the bottom of his mind, churning the
confusion and grief further.
And it
happens, with all of us at sometimes in our life, too.
A tightly
knit social structure of highly evolved culture, is invariably based on family
oriented ethics. Even now, with the advent of polluted modernization, nobody is
practically free to decide and implement one’s own ideas, as long as they are
approved by the majority of relatives, kin and in laws. Whatever Arjuna
realized, was ideologically, a truth, but a misplaced one, on the grounds of
battle, where the arrows were just to shot up from the arches of the soldiers
on both the sides. Arjuna rolled on his own chain of thoughts. As he estimated
the destruction of all the families of
Kauravas and Pandvas; he feared ending the worship to their forefathers, which
is a grave guilt according to Sanatan ( Vedic ) Religion. He could fairly
depict the consequences of the war. Despite the destruction of his loving ones,
his teacher Drona and his grandfather Bhisma, there will be anarchy, women of
the Royal family will be dishonored, there will be a downgraded mixture of cast
and culture, not any ancestor will be worshiped, and his country, the Bharat,
will not be any more than a hell.
As to his
question, why nobody was inclined to exhibit the ability to anticipate the dark
and
dust of a
terrible war, was true. As a social worker and religious thinkers, salute to Arjuna’s
cognizance, some thousands of years ago. Despite the debate on the historical
landmarks of ‘Mahabharat’, one has to concentrate on the facts of a blurring
history, which is prone to turn into a mythology.
There is
another such incidence in the ancient history of India. The Emperor Ashoka
Maurya
(304 BCE –
232 BCE) the Maurya dynasty, who ruled almost all of the Indian subcontinent,
set up the Kalinga war, which he waged
himself out of a desire for conquest. He rose up as the victories, but cried up,
afterwards, in despair at the sight of the annihilation during the war,
supposedly turned
to Buddhism to guard and propagate the nonviolence in the countries all along
the south-east Asia.
Arjuna’s
questions were most practical, and properly in time, as compared to Ashoka’s
grief,
which pondered
as an aftermath of the battle.
Arjuna’s
questions remained as unanswered by Krishna, for the time. Krishna might have
assumed the changed mind set of Arjuna, as an inevitable affair; if He was to
conciliate him and plant some different ideology to come out victorious in the
present battle.
The Divine
Dialogues
With the
evolution of human race, the linguistic aptitude constantly improved in
dimensions of tune, quality and
temperament. Any kind of human dialog, then, became the source of personal, social
and global attainment of pleasure. And, now, a dialogue has proved an essential
medium for personal satisfaction, familial co existence, fulfillment of social
needs, political moves and global integration.
The dialogues are the modes and modules of
interactions. The basic learning of a baby begins with the warm and assuring
dialogues, initially, with the parents; to be continued lifelong with the kids
of same age group, brothers and sisters, relatives with all age groups,
friends, teachers, neighbors, mentors, seers, philosophers and spiritualists.
Dialogues
are the ideal method of learning for any sort of knowledge. When it comes to
imparting a divine knowledge, dialogues with a mentor matter the most. It’s the
practice
that
sustained for thousands of years, as a reliable means of discourses; either
ethical or mythological. Apart from a chit- chat, any substantial knowledge
needs an intellectual play at a higher level of understanding and genius courage
to implement it in it’s worth ideological values.
It is
surprising enough that such a method of learning evolved to be practiced
widely, when the world was lacking in any supplementary material, like paper,
pen, books, curriculum, black board or a chock to visualize the theme of the
subject in the context.
In the
ancient history of India, the Guru kul, (
Teacher’s Family) pattern of schools was invariably adopted. The pupils
were a part of the mentor’s family and they stayed with him till the end of
their education. The relationship between the teacher and the students, so
developed, was bound hard and everlasting, building faith and respect towards
the teacher.
The teacher
had an opportunity to inspect closely the career inclination and the character
building of every student around him.
But the
dialogues that I refer to, the dialogues among archer Arjuna as a follower and
Lord Shrikrishna as his mentor, as narrated in
Shrimadbhagawadgeeta, are the pillars on peculiarly a different background and unique
circumstances of a battlefield.
The
supremacy of the dialogues is beyond any doubt. The incarnation of Lord Krishna
on the earth, as regarded unanimously by all saints, sages and scholars, is
almost complete in its virtues. He, being the supreme mentor, Arjun is the
supreme follower, as he is the only direct recipient of the knowledge which,
then, is obviously supreme.
The
dialogues imparting spiritual knowledge are invariably abundant in most of the
religious literature around the world; so are they in many religious scriptures
of Hindu literature too, but the dialogues in Shrimadbhagawadgeeta are
outstanding and utmost divine. They are perceived as being more fundamental
principles in any human being, are briefed in appropriate words, being the
sweet and delicious cream of all schools of Hindu religious sciences.
The
dialogues are bilateral and reveal the spiritual principles in user friendly
atmosphere. Otherwise, spiritualism is a mysterious knowledge, too difficult to
attain and understand. It is all about ‘yourself.’ Can somebody try to know
oneself? None can understand you better than you ‘yourself.’ Once we get
ourselves acquainted, the universe remains like a pear on the palm, to be
viewed instantly from all angles to get it recognized beyond doubts.
Despite the
height we attain by climbing the steps of a ladder, what is the purpose of
fostering a ladder of uneven steps, that make it impossible to climb to the top
of it in any single attempt?
Similarly,
the steps of the divine dialogues must be suitable to pull one up towards the
fulfillment of knowledge and success in various aspects of human life. The dialogues
from the Bhagawadgeeta stand confidently upright in this context and nurture
the follower to ride upon the success and satisfaction of his life. As the
dialogues are self evident in transforming a pessimist to an outright optimist,
every individual, may be a devotee or else, is likely to share the benefits of
perusing the verses, which, again, are divine.
I personally
agree to coin the themes of these verses on the ground of individual needs and
fulfillment, of anybody dwelling in the universe. These themes are so invading
the universe, that nobody can refuse the results, out coming as an exercise of
their meditation and contemplation.
The mind,
though invisible to physical eyes, controls all other organs of functions,
flows, as if, with the wind, dipping for a moment down in the valleys, and
touching the high of the sky in another.
Arjuna, the formidable and unparalleled warrior of his time, who had defeated
all the renowned fighters of the Kaurava’s side, during the year of concealment
of Pandavas, was surprisingly reluctant under distress and abandoned the fight,
even before the crusade with the Kauravas was yet to begin, depicting the
question mark for his friend, relative and honorable mentor, Krishna, who was
posed to explain the Geeta in subsequent moments.
The
vulnerable and volatile mind needs to be a mould of stiff and sturdy nature,
without any prejudice, to be a successful crusader. The divine dialogues play
exactly the same roll in everybody who concentrate on them.
We, as a
common men, are anxious to wave our worries away, determine our duties and
goals
and toile
towards the top of our success, to realize ourselves fully gratified in the life.
Let us begin
to step up the ladder steps, the divine dialogues, to meet again at the top of
it, to discuss our journey of ‘Toiling Towards The Top.’
The Pride
Though the nature of my father was bit a reticent, whatever he uttered, used to be highly meaningful.
It was always a surprise to me to listen to his learned thoughts, despite his illiteracy and inability to hold a word out of any religious book.
I do not remember any particular incidence in conjunction to my life, if any, when he asked me,
“ Let there be no pride.”
As usual, I could not either gather any indication from his speech of only of a single sentence, or pay much attention towards it. But, in the due course of time, when I was plunged into the pool of religious books, I frequently used to come across the sentence,
“ The pride erodes the pack of your fortune.”
Decades passed since I was warned about the enemy, but I could not realize the foggy fumes of pride around me; never did I mind the boulders blocking the natural flow for smooth passage of my life. I tried most of the means of devotion; various pilgrimages, fasts, rituals, sermons, perusals, religious narrations to praise Him; all in an urge to get acquainted with the omnipotent God, my Vitthal, to pray him, sometimes, to fulfill my long listing lusts and surrender to him whenever the burden of sorrows on my neck, compels me to bow at His feet.
‘What is the resultant outcome?’
I unduly tried to review. I whorled around, watched eagerly for any glimpses of my devoted Vitthal, concentrated to hear any of His word of assurance and worship, awaited still to help Him pat on my back to encourage,” Stand up and proceed!” None the less, to smell the fragrance of the leaves of Tulasi, that He loves the most. Or, at least to listen the gentle broadcast from the sky,” O! My Gyana!” Or, a drop of the nectar ,from the lotus He bears in His hand, that it’s heavenly taste puts the eternal end for me to the chain of my births and deaths.
Oh! No! Nothing of its kind I was worthy enough!
Totally disappointing!
And, today, while chanting the verse,
‘’ People with abundant pride added with destructive power and arrogance , lust and anger are demonic minded, who are jealous to me, extra vagrant , overwhelmed with demonic joy, do not understand me either alone or living in as a soul in all the bodies.
B. Geeta, 16 / 18
simultaneously remembered me of my father’s advice, ’not to be proud.’
Still I am hopeful and faithful to the seers, saints and scholars, saying,’ the God certainly is yours at any moment you desire to meet Him. He will be all for you, instantly; provided you fulfill the conditions that apply for His acceptance:
There is an event in the epic Mahabharata, wherein Draupadi, the devotee of Lord Krishna
was being tried to be undressed to make her nude by Dushashana, in the assembly of Pandawas and Kaurawas. Nobody was in a position to help her and protect her dignity from this evil manoeuvre . She helplessly cried and called for Lord Krishna, as ‘Govinda !’ to help her immediately. During this occasion, Lord Krishna was at His capital Dwaraka, some 2000 miles away from Hastinapur, the site of this incidence. Lord Krishna rushed immediately, with the word ‘Go….’ and reached to Hastinapur, before she completed the call ‘ ….. vinda !’
But He did not make His existence apparent and begin to help her, as He sow her saree in her tight grip of her hand to resist Dushashana in making her nude . It was only then, when she lost the grip on her saree and thereby the pride, to resist Dushashana and protect herself of her own, that Lord Krishna provided her with a saree of unaccountable length, enough to exhaust Dushashana in pulling it and he was fallen on the floor, comatose and fatigued.
Your pride is the biggest obstacle in getting the help from your devoted God.
It would certainly be a divine knowledge that trains us to overcome the pride and help us to enjoy the presence of God around us.
Self satisfaction and peace of mind can tame the pride, otherwise sins and sorrows are inevitable as the outcome of the pride. The seers and saints hate and outcast the pride, as it creates the ignorance profoundly, to blur our vision to discover the real identity of one’s own,
to announce the reason and resolution of everything in the world: ‘I am the only One.’
The pride is a big burglar to push the ball of pains in the throat of its victim and robe his treasure of pleasure away. A proud man is ashamed of any healthy surrender for a worthy cause. He is lured to be sinful, that boycotts its salvation and continuously extends the chain of his births and deaths.
Is not it a time now for us to escape from our long loving pride?
Oh! My
Sisters and …..……. !
The magic verbal duo from Swami Vivekanand, ‘brothers and sisters’, that once thrilled and shook
the world’ s intellect and passion to perpetuate the notion of the noble Hindu religion,
would have been paused, in grief and shame, at the present circumstances; and then to utter only,
“Oh! My Sisters …!”
Even though an age old thorn, the sexual perversion, erupts and pricks in multi folds, the society can do nothing but mourn on those victims, to whom we call, ‘ My Sisters ….!’
Rape and rapist! Nothing strange! Stranger is all our weak memory , which conveniently forgot
the curse for our life, in our bunch of pleasure and faith in free and fast moving modernization, that the rift between genders, is so universal and natural, impossible to be drifted into a smooth plateau .
And , now, when the socialist, the politicians, the lawyers , the revolutionists, the ministers, the reforming NGO’s , all fail to proceed down along the streets of capital Delhi, to the protesters to calm them down, are crowding at the back doors of the parliament, to argue for the requirement of
a formidable law to minimize the incidences of brutal crime of rape.
But, oh! my sisters! Please do not forget this drama during an interval of a movie, that hopelessly indulges in decreasing the appetite of rapist civilization. Similar were the attempts exercised by our ancestors, worldwide, that can be traced along the pages of written history. Still we find ourselves standing on the same verge of social collapse that our fore mothers realized thousands of years ago.
Though I am not pointing towards any particular incidence of rape in any specific country, I cannot resist myself crying out for my sisters:
and all other in laws are no exception. Even a husband can’t be overlooked. Surveys reveal that
30% rape incidences are reportedly within the inmates of a family. Be alert and learn to analyze the actions , reactions, body language and the intensions focusing out from the pupils of a dormant rapist residing in your family. An otherwise silent shadow around you can turn violent at any moment.
Suspicion and detection earlier is most important. Try to avoid to be lonely with such an individual. Unveil the circumstances to your dearest girl friend. Be sure; ’prevention is better than cure’.
to dominate, even to a so called cultured human. It’s firebrand. Be cautious that, knowingly or innocently, any inflammable fluid is not being poured on such a firebrand. A nude can’t be a too mod. Dress to cover yourself fully. Mind well that the saliva is bound to dribble from the tongue of a dog at the sight of a piece of a bare bone. Please don’t be exhibitionist.
A rapist insists only on his instantaneous muscle power, which, naturally, the victim
lacks appropriately, yielding a resultant success to the rapist. The rapist has a proud
tendency to call himself the singer of the song, ‘Let there be a shower of deaths, after
a momentary enjoyment of love ( sexual)’.Therefore, do not be insecure and alone,
either at home or on the roads. Some girls may revert the physical blow on the rapist,
but it would be an exception, not to be assumed as a rule. Some kinds of protective and defensive exercises may help, but their utility is uncertain at any crucial juncture.
for the competitions of ‘beauty queen’ or ‘miss universe’. Don’t try to walk like a cat and, unnecessarily, attract the dogs to bite and bleed your honor. Do not respond repeatedly to the ill motivated glimpses of any male and invite the ugly events. Women are unduly proud of their beauty and men of their muscle strength. The result is doubtlessly clear, if they colloid and combat.
Medias like T.V., radio, wireless means like mobiles, movies, lustful magazines and unhealthy habits, to understand the necessity to cultivate a cultural mind. The responsibility of restricting
the media that decays the cultural heritage, at any personal end , but it recalls the wide spread outrage against the attitude of the media that only spoils the brain under cover of entertainment. The issue of banning the media on some provocative themes, is out of the reach of this topic, but worth recognizing its role in initiating cruel and coward tendencies among its
millions and millions of spectators.
Sisters !
The above list of precautions is only indicative on the line. You may identify many more if you think seriously. But, none the less, these five points may help you uprooting the
five fingers of the hand raising towards you.
Do not wait for encompassing and widening the definitions of the sexual assaults.
That’s all obligatory on the part of any government. The show will go on.
Self help is the only help for you and for those generations to follow.
We hope, any Swami Vivekanand, any time in the future, will be proud to utter the words;
“ My brothers and sisters!”
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Today the
calendar on the wall highlights 1st January. Whatever was anticipated
until yesterday, vividly stud around me since early in the morning, bombarding
me with the heavy, long and wide, dramatic and poetic greeting messages,
obviously on telephones, for the twelve months of the new year commencing hence
forth. The greetings poured on me so
streamingly that I hardly enjoyed any time to answer them all. No sooner than I uttered briefly and silently
on the calls, my family members reminded me:
“ Oh! It’s a
tradition! Follow some etiquettes, these are the manners! “
The chair I
was leaning on, offered me some assurance to sit calm and quiet for some
measurable moments to recall the bunches of greetings I was wished with during
all
forty odd
years in the past.
The wishes,
during all those years, for a happy and prosperous year for me, were unaccountable.
Only the number was waxing during some years and waning during some others; but
the years of my life, as I see, crawled slowly, tumbling and jumbling as usual,
with all pains but a streak of pleasure, only to count the years gone by! As I
could glimpse around me,
I could see
in the crowd surrounding me, all my affectionate friends and loving relatives,
surprisingly sailing in the same boat that I was boarded on, and, who are greeted for prosperous and happy
future, thousands of times and , still, are aching due to throbbing pains and
recurrent bleeding scars in the past,
incurred by the blows of their day to day
struggle to thrive.
Do the
greetings really influence anybody’s prospects and carry on the prosperity?
Let the
answer be ‘yes’ or ‘no’; in either circumstances, a question lingers in the
mind, ‘why?’
I personally
agree with the answer, ‘no’. These greetings can change nothing of our fate.
Those who
are introvert, can realize the fact that there is almost nothing potential in
the
Greetings to transform the future and fate of the concern individual; because when we
try to greet for a new year, we actually greet the ‘time’ which is never an ‘old, or a
‘new.’ It is only in a language grammar, to cultivate our spoken ability to
utilize tenses described as present, past and future. A day of 1st
January does not carry any significant difference than the 31st
December
or 2nd
of January. There aren’t, necessarily,
any celestial or natural changes. The difference, if any, is only the figure of
the preceding number ( 31 ) and succeeding( 2 ), printed on the calender.
Our most
dependable measure of a year is the number of sun rise and sun sets, where we
conveniently
overlook the fact that the sun too, is in the tight grip of ‘time’, which can
create
thousands
and thousands of suns in the universe and disperse them into fumes and dust.
Therefore,
there is no any old or new year for our world to greet among ourselves. Still
we greet many more calendar occasions, at least some 10 days in a year, forward
average 100 greetings per occasion, wasting of our valuable time of several
hours and money in hundreds, just to award the honor to ourselves , I say, ‘ social
gentleman.’ I doubt, most of us fear to
be reluctant in greeting and join the euphoriant chaos to avoid the ‘asocial’ brand over our
personality. And, we never forget to taunt the names of those ‘mannerless creatures’ around us who do not indulge
themselves in such fruitless traditions.
Again, it is
a well known trend in any treading, to paralyze the customer first and then
loot
his pocket
as much as possible, such greeting trends seem to be emerged from the economic
brain of the
telecommunication companies , who earn millions and millions through the back
doors while
the world population is jubilant at the front end over the occasion which does
not harbor any special impact on personal , social or global life and is meaningless on the screen of ‘TIME.’