The last few days have had us in India all glued to the news, as our mission to eradicate terror in Pakistan has been launched and successfully carried out. Social media was, as usual, full of advice, often invoking the Bhagavad Gita to assert that even Krishna had demanded that Arjuna engage in battle for dharma’s sake. Ironically, the conflict between India and Pakistan does bear similarities to the Mahabharata war between the honourable Pandavas and evil-minded Kauravas who shared a common ancestry (here of course, Pakistan arose out of India). The Pandavas had wanted claim to land that rightfully belonged to them but the Kauravas behaved as tyrants and on many occasions carried out terror activities to try and kill the Pandavas. When all peacemaking efforts failed, an armed conflict between the sides became inevitable.
Conscious Paradigms from the Bhagavad Gita
It would be fair to say that the Bhagavad Gita is the most authoritative guide to conscious action that we possess. Yet, it is seldom understood in its real subtlety. There is a need now, for us to clear out old thinking and old energy in how we view conflict and more broadly, action. Much of how we have viewed these topics in the past, needs updating. We need to see beyond the paradigm of ‘good’ versus ‘evil’ or ‘light’ versus ‘dark’ and come to know the Light which knows no opposite so that our action is aligned with a higher Will. This is really the call of the Bhagavad Gita. It doesn’t imply non-action or only peaceful action – it implies conscious action. As more and more people are turning towards spirituality, a new, lighter and brighter age can be ushered in on the planet if we can live from a higher understanding.
Let’s look into it more practically. Recall the first statements that Krishna makes in the Gita to a worried and hesitating Arjuna who believes that war would be morally wrong and desultory. While everyone is able to easily quote Krishna’s response, encouraging Arjuna to fight, what is often missed is that surprisingly, Krishna never in the entire Gita, arouses Arjuna’s emotions against the Kauravas. The quickest and most successful pep-talk to Arjuna in that situation would have been to rattle off all the horrid things the Kauravas had done to the Pandavas, to incite Arjuna’s hatred and warrior spirit. But Krishna used all the reasoning in the world with Arjuna, except that one. If we really want to learn from the Gita, then we need to understand that it has chosen to put before us that basest of human actions, violence, so that we really get the point about ‘acting in yoga’. If we really want to extract from the Gita, a wisdom we don’t ordinarily find in the world, we should ask – how can a war be fought without hatred?
Not only ‘what’ is done, but ‘how’
Yogasthah kuru karmani, says Krishna. Perform your action being situated in yoga. This really means that we don’t follow our personal egoistic aims, but do what is appropriate in any situation. A conflict requires a response and so even war may be a necessary and appropriate action to restore balance and ensure peace.
Action doesn’t need to be fueled by hate, greed, lust or envy. It can be motivated by a desire to bring harmony and spread peace or even joy and love. So many explanations are given in the Gita about how one can view action impersonally. The Samkhya yoga understanding is invoked – that everything is a movement of the gunas. The karma yoga understanding is invoked – that all actions must be carried out without desire for the fruits (nishkama karma) and viewed as contributing to the great yajna of life. The bhakti yoga understanding is invoked – do your duty with mind fixed on Krishna. All of it is to remove the thorn of personal intention and doership and with it, imbalanced emotions, lack of clarity and lack of vision of our true purpose. Acting consciously means we have a broader perspective, a deeper vision, the potential to see more options and opportunities, the ability to sense the right way and act with greater success, assisted by cosmic forces and Grace. In fact, by just staying in our centre and being connected to our Light as meditation and prayer help us do, we help the whole field arrive at better outcomes. India can and I believe is, showing to the world an example of this i.e. how even a war can be fought with conscious leadership.
The legend of Khatu Shyama
Of those who either participated in or witnessed the Mahabharata war, the only one worshipped aside from of course, Lord Krishna, is a figure known mainly through folk tradition – Barbarika or Khatu Shyama. What made Barbarika so significant to have devotees throng to the Khatu Shyam temple in Rajasthan in this Kali yuga? Well the story goes that, as the grandson of Bhima, he was an exceptionally talented warrior who could have tilted the war in the Kauravas’ favour because of his resolve to always fight for the losing side. Krishna, knowing this, had approached him, tested him and later asked for his head as an act of charity. Barbarika agreed but because he longed to witness the war, he asked for his severed head to be placed on a hill and be allowed to witness the event, to which Krishna agreed.
But what was truly special about Barbarika, was what he saw happening on the battlefield. When asked at the end of the war, to narrate what he had seen, he said that he only saw Sri Krishna on the battlefield. Sri Krishna was the army of both sides; He was the slayer, He was the slain and He alone was the Victor. It was His Sudarshan Chakra that was fighting the war, not any mortal army. It is for this perception that Barbarika is worshipped with deep devotion, as Khatu Shyama to this day.
