Depression

   [Drums were beat. Arjuna wanted to have a last look at the positions the great opponent warriors had taken in the battlefield of Kuruksetra to fight against him and his brothers. Krishna, his friend, philosopher and guide was acting as his charioteer in the engagement. He drove the chariot to the centre of the field and drew reins at a convenient place as desired by Arjuna. Arjuna casually looked around and found armed against him people for whom he had the deepest respect, people whom he adored and loved and people of the younger   generation for whom he had deep feelings of affection. Amongst them were his   grandfather, his teachers, his uncles and their contemporaries. Amongst them were his friends, cousins and brothers-in-law. And amongst them were his nephews and their playmates. He could very well imagine that he would have to indiscriminately slaughter all these near and dear ones who have taken part in the war. Many who had taken his side were also certain to perish as both the armies contained equally capable and brave warriors. Suddenly a deep depression fell upon and overpowered him. He uttered aloud the anguish in his heart.]

   Arjuna: Grandfather, Teacher, Uncles, Cousins, Nephews, Friends! All my respected and revered ones! All my near and dear ones! I have to do away with all of them! But, for what? Just for recovering a few acres of land! What’s going to be the ultimate outcome of such a bloodshed? All the able-bodied male members of the warrior community of the country will perish. Their women-folk will be compelled to take shelter under men of different communities and breed half-castes. Their progenies shall have no right to offer respect to the departed souls! The result will be the souls of these warriors will never find peace! To be a party to bring down such a calamity on the community seems to be the most heinous crime that can be committed on earth. This will result in a sin that is certain to entail eternal Hell for me! Besides, if all the warriors of the country die, what charm shall there be in reigning over a kingdom with no challenge or opposition to face? Would it not be better for me to get killed in the war without offering any resistance? It’s said that for a warrior to die in the battlefield is the highest honour that can be thought of and his soul rests in Heaven for ever!

   [Arjuna started trembling. Tears rolled down his cheek. The bow fell off his hand and he sat down on the floor of the chariot]

The Soul

   [Krishna had heard every word that Arjuna uttered. He stared at him quietly for a while and   thereafter began to scold him sternly.]

   Krishna: Shame! Arjuna, shame! A warrior by cast, yourself an ace archer of the age! How can you succumb to such imbecility? This is most unbecoming of a warrior of your calibre! More so, when the war is imminent and has got to be fought out! Don’t behave like an eunuch! Shake off this petty sentimentalism!

   [Arjuna was taken aback. He was not accustomed to getting such stern rebukes from anybody whatsoever. He simply blurted out.]

   Arjuna: In my childhood I was taught that the superiors and elders are to be respected; equals are to be loved and the younger ones to be protected and looked after with affection. But what am I out to do here? Butcher them mercilessly! How shall I bear my life when all of them are dead! How can I enjoy a kingdom that will be tainted with their blood! This is a most perplexing situation. I can’t make out what to do. Would it not be better for me to lead the life of a beggar than to commit such an atrocity!

   Krishna: You grieve for what no grief is called for! At the same time you use words of wisdom! You do not seem to have even an iota of wisdom! The wise man never grieves for anybody whatsoever - alive or dead. He knows that the present is not one’s only human life. Each one of us, who have assembled here, have been born thousands of times in the world as human beings in the past and shall be so born thousands more of times in the times to come. The human Soul is immortal and eternal. In a particular body, it enjoys childhood, youth and old age. Thereafter, it forsakes the body and takes up a new one in the same way as we throw away an old and tattered garment and get a new one. No weapon can injure the human Soul, nor any fire burn. No water can drench it nor any air dry it up! The true character of the human Soul is absolutely incomprehensible. Some consider it to be a wonder. Others speak of it or hear of it to be a wonder. But none can make out what it really is! It remains in oblivion. It manifests in a human body for a while and returns to oblivion. The body it takes up is besieged by the senses. Divers feelings e.g. heat and cold, happiness and sorrow, high spirit and low, good and evil, etc. have their play on the body. The soul merely watches, as a witness, such a play of the senses over the body. But, it is never affected by the feelings. It is powerful enough to put an end to the play of the senses on the body and even to make the body immortal. You will be completely mistaken to assume that your weapons can touch the soul of any of your opposing warriors. Your weapons will fell certain mortal bodies. What sin can there be to fell bodies that are bound to fall some day or other? Whoever is born is sure to die and whoever is dead is bound to take rebirth. Even if that not be so, even if this be our first and the last birth, none of the opposing warriors can escape death. This is what the Sankhya philosophy says. What harm can there be if they die in your hands?

   Your cousins, by deception, have deprived you of your kingdom. They have compelled you to declare a war for its recovery. You will be twice mistaken to consider this to be a mere fight for recovery of property? This war is for the establishment of the Truth over falsehood. This is what is known by the term “War for Religion". Hardly ever a warrior gets the chance to take part in such a war in one lifetime. If he dies in fighting for truth in such a warfare, his place is assured in Heaven for all times to come. If he succeeds, he has the glory of establishing Truth over falsehood and enjoyment of property and rights. You speak of sin? If there is any act sinful for a warrior, it is to get himself killed in a battlefield without offering a fight. If you flee, you will prove yourself to be the cowardliest of cowards and open yourself to such adverse criticism that will make your life absolutely miserable. Do you think you will be able to lead such a life of disgrace?   Come on! Shake off this meaningless weakness of yours! Collect your intellect! A collected intellect gives a single-minded determination to follow one’s object. A diffused intellect makes a man roam about hither and thither and to take recourse to the rituals prescribed by the Vedas, the scriptures, for earning the vulgar prizes of the world. To a person, whose intellect is diffused, the rituals appear to be a water reservoir in the midst of a desert. But, to one whose intellect is collected, the rituals are hardly of any use. To such a person the rituals constitute merely a basin of water in an area submerged by a flood. He is ever composed. Nothing can distract him from his purpose. He has no wants, no desires. He works for the sake of work alone. He does not have any attraction for the outcome of his work. Consequently, no work can ever become a bondage for him. People having diffused intellects become slaves of their works because, their work is always tainted with the object of producing a desired result. But, note. A collected intellect does not make a person idle. It keeps him engaged in work but does not make him interested in its outcome. He is indifferent to the outcome, be it good, bad or indifferent, be it the cause of pleasure or pain, or be it virtuous or sinful in common parlance. You have a right to work but not to its outcome. So, do not look forward at the result. But, at the same time, do not refuse to work! To work with a collected intellect and singularity of purpose — without any consideration for the probable outcome — is what is known as Karma-Yoga or Work as Oblation. Karma-Yoga is the real secret of doing effective work. A little practice of Karma- Yoga obliterates all fears, anxieties and uncertainties from the mind of the worker. He feels pity for the people who sow for reaping a harvest. To him such people appear to be beggarly.

   Arjuna: What distinguishes a man of collected intellect from the others? Where may he live? How behave?

   Krishna: The senses drive a person towards destruction in the same manner as a tempest carries away a ship. If the mind picks up a thought regarding an object of the senses, it gets attached to it. From attachment is born a desire to acquire it. If the object is not forthcoming, anger is roused. Anger leads to infatuation. Infatuation causes loss of reasoning. Loss of reasoning brings forth lack of discrimination which in its turn leads to destruction. The man of collected intellect has no attraction for any of the objects of the senses. He is ever absorbed in the Self. He is not affected by the dualities of pleasure and pain, happiness and sorrow, profit and loss, heat and cold, good and evil etc. He rises above all attachment, anger or fear. He draws in his mind and intellect within his own self, away from all the objects of the senses, in the same way as a tortoise draws in all its limbs within its own shell. A person who can do this is called a sage. Desire, fear or anger can not have any influence on him. But, at the same time he has no aversion or antipathy in the enjoyment of any of the objects of the senses. He of course does not run after any of them. He enjoys if any of these comes his way. If none comes, he is not bothered at all. His enjoyment may be hampered midway. Even that can not trouble or disturb him in any way. As river-water flows into the sea to lose its identity, as flies rush into the fire to get engulfed, so do the senses run into the sage to get destroyed. They can not shake his composure, peace or tranquility in any way. I would like you to have a collected intellect as a sage and to fight, as Karma-Yoga, the battle that has presented itself before you.

Work

   Arjuna: I am getting rather confused. You speak so highly of the Sankhya Philosophy that professes eternity of the soul and that life or death of a body does not make any difference to it. In the same breath, you are instigating me to start a dreadful battle. I am perplexed and cannot make out what really should be the proper action for me in the present circumstances.

  Krishna: Sankhya and Karma-Yoga may appear to be different to children. To the wise there is no difference at all between the two. They are but two different roads leading to the same goal. Sankhya is best followed by people of the ascetic nature. But for a worker Karma-Yoga is the way. By nature, you are a worker. Your way is Karma-Yoga. It is impossible for anyone to live without any work whatsoever. Each movement of the body and even of the mind come within the purview of work. Eating, drinking, walking, standing, sitting, sleeping, talking, listening, giving, taking, creating, thinking and even breathing is work. As a result, each individual has to go on doing some work or other all the time. The ascetic practising Sankhya refrains from doing worldly work but he has to concentrate on the work of meditation. Keeping oneself physically away from work but mentally thinking about any of the objects of the senses is not real asceticism. It is a false practice. Whether in doing worldly work as Karma-Yoga or in practising asceticism, one has to shun all the objects of the senses casting them off from one’s mind altogether. One has to forsake all desires, attractions, affections and attachments utterly. If one can do so, one cansuccessfully perform asceticism or Karma-Yoga whichever one chooses. By the one, one comes to know one’s own self by meditation. By the other, one ultimately comes to know ones own self through work.   I had better explain to you the intricacies of Karma-Yoga. The world was created by Brahma, the Creator, through a great oblation. He also created the Gods and human beings through oblations. He ordained that human beings should worship the Gods and pray for material objects. In return the Gods will bestow on them the objects prayed for. But human beings should offer these objects first to the Gods and then enjoy them as prasad. Strict compliance with this law keeps away the sense of sin from the person concerned. This process is meant to enrich both the Gods and the human beings. Failure to comply with this law and enjoying the objects of the senses, without offering them to the Gods who made them available, amounts to misappropriation and is considered sinful.

   It was a Divine Work that created the Vedas. From the Vedas were created oblations. Oblations caused gathering of clouds. Clouds produced rain and rainfall made it possible for food to grow. All the living beings were created from food. To keep the process alive, the Creator, i.e. the Divine, is ever busy in performing the work of oblations. Once oblation stops, creation will dissolve. This is precisely the reason why it is essential for mankind to go on doing oblations. The best way is to convert all work into oblation by offering every action as also its outcome to the Divine. Whoever works solely for personal benefit wastes his life.   However, one who can live always within one’s own self and be ever happy and satisfied with one’s own self is wise. Such a person can do without doing any other work whatsoever. But such a person also goes on doing some work or other all the time. The most glaring example is the King-Sage Janaka. Such people work with the object of keeping the ignorant masses engaged in work. The ignorant is habituated in blindly following what the knowledgeable people do. If the wise had sat idle, the ignorant masses would also sit idle. Such an event would be disastrous to humanity. Why not look at Me? I am Myself the Divine, the Creator. I have nothing whatsoever to ask for and there is nothing that does not belong to Me. Why then do I go on doing some work or other all the time without respite? Because, if I do not, the people around would follow Me and humanity would go to the dogs. The wise men have, however, no attachment at all to the work they do. Nor have they any attraction to the outcome of their work. The ignorant masses cannot work without any attraction to its fruit or without attachment to the work. In reality, no one has any capacity to do any work whatsoever. All work in the world is done by the work-forces of Nature. The individuals are its instruments. But human ego makes the instruments feel themselves to be the real workers. The wise men, who know how to forsake their ego, can detach themselves from their own activities. In that state they can observe as, silent spectators, that these are not their own but mechanical actions of Nature. Nature is none other than the Divine. They know that the outcome of all their work will be what the Divine wills and not what they themselves expects. This is precisely the reason for the wise men not taking any interest whatsoever in the outcome of their work. They simply allow themselves wilfully and diligently to be used by Nature as its instruments and offer all that is done through them as oblations to the Divine. This is a knowledge that the wise men keep to themselves, lest the ignorant masses coming to know of this knowledge lose their bearings.   You are a Ksatriya, a warrior by caste, and an ace archer. It will be wise for you to shoot every arrow as an offering to the Divine without caring for its outcome, be that good, bad or indifferent. The senses make you calculate the probable outcome of the war and raise in you a disgust for it and try to allure you towards asceticism. Beware! Do not get into their clutches! They are sure to mislead you. Even if one is not skilful in one’s own work and skilful in some other work, one should not leave one’s own work and take up the other. Better die in trying to do your own work than to take up work that is not meant for you as by this your soul’s progress will hamper.

   Arjuna: You mean to say that one should not give any quarters to the senses! But, in reality, it is found that some foreign force drives and conducts every movement  of the mind and the body even against the will of the person concerned. What can such force probably be?

  Krishna: True! It is Desire. It is Anger. It is born of Rajas, i.e. the Drive of Propensity, a work-force of Nature. It covers up knowledge in the same way as smoke envelops the fire, dust the mirror and uterus the embryo. It is in this manner that one is led towards destruction. Desire is so powerful that it can overshadow even the wisdom of the wise and cause his downfall. It is necessary, therefore, to reject desire utterly. For this a constant vigil has to be maintained over one’s mind and one’s senses. As soon as any desire tries to enter into the mind or any of one’s senses, it has to be successfully resisted. The senses are powerful no doubt. But the intellect is more powerful than the senses. The mind has much more power than the intellect. But the most powerful part of a human being is his soul. If the mind and the intellect can be firmly rooted in the soul, Desire can be successfully kept at bay but not otherwise. It is your duty to get a contact with your soul and from there to banish from yourself Desire — lock, stock and barrel. I can assure you that you definitely have that capacity.

  Knowledge

   Krishna: Of course, this is not the first time I am talking about all this. Long ago, I had imparted this knowledge to King Vivaswan. He passed it on to his son Manu. Manu, in his turn, passed it on to his son Iksaku and in this way it continued to be known from generation to generation. But due to the ignorance of the human intellect, it went on being distorted more and more every day and ultimately lost itself in the wilderness of time. At present it has become an absolutely idle formality. This is the reason for your not being aware of such knowledge and for me to disclose it anew.

   Arjuna: This seems to me to be the height of absurdity. Vivaswan reigned over the world ages ago and you are living and moving about on it at the present moment. How could you have talked to him at all?

   Krishna: Did I not try to impress upon you a little while ago that this is neither our first birth nor our last? Of course, it is not possible for you to remember all that had happened during our previous lives but, being Myself the Creator, I remember everything that has been happening in the world since its creation. All that is going to happen in the future is also known to me. As the Divine, I lay down certain disciplines to be followed by mankind in the spiritual field as well as in the material for regulating their conduct. Mankind deviates gradually from such disciplines and ultimately makes them nugatory. Law and order dwindle. Hooliganism and vandalism become rampant as has happened now. This necessitates My re-incarnation in a human body to destroy the evil forces, to re-establish law and order and to lay down disciplines afresh. I Myself follow such disciplines meticulously set an ideal for humanity to follow. By this process I slowly and gradually raise humanity to divinity. This is the game I play with the world. An attempt to find out the nature of this game of Mine is known to be the search for knowledge. Whosoever can unfold the mystery of this game is can be called the best amongst all human beings. Different individuals construe Me differently according to their mental make up. In whatever form an individual construes and worships Me, I assume for him that very form. Whatever an individual asks from me, with single-minded devotion, I cause to be made available to him.

   I was telling you that all work in the world is carried out by Nature through Her work-forces, using individual human beings as Her instruments. When such an individual considers himself as the doer of the act, he gets involved in the work and consequently gets attached to it. I have classified human beings into four broad classes, e.g.

  a) The Brahmin or the Teacher — For acquisition and  imparting of knowledge;

  b) The Ksatriya or the Warrior — For ruling over land and people and for  fighting battles;

  c) The Vaisya or the Trader — For carrying on trade, commerce, agriculture and industry;

and

  d) The Sudra or the Servant — For serving the other three classes of people.

   To carry out the particular work I set for an individual, I provide him with the necessary faculty. But, I never consider Myself as the author of such classification nor giver of such faculty. As a result, I do not get attached to or become a slave of this work of mine. Desire and attachment to the outcome of the work and the ego of its doer cause bondage or servitude to the work. An individual, always prepared to give up the work he is doing efficiently at a moment’s notice, does not have any such bondage and does not become a slave of the work he does. One who is not so prepared or has even the slightest hesitation, when called upon, to give up the work he is doing, has made the work his bondage and himself its slave.

   It is nothing unusual for you to be unable to decide what should be proper for you to do in the present circumstances. Such indecision is not uncommon even amongst the most intelligent of people in certain circumstances. It is necessary to distinguish between work and non-work in order to resolve such indecision. The easiest way is to feel oneself to be doing nothing while doing any work whatsoever — even the most strenuous of work — and to feel to be working strenuously while doing nothing. Settled realisation of this practice makes a man wise and wisdom alone has the capacity to turn out desire and attachment from a person and to purify his nature. When anticipation of a particular outcome of the work one is doing, ego as being the worker oneself, dependence on anybody for anything, attraction for gifts or presents, sense of heat and cold, pleasure and pain and happiness and sorrow drop off from one, all work turn out to be oblations whose ingredients, purpose, outcome, priest, recipient and all seem to be one and the same — the Divine Himself. This is one of several methods of performing oblations. There are, indeed, other methods of performing oblations as well e.g. worship of Godheads, Restraining the Senses, Self-analysis, Practice of austerities, Study of the Scriptures and so on. All oblation is work and all work can be turned into oblation by offering it to the Divine, by not expecting any particular outcome of it and by not having any attachment to the work or its outcome. Even the vilest of work, done as an oblation, cannot affect the worker in any way. But, even a trifling work, done with an eye towards its outcome, causes attachment and bondage to the work. The best of oblations is acquisition of wisdom. In order to be able to do so, one has to take proper lessons from a wise teacher, to serve him with respect and to get clarification from him of every troubling question and problem regarding the way to unite with the Divine. Such union, once accomplished, makes one consciously part and parcel of the Divine. There are, of course, other methods as well for acquisition of wisdom. Doing of all work as oblations causes wisdom to dawn upon one by itself. Perfect control of the senses, worship of the Divine in any form whatsoever, etc. may lead one to wisdom. But so long as even an iota of desire or attraction towards the outcome of the work is there, wisdom stays at bay. Wisdom produces settled peace in one. Without wisdom and without devotion and respect for the Divine no one can expect to have peace. Lack of wisdom, devotion and respect is the principal cause of your confusion. Come out of such ignorance and do your work i.e., fight the battle as if you are performing an oblation! Forsake anticipation of its probable outcome! Consecrate yourself totally to the Divine and offer each individual action of yours to Him!

Asceticism

   Arjuna: If asceticism may also lead to wisdom, why do you insist on my taking up violence in preference to that?

   Krishna: The physical giving up of worldly work does not by itself make an ascetic of one. An ascetic has to do a lot of other work. He has to do worship, meditation, study of the scriptures etc. constantly and that too without expectation of any favourable outcome. This practice is very dry and difficult in the extreme. Asceticism is not for you. You are a warrior. Yours is the way of ruling over land and people and for that, if necessary, to fight fierce battles. Do not get psychologically involved in the battle. Remember always that it is not you who is fighting the battle — it is the Divine who is fighting through you. This alone will make your fighting an oblation.   You are afraid of committing a sin! Know once for all that the Divine does not take notice of one’s virtue or sin! These are creations of human ignorance and guide a person’s conduct so long as he chooses to remain involved in the human ignorance. Opt out of such ignorance! Set off single-mindedly to your work! Do it as an offering to the Divine and as an oblation! Wisdom will dawn upon you through the battle and will unite you with the Divine in your mind, vital, body and soul. The wise, the ignorant, the animals and all other living beings and inanimate objects will equally appear to you to be the Divine Himself. To attain to this position is the real object and hoal of a human life. The human soul goes on taking body after body so long as this goal is not reached. Once a human soul reaches this goal, it becomes optional for it to take up further body or bodies or none at all. If it so chooses, it may fuse totally with the Divine. It may also choose to go on taking bodies one after another so long as it intends to take active and conscious part, as a willing partner of the Divine, in the game that the Divine plays with all human beings.    In search of momentary outward pleasure, mind absorbs desire and anger. Living in a human body to prevent being overpowered by desire or anger is the primary discipline to be followed by a spiritual seeker who wants to get out of the ignorance in which human beings, by and large, remain submerged. Spiritual practice can be taken up through work done as oblation, through asceticism or through any other method that is suitable to one’s individual nature. Once desire and anger have been conquered, one proceeds by leaps and bounds towards the goal.

  Meditation

   Krishna: I will explain to you in detail about the practice of Meditation. It is, in fact, the practice of a mental discipline that leads one ultimately to the realisation of the Divine. Living in seclusion, maintaining regular habits of eating and sleeping and doing all other work necessary, one sits on a seat which is neither too high nor too low, neither too hard nor too soft. The backbone, the neck and the head are held in a straight line. The gaze is fixed at the tip of one’s nose. The mind is applied in shaking off fear in toto from itself and making itself completely void of all thoughts. Every moment some thought or other tries to raid into the mind. These have to be prevented from entering into the mind. If any thought sneaks into the mind, it has to be immediately thrown out. It is a difficult job, no doubt. But, patience and perseverence can bring about the result of making the mind as still as a the flame of a lamp burning in a breezeless place. Being settled in such a state is the summit of the practice and is called the state of Samadhi. This state is so blissful that all outward pleasure and happiness seem to be insipid. No outward sorrow, calamity or even catastrophe can produce even a pin-prick effect in the mind. In this state of the mind, one can realise that all is the Divine, the Divine is in all and all is the Divine. In this state, one sees the Divine i.e., Me, all around and perceives that I am keeping a constant watch over him. Once one gets used to stilling the mind, one can outwardly carry on any activity whatsoever. Wherever he is and whatever he may be doing, he feels that he is living and moving about within Me.

   Arjuna: Making the mind still and vacant seems to be an impossibility — as impossible as trying to prevent the wind from blowing.

   Krishna: It seems so to you because this practice is not meant for you and is not suitable to your nature. In reality, it is quite possible although it may not be an easy job.

   Arjuna: Suppose some one takes up the practice but fails to attain the goal or falls out midway, what will happen to him? Will not his soul move about like a piece of barren floating cloud? Will he not lose all his chance to go to Heaven?

Krishna: There can be no ultimate failure in one’s search for the Divine. He may not succeed in finding Him in one life. But, in his next life he will take birth in a wealthy family. After enjoying comfort and riches there for some time, he will again pick up the practice from where he had left it in the previous life and proceed towards his goal. Thus carrying on with the practice life after life, he attains Divinity and rises above the compulsion of successive re-births.    Be that as it may, I always prefer a devotee to those who seek me by other methods. Better try to be a devotee of Mine.