But then something happens—the revelation of the Bhagavad Gita—that
turns this sweet friendship into something different and deeper,
something extraordinary, a communion between the Divine and the human
that is every bit as intimate and loving as the exchanges between Sri
Krishna and the gopis, just expressed and manifested in a very different
way.
Imagine you are Arjuna. The battle, the great war, for which you have
been preparing your entire life, which you dreamt of all those cold
nights sleeping on the forest floor while in exile, for which you went
to Swarga itself to retrieve the necessary weapons, is about to
commence. The armies are arrayed against each other in intricate
arrangement.
The air is rent by the sound of the holiest and most powerful of
conches being sounded in unison with bugles, trumpets, kettle drums and
cow horns. Then, for a few moments, everything is still and silent,
before the tempest of the bloodbath begins. You are on the chariot, and
your mouth turns dry. It is not fear of war, for you have fought so
many times, against even more powerful foes. But this is something
different, something truly terrible and awesome. Your eyes fall upon
Sri Krishna, your dearest friend, your charioteer, the one who never
fails to bring you comfort and succor. All of the millions of pairs of
eyes of the humans and beasts assembled on this great field are turned
towards you. You look at Sri Krishna, and ask Him to bring you to the
middle of the battlefield, between the front lines of the two armies so
that you may look upon those whom you are about to fight.
He does so, and in the opposing army, you see your uncles, your
cousins, those you grew up with, those you have loved, and so many
strangers whom you have never met before. You know so many of them will
die at your hand. And suddenly, for the first time in your life, your
courage deserts you, you lose your nerve. You begin trembling in
despair and a sudden fear that you have never known. You turn to
Krishna, and you begin to lament as you would to a friend, a confidante.
You say that you do not want any of this, you cannot bear to kill these
people, that nothing good can come of it for anyone. You say, O
Janardana, although these men, their hearts overtaken by greed, see no
fault in killing one's family or quarreling with friends, why should we,
who can see the crime in destroying a family, engage in these acts of
sin? Better for me if they, weapons in hand, were to kill me unarmed
and unresisting on the battlefield. You go on like this for a while
before finally casting aside your bow and arrows and collapsing on the
chariot, overwhelmed by grief.
Sri Krishna looks upon you with such soft eyes, such compassion, and
you wait for the balm of His comfort and consolation. So it is all the
more a shock, a bucket of cold water poured over you, when He speaks
such hard words, berating you as a coward, as unmanly. His words pierce
you like arrows. He says, “Yield not to unmanliness, Arjuna; this does
not befit you. Shaking off this weakness of the heart, arise, O
scorcher of enemies.”
You begin to ask questions. He answers rapid-fire and expounds the
most beautiful, the most sublime philosophy, beyond anything you had
ever conceived. When philosophy no longer works, He shows you His
universal form and you are awed and struck speechless. You cannot bear
the sight for too long; this form that is majestic and terrible,
beautiful and horrifying all at the same time. You beg Him to come back
to the form in which you have always known Him and He does so.
Sometimes He is gentle with you, and sometimes He castigates you like a
father would a misbehaving son.
It is not a smooth exchange. You have so many questions, so many
doubts, and His words are like quicksilver, hard to catch, even harder
to hold onto. Like this it goes on for what seems to you to be an
endless stretch of time, but in reality, it lasts for less than a few
hours. Finally, He says to you, “Thus, has this wisdom, more profound
than all profundities, been imparted to you by Me; deeply pondering over
it, now do as you like.” (BG 18:63)
You look upon Him, at He who was once your charioteer, your friend, but
who is now something more. He is your master, your Lord, and you His
devotee. This moment, too, this feeling may not last, but it is here
now. You say something that will become one of the most famous lines of
the Gita itself, that will be repeated with reverence by millions of
people aspiring towards the same devotion and surrender you feel at this
moment. You say, “Naṣṭo mohaḥ smṛtir labdhā; tvat-prasādān mayācyuta;
sthito 'smi gata-sandehaḥ kariṣye vacanaḿ tava” (Sri Krishna, by Your
grace, my delusion has been destroyed and I have gained wisdom. I am
free of all doubt. I shall do as you have instructed.) (BG 18: 73)
This feeling that Arjuna experiences at this moment does not last very
long. After the war has ended, he confesses to Sri Krishna that he has
forgotten what He taught him when He espoused the Gita to him. Sri
Krishna sternly tells him that the Gita was spoken from a very high
state of absorption and that it would be impossible for Him to repeat
the Gita again. But, out of compassion, He proceeds to give him a
summary of what He had said in the Bhagavad Gita. This is the famous
Anu Gita. The lesson here is that even though Arjuna lapses again and
again, it does not matter—you do not have to be perfect in order to have
a moment of perfection. Increasing the frequency of such perfect
moments is the work of sadhana or spiritual practice.
What this dialogue between Sri Krishna and Arjuna, this discourse, has
given birth to will become the most renowned philosophical tract and
spiritual discourse in the world – the Bhagavad Gita. More
specifically, what transpires is so sublime, so powerful and inspiring,
that it causes Sanjaya, the other most famous charioteer of the
Mahabharata, to utter the famous concluding verse of the Bhagavad Gita:
“Yatra yogeśvaraḥ kṛṣṇo yatra pārtho dhanur-dharaḥ
tatra śrīr vijayo bhūtir dhruvā nītir matir mama”
tatra śrīr vijayo bhūtir dhruvā nītir matir mama”
(Wherever there is Bhagavan Krishna, the Lord of Yoga, and wherever
there is Arjuna, the wielder of the Gandiva bow, goodness, victory,
glory and unfailing righteousness will surely be there: such is my
conviction.) (Bhagavad Gita (“BG”) 18:78)
Dharma for This Age
As discussed earlier, Sri Krishna violated (and instructed others to
violate) many of the norms of warfare in order to win the war.
Nowadays, a number of modernists largely brainwashed by Abrahamic
categorical concepts of right and wrong are uncomfortable with the
Krishna of the Mahabharata. They try to whitewash Him by disparaging
His actions but proclaiming that it was justified in this one special
case because the war of the Mahabharata was somehow a special war, a
just war, a war that had to be waged and won for the welfare of
humanity. And therefore, while Sri Krishna’s actions viewed in
isolation, according to these people, would be reprehensible, it can be
excused in this instance as a special case because of the importance of
this particular war. They miss the fundamental ethos of the forest
religions out of India, which have always been grounded in a constantly
mutating situational ethic which nevertheless is grounded in a higher
eternal principle of truth. This was not about the ends justifying the
means but about acting in accordance with Dharma, which is based on a
subtle and intricate framework of situational ethics. This is why
Sanatana Dharma ever changes but at its core never changes and the ever
changing is never different from the never changing.
If you think about it, what was the Mahabharata war really all about?
It was a dispute over a measly bit of land between rival sets of
cousins. Through a complicated network of alliances and other
rivalries, just about every kingdom in Bharatavarsha (at the time
geographically much, much larger than the current India / Pakistan /
Bangladesh) became involved. It became a war of huge proportions, but
it was triggered by one small intra-family dispute. It is rather
similar to World War I, which was also catalyzed by a petty dispute but
then pulled in all the nations of Europe through various alliances and
concern about imbalances in power on a continental and global scale.
We rightfully think of the Pandavas today as heroes. And so perhaps it
seems to make sense that a whole nation should come together to wage
war on their behalf. But in their times, the Pandavas were not great
heroes. They were misfits of shadowy parentage; pariahs who were
alternately exiled and in hiding for long stretches of years; five
brothers who brought disgrace and dishonor upon themselves by gambling
away their wife to their enemy and allowing her to be disrobed,
manhandled and shamed before the entire court. Nor was Duryodhana an
altogether terrible villain. He was an administrator without peer and
Hastinapur his capital was eulogized for being a well-administered
kingdom. (By the way, Lanka, the capital of Ravana, was similarly
eulogized). Duryodhana was widely and justly regarded as a competent
and fair king. Balarama, Sri Krishna’s elder brother, actually favored
Duryodhana and his brothers over the Pandavas in the great war.
Still, Sri Krishna orchestrated this war and made sure that it was
fought and won by the Pandavas. Surely, He did not come to Earth just
to help five misfit brothers reclaim their kingdom and dispatch some
other demons on the side. No, there is something much deeper than
that. The Mahabharata is all about wheels within wheels in terms of
lessons to be learned as to how to live an ethical and principled life
under complex circumstances—not too different from the complexity of
life situations that many of us are facing or will be facing in the near
future. Through this seemingly simplistic war over a bit of land,
something much greater was happening, something that was necessary for
the overall harmony of the universe and the smooth turning of the wheels
of time. An age was coming to an end and a new age about to begin—the
Dvapara Yuga was drawing to an end and it was time for the advent of the
Kali Yuga, the 4th Age of the Universe. The Kali Yuga is
the lowest of the four yugas in the cycle of time in Hinduism—it is an
age of increasing darkness and disorder. It was time for the great
heroes of the earlier era to pass from this world and leave the world to
the humans of diminished faculties and energies. A very large part of
Sri Krishna’s role was to usher in this new age of increased degradation
in the most harmonious way possible and, in the process, to teach us
how to live and make spiritual progress in this new world.
It was also a pointed lesson to us that in this age of tamas (one of
the three gunas, the main characteristics of which are sluggishness,
darkness and ignorance), we must always be vigilant against the tamas
that creeps up within us, that deludes us into inaction and apathy.
Sri Krishna comes to us in a world that is increasingly gray rather
than black and white, as the Semitic religions (Judaism, Christianity
and Islam) sometimes rather simplistically portray it to be. Arjuna’s
lament at the beginning of the Gita finds resonance within us. It is a
difficult task that has been laid upon his shoulders. And this is part
of what Sri Krishna wants to show us, that in our times, things become
more complicated, and thus what is right and what is wrong is harder to
discern. Our world is not as simple as it once was. Our roles and
responsibilities are not as prescribed. Arjuna always knew he was a
Kshatriya—but we live in a world of multiple identities. Still, Sri
Krishna’s lesson to us is that a clear path of dharma can be revealed to
us when we follow the principles of the Gita.
It is also a powerful reminder that we must always fight for what is
right, even when the stakes are seemingly minimal. Perhaps the Pandavas
and their armies thought they were only fighting for a little piece of
land, but in reality, their war gave us the Bhagavad Gita, the
instruction manual of Dharma and sadhana for our times, and enabled the
smooth passing of one yuga into another.
Similarly, in our own lives, we may think that what we do or do not do
is of little consequence. But in life, it is not what we do that
matters but how we do what we do that matters. We may not always
understand the larger purpose of what we are doing, but there is a
bigger purpose to everything that simply has not yet been revealed to
us. But when we do our dharma, we can have faith that this is
contributing to the overall harmony of the universe. 
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