Vipul Agarwal, Delhi, May 19 2024
I do not understand why we have made this world as it is today? Why is everyone seeking some or the other thing in this world? Why “becoming” is the buzzword and “being” is not sufficient to live our lives? Everyone wants to become someone or the other. If a few just want to live their lives, all these seekers somehow use them for their ambitions. Probably, in the race to “become”, people become so obsessed with their ambitions that everyone around them just becomes a tool to fulfill their ambitions. They hold on to their ambitions so tightly that in the process they use almost all their relationships.
In the battle of Kurukshetra, Duryodhana was so obsessed with his ambitions that he forced Bhishma, Dronacharya, Karna, and many other people to fight the battle, and eventually all these people lost their lives. He never had any conflict, while on the other hand, even though Pandavas were fighting the battle for the right cause, Arjuna had a conflict that this battle would result in the killing of his own brothers and relatives. That is why he approached Krishna for the right understanding. It is worth analyzing as to why Arjuna had confusion and why Duryodhana did not have any confusion.
The reason is very simple. Arjuna chose Krishna for the whole of his army while Duryodhana chose the army of Krishna. Duryodhana was completely disconnected from Krishna who represents consciousness. When we get completely disconnected from our inner self or consciousness, we become restless to get peace. Since that peace exists only inside us and we have lost complete connection with the inner self, we become more and more restless, and out of this restlessness, we form some worldly ambition getting convinced that such ambition will give us pleasure and make us happy. We start firing mental stories and soon get fully convinced by our mental stories. This world is full of madness and by small efforts or even without any effort, we get many mad people to support our madness. A mad person does not have any conflicts since reason and logic take a back seat.
Arjuna, on the other hand, had chosen Krishna. That is why he was able to listen to his inner voice. He had that inner connection with his consciousness and that is the reason why he felt confused. He had a conflict between killing his relatives and fighting the battle. However, this connection was narrow since his inner connection was limited. That was when Krishna expanded this inner connection. He made Arjuna realize that all people were taking birth from the divine and, therefore, there was no difference between the family members and the others. Krishna made him realize that this battle was for truth or Dharma. The truth was that all beings were different forms of the divine and, therefore, Arjuna should not treat them differently. If he did not fight the battle in order to save the lives of a few of his relatives, then the rest of the human beings would suffer. Therefore, he had to fight for the greater truth. Thus, Krishna took the inner connection of Arjuna to the next level. He made him realize the greater depths of reality.
We have a choice while living in this world. We may get fixated on our ambitions and get more and more disconnected from the divine. In that case, we will be sure and there would not be any confusion like Duryodhana had. We would be sure of our ambitions like a mad elephant. However, life would remain unfulfilled since fulfillment is a property of the soul and we keep getting more and more disconnected from the soul while running after our ambitions. On the other hand, we may stay connected to the divine and live a life of Swadharma, where all our actions in this world are devoted to the divine and our only ambition is to hold on to the truth each moment of our life. Our only prayer is to always act under the divine guidance. We choose Krishna over the rest of the world and act in the world under the guidance of Krishna.
