The War Within - Between Good and Evil, Bheemeswara Challa [books for 7th graders txt] 📗

surrendered, or was even allowed to surrender,
to bring the war to an end without further killing. In fact, ‘killing’ is considered
‘logical’, the only way to achieve the purpose of war. In the Kurukshetra war,
after almost every enemy warrior is killed and Duryodhana is hiding alone in a
pond, Krishna says that his killing, not surrender or capture, is necessary to end
the war. Maybe our very premise, that killing is the highest evil, is wrong.
In the age of the Mahabharata, the dharma of one’s inherited calling
was deemed the primary, even mandatory, duty or social obligation. Krishna
invoked the Kshatriya dharma to exhort Arjuna to pick up his bow and fight. It
is interesting that the same Kshatriya dharma was cited by Yudhishthira for not
refusing the invitation of Dhritarashtra to play the game of dice, which he knew
could be calamitous. Yudhishthira maintained that a Kshatriya cannot refuse
an invitation for the game of dice or for war, perhaps implying that they both
lead to ruin. The moral legitimacy of upholding the narrower caste dharma over
others, such as ahimsa or non-violence, and virtues like kshama, forgiveness,
which was what Arjuna preferred, is hard to understand. This is particularly
so as Krishna himself warned that a major war like the one at Kurukshetra
would be a colossal catastrophe and everyone would be a loser. But Krishna was
emphatic that the victory of dharma over adharma was more important than
saving lives, even of the innocent and the virtuous. He also reminded Arjuna
that he (Arjuna) lives in society; that society does not live in him, implying that
Arjuna must subordinate his personal reluctance (to fight) to the needs of the
samaja (society) and that required the dharma yuddha. But to fight injustice is
the dharma of everyone. One cannot say that only Kshatriyas should resist evil
and others should surrender. In the Kurukshetra war, even Drona—a Brahmin,
and the ‘guru’ of both the Pandavas and the Kauravas, the two ‘enemies’—went
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into battle; in fact, he was the commander-in-chief of the Kaurava army until he
himself was killed through a ruse. Another avatar of Vishnu, Parashurama, born
a Brahmin, killed all the Kshatriyas of the world not once but twenty-one times,
in revenge for the killing of his father, Jamadagni. So, why did Krishna emphasize
the Kshatriya’s duty as the reason for Arjuna to fight? There is also the issue of
reasonable proportionality; the response has to be measured, appropriate, and no
more or less than what is necessary to redress the injustice.
The key concept here is kartavya (duty), and like other concepts such as
dharma and karma, it is difficult to translate it precisely. The fact is we have so
many kartavyas, or duties specific to a relationship, as a spouse, parent, family,
friend, citizen, professional, social, religious, and so on. And often they are
conflicting and difficult to harmonize. Ultimately, we do make a choice because
without choice action is not possible. But it is often based on expediency, the one
that gives us pleasure and avoids pain, or the one that is in the interests of the
narrow circle of ‘near and dear’. From time immemorial all great men, faced with
conflicting priorities, agonized over what their kartavya was in the ever-shifting
circumstances of their life. And they made hard choices, which sometimes
entailed suffering of the ‘innocent’, but had they chosen a different course, they
would have been guilty of not performing their kartavya. Epics are replete with
examples. In the Ramayana, Rama had to abandon his pregnant wife Sita, usually
revered as the incarnation of goddess Lakshmi and a personification of purity, at
the altar of his kartavya as the king. Was he right? In the Mahabharata, Bhishma
fought on the side of adharma or evil, as he felt that his kartavya was to honor his
vow to serve the king of Hastinapura. Was he right? Life is far more complex and
complicated now, the borders between right and wrong, and between caste, creed,
and class are at once blurred and sharper, and our desire to discern our kartavya
is far more agonizing. Our angst for a purpose in life, our search for meaning is
a longing for our kartavya that takes us beyond the drudgery of our mundane
desires, desires which are the reason for our countless births and deaths. If only
we could know what it is that we must attain—for which everything else can be
sacrificed—life would be both simpler and tangible. We often find that our duties
and obligations to different people, entities, and institutions clash with each
other, and that our cognition and faculties are inadequate to harmonize them and
show the way to our kartavya. Is our kartavya confined to family and to personal
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relationships? Is it possible any more to be a ‘good’ citizen of a country and also
be a global citizen? What kind of sacrifice do we have to make in contemporary
life to do our kartavya that will benefit humanity? What is the moha (delusionary
attachment) that we have to tyaga (give up) to do our cosmic duty? Given that
our identity is defined by several relationships—member of a family, employee
or employer, citizen of a country, global citizen—which responsibility should we
cherish and which ones we should give up? Where does our moral culpability
begin and end? When patriotism clashes with our duties as a global citizen, what
is our kartavya? If our employer adulterates food or peddles poison, but we play
no direct part, while he pays us well, what is our kartavya? Is a killing a murder
only if we are the direct assassin, not an indirect accomplice? Does inactivity in
the face of injustice tantamount to being an accomplice?
‘Desirable Death’ and Anaayesaena maranam
The shadow of death is everywhere but we pretend it is nowhere. In fact, as
the English clergyman Thomas Fuller said, “The first breath is the beginning
of death”. And Nietzsche said that our very language is a cemetery, and if we
scratch any word we’ll find a dead metaphor. Although we tend to think that
even thinking about death is inauspicious, scriptures have told us otherwise; in
the words of the ancient Therevada Buddhist text Visudhimagga (The Path of
Purification), our “Constant task will surely be; This recollection about death”.
Death is everywhere all the time, and yet we fear that even to think or talk about
it is inauspicious, and brings our death nearer. It is the ultimate ‘relief ’ from life
but we view it as the ‘ultimate evil’. That is why we treat it as taboo, and avoid
even to utter the dreaded ‘D’ word. Instead, we use euphemisms and say things
like ‘he is no more’, ‘he has gone’, or ‘passed away’. Someone said that death has
replaced sex as the great forbidden subject. As we grow older, we see more and
more of ‘no mores’ till we ourselves become another ‘no more’; and the world
moves on to other ‘no mores’. We want to banish it from life, on the implicit
premise perhaps that that which we don’t even think about cannot come to pass.
The Taittiriya Upanishad says: “When the body falls into weakness on account
of old age or disease, even as a mango-fruit, or the fruit of the holy fig-tree, is
loosened from its stem, so the Spirit of man is loosened from the human body
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and returns by the same way to Life, wherefrom he came”. In the Bhagavad Gita,
Lord Krishna says, “As leaving aside his worn-out garments, a man takes other
new ones, so leaving aside worn-out bodies the embodied soul goes to other
new ones”.
Why do we then mourn death, move heaven and earth to put it off, or
postpone as long as we could, and long and wish each other to be a ‘chiranjeevi’
(immortal)? If death is like changing an old car for a new one, then why do we go
to such extreme lengths to maintain, repair, and rejuvenate this creaking, rickety
body? We often lament and ask why do the good, the young die early, and the
evil ones linger and live long. It is hard to fathom the aspects of how and why
each mode of death is chosen. We cannot ‘explain’ why in the same accident, or
deadly collision, some walk away unscathed, some are injured and some die. Or,
why one falls in the garden and breaks his neck, while another falls seven floors
and is saved, cushioned by the same lawn. Although no one really knows what a
‘good death’ means, we usually mean it to be Anaayesaena maranam—quick and
painless. In other words, a ‘bad death’ is one that is protracted and painful, or
violent. The Vedic prayer, Anaayesaena maranam; Vinaa dhainyaena jeevanam;
Daehi mae kripayaa shambho; Thvaya bhakthim achanchalam, is a prayer to Lord
Siva, requesting him to give death without trouble or pain, life without poverty,
and to grant out of compassion, unwavering devotion in Him. Everyone says that
those who die at a ripe age, without any preparation or pain, are blessed people.
It does not mean that those who die ailing and in agony are sinners. Maybe
they are burning a bulk of the bad karma that way. Each dies according to their
own prarabdha karma. We must also view death in a broader setting. Everyone
has a dharma or swadharma, the natural righteous duty to perform, not only
to redeem his karmic dues and for the common good, but also to contribute to
a cosmic cause. Not only is one obligated to perform it, but also each is given
moral leeway that others are denied; but they have their own. God too has His
own swadharma with limitless leeway, as it embraces the entire creation. Even
death has a dharma to do. That is why in Hinduism the god of death is called
Dharmaraja, the Lord of Dharma. But the complicating factor is that the concept
of swadharma is a casualty of the passage of yugas. No one can say or know what
one’s swadharma is, since everyone does what anybody else does; it depends on
one’s capability, and what a certain relationship or work requires. Nothing, no
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career or job or work is barred because of one’s birth or family or lineage or
heritage, and that is modernity and equality in law. Without anything we can
call ‘swadharma’, and caught between conflicting obligations and responsibilities
stemming from various relationships, it becomes almost impossible to zero in on
anything as one’s essential, overriding duty, often at the expense of something
else apparently equally important. There are no ‘entitlements’ on life, not even
life.
All these are assumptions that stem from the primal perspective that
‘living’ is ‘good’ and death is bad. The good or the young ‘die’ not because they
are good and young, but because simply their ‘time is up’; they have expended
their allotted karma, paid back their karmic debts in various ways, and must
move on. The old or the bad live not because the nature and quantum of karma
required them to stay on. A ‘good’ life may guarantee a ‘good’ after-life; but
does not necessarily lead to a ‘good death’. ‘Good men’, like sages Ramakrishna
and Ramana, died of cancer while many ‘bad’ men died in their sleep. A ‘good
death’ might amount to spending away a lot of good karma; and a ‘bad’ death,
the spending of bad karma, which is good. But then again, neither karma
enables us to break the cycle of birth and rebirth. While ‘good’ karma gives you
a temporary time in heaven, bad karma takes you to hell, but still temporarily.
Good karma binds us with golden chains, while bad karma binds us with iron
chains. Depending on what and how we do, and with what intent, we earn both
‘good’ and ‘bad’ karma through almost everything we do every day. If we help
another person we earn ‘good’ karma. If our actions hurt or harm, we attract
bad karma. There is no way to either prove or disprove any of it, whether it is a
‘scientific’ method or spiritual effort. For, “absence of evidence is not evidence of
absence”, but it also does not establish that anything actually exists. Basically, and
logically, it is possible to prove ‘existence’, and impossible to prove or disprove
that something doesn’t exist.
Whichever way we perceive our terrestrial existence, once born, there is
little escape except to live through life, until this body-machine ceases to operate.
Many people, thinkers, writers, and poets, some stricken with terminal illnesses,
have written about what it is like to be sitting in death’s ante-room. Ideally most
of us ‘want’ to die and get resurrected so that we can recollect and regale how