THE MAHABHARATA: A Modern Rendering, Vol 2 (23 page)

As the body sheds worn-out clothes, so the soul sheds worn-out bodies. And just as we put on new clothes, the soul dons new bodies, as if they were its raiment. But the soul is not touched by fire or weapons, by wind or water. Inmost, subtlest element, always the being of beings, it is changeless, eternal.”

Arjuna was still downcast, unconvinced. He had the uncanny feeling the words the Blue God spoke were meant for a multitude of listeners other than himself: unborn, yet avid listeners. As if their chariot out on Kurukshetra stood not just in their own time, but at the heart of all the swirling ages of men. Deep and secret futures swelled around them, gazed on them with a billion unseen eyes and brushed their souls with ghostly fingers.

Arjuna frowned. He felt he was alone on the bank of a timeless river of light flowing from dark Krishna; flowing for him, yes, but not only for him. The Pandava sensed numberless presences gathering around and the pristine river shone at them, as well, to drink from its grace. Now Krishna began to speak in some hidden rapture; as if he played on his flute.

“Even if you believe the soul is born again and again and dies as well like that, still you shouldn’t grieve. For certain, then, is death for he who is born and the moment of it already decided at his birth; and equally certain is birth, again, for the dead. Why grieve for the inevitable? You do not determine when any man, even yourself, is born into the world. How can you hope to decide when or not he will die?”

Arjuna seemed to grow calmer now and to listen to his dark sarathy. Relieved that at least his warrior’s panic grew less, Krishna went on, “But this is not what is crucial. You are a kshatriya: for you, a battle of dharma is the highest fortune. How can you be so full of doubt at such a time? You should rejoice, Arjuna, the gates of heaven are open!

If you deny your own nature’s glory and do not fight, then you will sin. Through all time, men will speak of your shame; for a man like you, who knows honor, shame is worse than death. They will say Arjuna was afraid on the great occasion. Even your friends will scoff; think, then, what will your enemies say? Could anything be sadder? So arise, Pandava! If you die in battle, you will go straight to swarga. If you triumph, you will enjoy the earth before you find heaven. Fight Arjuna and I swear you will not sin.”

Lulled by Krishna’s voice, absorbed in his smile, his eyes, his presence of grace, Arjuna began to float away down the river of light. The sarathy now spoke softly, hypnotically, to the Pandava, touching his inner mind. As if in prayer, he chanted his wisdom, as much to himself as to his cousin.

In exorcism, Krishna continued, “Along the infinite way, no effort, even the smallest, is in vain or lost and no obstacle prevails. This is the wisdom of union, of yoga. Arjuna, I am with you. Free yourself from attachment to what you do; make no anxious difference between success and failure. Act! Act in purity, act serenely: even-mindedness is yoga; detachment and skill are yoga.

For one who is determined, his understanding is single and lucid. But the thoughts of the undis-cerning are many-branched, endless, endlessly confused.”

Arjuna was a portal to unborn generations, as Krishna’s words spilled through him, each a being alive, tender and rampant: a bright host of masters! They reached beyond him into veiled times, dim, dim, down mysterious trails of history, taking fire to the hearts of bizarre and visionary heroes, who would one day walk a very different world and make war again. In his perfect passivity, while Krishna exhorted him to immaculate action, pure war, Arjuna became the Blue God’s unwitting ally in another, older contention. He stood at a crossroads of the mythic universe and, listening absorbed, gave his astral body to become Krishna’s prophet.

Krishna said, “The wise who have yoked their intelligence are freed from the bonds of birth. They reach Brahman, the sorrowless state. Arjuna, your mind is confused with all that you have read and heard. Your heart is bewildered. When true insight dawns on you, you will see beyond bookish Vedic learning and your spirit will be profound and unshakeable.”

The earth received the Avatara’s song.

FOUR
THE BHAGAVAD GITA 

Sensing that Arjuna was calmer, Krishna paused. The Pandava did not tremble any more. Arjuna asked, “Krishna, who is the wise man? What is he like? How does the man of Brahman speak, how does he sit or walk?”

Krishna threw back his beautiful head and laughed. “When a man knows the bliss of the atman, his soul, all the cravings and torments of his heart vanish. And when his spirit is absorbed in itself, perfectly satisfied, he is wise, illumined.”

Arjuna saw Krishna exulted, his eyes shining!

“The heaviest sorrow doesn’t perturb him, nor does the most pleasant desire move him. When lust, fear and rage have left him, he is a Brahmarishi. The bonds of his body are broken; he is enlightened.

He who is beyond affection, who does not rejoice or grieve when he is fortunate or unfortunate, but is imperturbable: he is an illumined one. As the tortoise draws in its legs, the rishi withdraws his senses. Arjuna, the abstinent run away from what they desire, but desire does not leave them. Only the vision of God removes desire itself.

Even a man who knows the way can be dragged from it, because the senses are powerful and wild. But he who tames the senses, collects his mind in serenity and fixes it on me, he is illumined.

Desire springs from attachment to the objects of the senses. Anger springs from desire, confusion from anger and from confusion, forgetfulness. When he forgets the lessons of experience, a man loses his discrimination. Then, he is destroyed.

But when a man’s mind is disciplined, his spirit is pure. In purity, there is peace and in peace sorrow ends. The intelligence of a quiet man is established in the peace of the atman, his immortal soul.

What is night for most men, is when the quiet man is awake. And when the world is awake and abustle, is night for the sage who sees.”

Arjuna floated above the field of Kurukshetra, carried by Krishna’s spiraling song. The currents of that song were the tides of time. The ages roared around him in legendary magnificence; just the silver umbilicus of the Gita held him secure. The dark charioteer sang on, “When a man becomes like the ocean, perfectly calm, when his desires come to him like water to the ocean and never move him, then he comes to peace. When a man works in the world without any desire, he comes to peace; and this peace is the ocean of the soul, the divine Brahman. Once a man comes into it, he does not return to delusion. At the hour of his death, he is alive in that eternal enlightnement. He attains the bliss of God.”

Darkness and doubt clutched at Arjuna once more. Evil would not succumb tamely to Krishna in the subtle battle he waged against it. This battle would decide the outcome ofArjuna’s war and those of a thousand more to be fought on the strangest fields by unborn heroes, in impossible futures, long before they were joined. Primordial evil battled dark Krishna for Arjuna’s soul: the soul of that rarest of men, an evolved disciple on the verge of final grace.

His voice full of despair, Arjuna cried, “Krishna, you say the way of the mind is finer than the way of action. Why, then, do you goad me into this savagery? You bewilder me now and I am lost! Show me one straight path by which I can be free.”

Though evil attacked his heart, Krishna spoke quietly. “The dual path has been taught in it since the world began: the way of gyana, knowledge, for men of contemplation; for men of action, the way of karma, of deeds, of battles. You do not become free by doing nothing; by abstaining from karma, you do not become perfect. He who does nothing, but broods over his desires, is no sage, he is a hypocrite. Do the work you are born to, for without working you cannot sustain even your own body. Let war be your worship, Arjuna.”

The dream closed around Arjuna. He was a time-traveler again; Krishna’s song was his vimana. His bright craft was rocked by the thunder of ages, buffeted by distant mysteries of violence and terror, by awesome miracles. The ship of light was proof against them all. Krishna’s song withstood the last tests of time.

“In the beginning, God made men, each with his own nature and dharma. He said, ‘By doing this you will prosper. The work of your nature will yield the fruit of your desires.’ By doing your natural dharma you worship the Gods and they nurture you. By working unattached, you come to immortal bliss. Such karma is the ritual that maintains the very earth. Look at me, Arjuna. I am not bound by any karma in all the worlds, nor is there anything in them that isn’t already mine. Yet, I am always working.

Only the deluded man thinks ‘I am the doer’. Everything is done by the gunas, the essences of nature at their eternal play. Those who go astray become attached to their karma; they begin to take the gunas for the soul. But no wise man should unsettle the minds of those who don’t see whole, because work must go on, always, or the worlds fall into anarchy.”

Arjuna was entranced again, as the river of grace flowed from the Blue God.

“Every creature can only follow its innate prakriti; even the wisest man lives by his own nature. What can repression accomplish, Arjuna? It is always better to do one’s own dharma, however imperfectly, than the dharma of another, even immaculately. It is better to die in one’s own law; for to live by an alien law is perilous.”

Like a child, Arjuna asked, “But what makes a man sin, even against his own will, helplessly, Krishna?”

“Rage and lust, ravening, deadly: the enemies! Why, the intellect itself, deluded, feeds the fires of these two. Lust veils the soul as smoke does a fire, as dust does a clear mirror. To pass beyond lust, you must transcend the intellect. For powerful are the senses; greater than they are, is the mind; more potent than the mind is the intellect. But greater than intellect is the atman who sets you free.”

Krishna’s eyes were far away from Kurukshetra, why, from the age. Then, smiling, he said coolly, “I taught this yoga to Vivasat once. Vivasat gave it to Manu, Manu taught it to Ikshvaku; and, handed down the generations, the Rajarishis all knew it. Until the great yoga was lost in the world in a forgotten time, when darkness came. Arjuna, today, on this chosen field, hear the deathless secret from me.”

But Arjuna looked at him incredulously. He cried, “Vivasat? He died long before you were born! How did you teach Vivasat the yoga?”

Krishna laughed. “My past lives and yours as well, are many, more than you dream; only, I remember them all and you remember none. I am not born into this world, but only seem to be; and I am master of my prakriti, my immortal nature and not its subject. Whenever evil dominates the world, I send myself forth into it: to protect the good, who else have they? To destroy the evil, who else will redeem them? To establish dharma I come, again and again, from age to age.

The man who knows me is never born again. When he leaves his body, he comes to me. Absorbed in me, he is delivered from lust, anger and fear. He is burnt pure in the fire of my being; I become his home. All men come to me, at last and I deliver them all. Whatever path a man walks, it leads finally to me. I am not bound by karma and neither are those who know me. So like the ancients, who worked for moksha, you must also fight.

The way of karma is not easy, Arjuna and even maharishis are perplexed about action and inaction. Only the realized yogin sees restlessness in inaction and repose in deeds. When he acts, he remains poised in the serenity of the atman. He has no attachment to the fruit of his actions. Contented in the atman itself, he acts and is beyond karma. He is satisfied with whatever comes to him by chance. He is free from envy, untouched by success and failure. He acts and is not bound by what he does.

All his work is a sacrifice, a ritual of worship. His enlightened heart beats as one with Brahman, the Holy Spirit. For him, all things are Brahman. The sacrifice, the oblation, the sacrificer and the fire of yagna: they are all one and they are the Brahman.

And he who offers no worship; this world is not for him, then how shall any other world be his?”

When he heard the tone in which Krishna said this, another dread seized Arjuna, who had laid down the Gandiva and said he would not fight.

“Worship,” the Dark One went on quietly, looking out at the motionless armies, “is greater than any material sacrifice and all worship ends inexorably in Brahman. Let the rishis of wisdom and vision be your masters. Learn from them by serving them, by worshipping and questioning them.

As fire does wood, wisdom burns karma to ashes. Nothing on earth is as pure as wisdom; on the ship of wisdom, the worst sinners cross over the sea of evil. He who has seen the atman, slowly but inexorably, peace comes to him. Take up the sword of discernment, Arjuna, cut away the doubt that lurks in your heart.”

Now Arjuna looked into the Lord’s face and saw his black eyes alight with compassion. The Pandava said, “Krishna, first you say renunciation is the way, burning karma with wisdom. Then you say the opposite, that karma is the way. Tell me, which is the true path?”

“Both,” said Krishna, “lead to freedom. But yours is the way of karma. You are not greedy for kingdom or its power; that is half your battle already won, you will be freed easily.” Krishna smiled, the crow’s feet around his eyes cracking deep. “But, Arjuna, the wise do not speak of the ways of wisdom and action as being separate, only the ignorant do. You cannot renounce action without knowing what it is. Only he who engages in karma knows its inner emptiness. Purified, he realizes the still Brahman. In detachment, he occupies the senses with the objects of sense, but not himself. He is like a lotus leaf, resting on water, but not wetted by water. The yogin does not act out of desire, but to make himself pure, to make himself wise.