PART TWO
THE DISCUSSION
CHAPTER I
SANJAYA SPOKE
तमुवाच
हृषीकेशः प्रहसन्निव भारत
सेनयोरुभयोर्मध्ये
विषीदन्तमिदं वचः॥
Hey King (DhritaRaashtra)!
who was lamenting like this, in the midst
of the two armies.
Yes! Krishna smiled!
Arjuna, after
washing his tear-stained face in the waters of the little stream, was now
sitting on a rock nearby, in a pensive mood. His chin rested on his hands. His
thoughts were many; doubts, fears, confusions were all churning his mind; and
the butter..?
The butter-maker
was calmly sitting on the lower branch of a tree. The horses were grazing in
the nearby pastures. His pet horse nuzzled against him drawing his attention. Krishna patted her back affectionately.
He could read
clearly all the thoughts that were dancing in the mind-stage of his cousin!
He winked at his
horse-friend ‘Karantika’- named so because of the black Tilak mark on her
forehead. She moved away as if she understood her master’s hint.
Arjuna suddenly
shocked back to reality, looked around confusedly. Krishna
further shocked him with his sonorous voice!
अशोच्यानन्वशोचस्त्वं
प्रज्नावादाम्श्च भाषसे।
गतासूनगतासून्श्च
नानुशोचन्ति पण्डिताः॥
You are grieving for those who are not to
be grieved upon.
Yet you talk like an intellectual!
Truly learned men do not worry about those
who are dead or not dead!
“Very well indeed! What a high-sounding philosophy! All
organizations preaching against wars must come to you for lessons!
War causes destruction! War causes intermingling of castes!
War causes pain! What else? You can go on and on about the evil results of war!
But, where were these great ideas, when you performed
penance in the Himalayas to obtain all the
divine weapons from Gods? You even fought with the Great Shiva to get his
‘Paashupata’ (weapon of Pashupati)!
Why did you make an effort at all for such things, if they
were useless to you? Just to get more arrogant, I suppose! Or you just wanted
to use them as ‘worshipping hymns’ like the common lot worships the ‘works of
the great’ rather than using them for improving their brains?
(ASTRAS, the divine weapons differ from ordinary man-made
SHASTRAS, by the fact that they are just magical hymns which make any object
available to be empowered by the respected deity.)
“So..! You want to run away to the forest and perform
penance! You would gladly give away the
kingdom to the wicked Kauravas! What magnanimity of heart! Why didn’t you do so
in the first place? We could have avoided all the troubles taken to prepare for
this war!
What…? You are worried about the deaths of your relatives?
Well... if you are really a self-controlled saint as you
pose yourself to be with your discourse on ‘war and peace’, then- my dear
saint, know this; real saints never worry about the births or deaths of the
people around them! You are indeed wasting your tears on unworthy people!
‘Nobody dies’! Don’t you know?
न त्वेवाहं जातु
नासं न त्वं नेमे जनाधिपाः।
न चैव न भविष्यामः
सर्वे वयमतः परम्॥
Never was a time that I did not exist; or you or these kings for sure!
And also it is not that all of us will not exist in the future after
this life.
Yes! Neither you, nor these kings waiting at the door-step
of Yama’s city will ever die!
(Yama, the dark deity is the controller of deaths of
mortals.)
I am also deathless! I am always there! Never was a time
when I was not there!”
Arjuna looked up.
He was almost ready to raise objections to Krishna ’s
reprimanding words with more arguments, but he stopped midway, as he heard the
cowherd declaring firmly that all were deathless.
Death waits at the unseen corners of the life separating
one’s dearest kith and kin from oneself forever. If any achievement of man is
said to be great, it falls flat at the resounding bell of death! Like a cunning
vampire, death snatches away the life of anyone, be he a sinner or a saint without
even a pre-warning! If one could indeed be deathless, what all one could
achieve!
But, this dark-hued friend was assuring that every one was
deathless! How is it possible?
If I take my wonderful Gaandiva and just twang it once,
heads of millions will roll away in a second!
Or, was he joking by any chance?
No! Maadhava looked very serious; but his eyes were
twinkling with mischief, though his handsome face looked serious enough!
‘How handsome he was!’ Arjuna thought!
Nobody would have known that this dark hued person had seen
thirty winters. He still looked as young and charming as at his first meeting
with him! The dark face of course had grown a little mature and the veins in
his hand stuck out as if oozing with the power imprisoned inside! With one hand
he could rein in all the five horses together! He tended all the horses
himself; all were his treasured pets!
Gaandivi knew well the strength of those powerful hands!
Once he had had a mock fight with this cowherd and with just one light punch
from the strong hand, had suffered concussions lasting for fifteen days at
least! He never again dared this feat again!
The Kadamba grove!
The horses were grazing along the shady grove.
Sun had removed his arms of fire and remained partially
covered by a cloud, as if afraid to cause any inconvenience to the unique pair
of master and student, sitting under the Kadamba tree.
The tree was extremely beautiful. It had been there from
ancient times; a creeper grown so thick and hard that no one could guess, where
the original creeper had first put down its roots!
Flowers! Weren’t they a wonder to look at! Some were red in
their prime of beauty; some were turning violet slowly! Countless leaves had
turned white with age and had carpeted the ground as if the tree had already
prepared the stage for a historical dialogue to take place there! The fruits
were green and red; some were half-green and some were half-red! In brief, the
creeper-tree -‘entwining its ever-growing arms all over, spreading relentlessly
everywhere’ - was a web of leaves, fruits, and flowers! It was a colorful
panorama that filled the on-looker’s eyes with ‘Indra-Dhanush’! Hundreds and
thousands of variegated color birds lived since long, on the ever-stretching
branches of that grove! A light fragrance filled the air shielding all the
other winds from entering that great philosophical assembly! The grove which
was praised in the hymns as the sacred abode of the Great Goddess Tripura now
sheltered this unique couple; a cowherd turned into a charioteer and a warrior
turned into a saint!
He was reclining on a high piece of rock in a relaxed mood.
His charming eyes, two black bees hovering in a lotus pond
were closed in an unknown bliss! His face had lost its seriousness a little!
His curly hair was lightly moving in the wind like the tender waves of the
Yamuna stream. Two heavy ear-rings made of conch shell embedded in gold,
dangled - kissing the mirror-like cheeks in admiration! A small Tilak adorned
his broad fore-head proclaiming the intellectual capacity of its owner to the
world! The curly hair shy of all this attention tried to cover the dark
fore-head by spreading out its curly arms! A crown adorned the head symbolizing
the kingly status of this Dwaaraka ruler!
No moustache adorned his face! No peacock feathers decorated the crown!
[He was the mighty charioteer in the battlefield, not a
naughty child at Gokula!]
Arjuna himself had many times wondered how this man from the
cowherd family was always spick and span in his dress and was always
clean-shaven! Not even a surprise visit at midnight caught our dark hero
unawares to his looks! He was renowned for his imaginative adornments and was
the fashion model of his circle!
His dark body now freed from the heavy golden armor worn a
few minutes ago, shivered as if by the wind that grazed his body which seemed
to test the muscular prowess of this romantic sage!
The muscles of the arms stood out proving the innumerable
wrestling matches, held under the supervision of his elder brother who always
insisted on the strength of the body more than that of the brain! The broad
chest, strong and yet with scarce hair was vast and stood up, proud of the
inner organs which never complained even once their life-time till now! The
tendency of the body towards plumpness was cut short as it were by the
unfathomable powers of the Yoga, learnt at the sacred feet of the ‘Venerable
Sage Sandeepani’!
One leg rested on the other. The back reclined on the thick
branch of the Kadamba creeper, which was eager to render any possible service
to this Great Yogi, as it were! The feet were not adorned with twinkling
anklets of Brindaavan but by heavy anklets weighing down the feet steadily on
the ground!
In one hand absentmindedly was held the horse-whip by the
‘ever-alert’ one. The whip was never put to the purpose for which it was
created; but always adorned the strong plump hands of the master! May be it was
a replacement of the ‘bamboo reed’ which had once trembled shyly in the tiny
rosy hands!
The bamboo reed!
The bamboo reed had been a present from Raadhikaa! So
affectionately carved and made with perfect precision! He had kept it like some
treasure in the innermost secret chamber of his private room; even hidden from
the spying eyes of his wife Satyaa! Was he afraid of anyone touching it? Was he
afraid of disclosing his love for Raadhaa to anyone? No! He rather considered
the worn out bamboo reed to be too sacred to be defiled by any human hands!
What was Raadhikaa to him? What words can describe their
love? What unique bond was there between a child and another child in an adult
body?
He was then a bubbling ‘naughtiness-incarnate’! Mischief
ideas sprang out of his four-year old brain continuously!
Yes! He was four when he met her first! She was seventeen at
that time!
She was married but had been rejected by her rich husband
employed in Mathura ,
as a country girl without charms or grace! Maybe Krishna ’s
own merits had brought about the meeting with her!
What fun they had!
She and his friends; all were of the same age, but Raadhaa! Of
course she looked like a teenaged girl; but was brain-wise only equal to them!
She never dressed like a lady! Uncombed hair; curly locks flying ; dresses
torn; not much ornaments; palloo never covering her head; mud covered face; randomly plucked forest
flowers dangling on her plaits; feathers
of various birds dangling from her hair; echoing anklet-bells; uncontrolled
laughter; not a female in any way! She was the ‘Queen’ of her gang! The boys
never felt she was different from them!
Kaanhaa admired her a lot!
She was his treasured friend!
Attack on the mango grove; she was there!
Steal the butter from the stingy women of Gokula; she was
there!
Loosen the knot of the calf to feed from its mother- unknown
to the old greedy hag of the owner; she was there!
Jump into the river and have a swimming race; she was there!
Climb the tallest tree to look at the parrot babies; she was
there!
Where she was not?
She was in his heartbeats, in his flute, in his music, in
his eyes, in his Self! Yes! She was his ‘Self’!
For- what human relationship can describe this unearthly
love that bound this little boy to that young girl who was leaving behind her
youthful charms? She was ‘he’! He was ‘she’!
Raadhaa did not belong to the village!
She was disliked by all the married girls of the village!
Her sight was considered inauspicious.
Young girls avoided her lest her fate infect them too. Older women never did
miss a chance to curse her for running around the village with younger boys.
She was considered too independent; too mischievous! She was a hated character
discussed in all gossips everywhere!
But she was Kaanhaa’s life-line! He adored her; he admired
her; he followed her; he loved her; he remembered her every moment! Even after
the cruel fate dragged him away from her company to the royal palace, he never
could forget her! How can you forget one who was the very ‘awareness’ of the
mind?
The bamboo flute!
The flute never danced on his
lips again!
Whenever he could get a free moment alone, he just took the
flute in the hand and kept staring at it!
It was the echo of their last laughter! It was a treasured
memory of events long forgotten!
It was a sacred relic! It was his Raadhaa!
The music of the flute!
The music was a stream of waves
rising from the very depths of his innermost self!
The music was his love for Raadhaa!
So pure and so innocent it was, like the ‘Pranava-Naada’ of
the Vedas, purifying the heart of the listeners!
What bliss the yogis sought with hard penance in the dark
forests, flowed out of his lips through the bamboo reed and entered the ears of
that ‘no-girl’ and bound them both in an unknown union where the difference
between the two vanished and they were ‘One’!
The cows, the trees, the birds all remained silent in
veneration of the two souls as it were; the two souls who had reached the great heights of ‘Nirvikalpa
Samaadhi’, slowly climbing the steps made by that soul-filling music!
Was it a bamboo reed or a magic wand of Para Brahman?
[Pranava-Naada- Sound of AUM; Nirvikalpa Samaadhi- the
equanimous state of contemplation where there is not even the least vibration.]
He was in for a shock! His Raadhaa had grown older! She
looked haggard and worn out! The eyes had lost their mischievous looks! Her
clothes were torn! Homeless and friendless, she was wandering in the forest
searching for her lost Kaanhaa! She had made hundreds of flutes from bamboo
reeds and thrown them into the stream. She would sing sometimes, dance
sometimes, she would talk with her Kaanhaa sometimes, but she lived in her own
world. And - she never recognized the King of Dwaaraka!
Time flowed on!
Later his life was filled with
many kingly adventures, marriages, fights, so on!
To protect the Yaadava clan from the powerful armies of
Jaraasandha and to keep the ‘Kuru clan’ nearby as his trusted ally, he had
built the great city of Dwaaraka in the midst of the ocean away from the reach
of his sworn enemies and had managed to conquer his enemies one by one with
effective planning combined with slight cunningness!
But whatever the passing events were, he never lost his
‘inner bliss of the Self’ which he had attained by unceasing contemplation
practices, under the strict surveillance of Sage Sandeepani, long time ago in
his schooling days! He had mastered all the Yogic powers whichever he could lay
hands on! He had ascended the towers of all the sciences! He had analyzed the
hidden meanings of all Vedas and Upanishads under the guidance of the Great
Sage Vyaasa! He had learnt the philosophy of Saamkhya at the sacred feet of
Sage Kapila! He was a ‘Realized Sage’! Yet his heart never stopped beating the
name of his dear Raadhaa! Who said a realized yogi has to be stone-like? The
true Yogi is perfect in all emotions – even ‘love’!
The War!
The final destructive phase!
He was now engaged in taking everyone through this final
phase! Of course he had tried his best to stop this war. But he had no hand
against the decisions of the Higher Self! He had seen all the future events in
one of his contemplative states. He had seen the blood flow, heard the
heart-rending screams; and hot tears had welled up in his lotus-like eyes! But
he was helpless! What had to happen was bound to happen! The evil and selfish
tendencies of everyone had to end in such destruction only! The sparks of
hatred in every heart had collected together and started to roar like a raging
fire. What could he do? He could only help his friend to strengthen his mind
against the future tragedies!
Now, Arjuna himself had caused an opportunity for such a
talk!
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