Character Sketch
- Śakuni, the maternal uncle of Duryodhana embodies the pattern of self-hatred, which is cunningness personified.
- Droṇa represents all the best knowledge one imbibes and the teachers one encounters, who guide us but are unable to take us through to the ultimate flowering of enlightenment. It is difficult to give them up since one feels grateful to them. This is where the Enlightened Master, the incarnation steps in and guides us.
- Duryodhana, represents one's ego or root-pattern, the most difficult to conquer as it leads one to self destruction. One needs the full help of the Master here. It is subtle work and even the Master's help may not be obvious, since at this point, sometimes the ego makes us deny and disconnect from the Master as well.
- Karṇa is the repository of all good deeds and it is his good deeds that stand in the way of his own Enlightenment. Śrī Kṛṣṇa has to take the load of Karṇa's puṇya, his meritorious deeds, before he could be liberated. The Enlightened Master guides one to drop one's attachment to good deeds arising out of what are perceived to be charitable and compassionate intentions. He also shows us that the quest for and the experience of enlightenment is the ultimate act of compassion that one can offer to the world.
Bhagavan Ṣri Kṛṣṇa, the 8th most powerful purnāvatar of Ṃaha Viśnu, is the embodiment of pure celebration, boundless love, compassion, and completion.
Bhagavan Ṣri Kṛṣṇa is the only incarnation demonstrating and expressing Ṣarva Ṃangalatva all the auspicious qualities and all dimensions of an avatar during His physical happening. The līla Bhagavan Ṣri Krsna is one of sheer innocence and simplicity, in a peace-loving, diplomatic, conflict-free way.
Karṇa is the repository of all good deeds and it is his good deeds that stand in the way of his own Enlightenment. Śrī Kṛṣṇa has to take the load of Karṇa's puṇya, his meritorious deeds, before he could be liberated. The Enlightened Master guides one to drop one's attachment to good deeds arising out of what are perceived to be charitable and compassionate intentions. He also shows us that the quest for and the experience of enlightenment is the ultimate Till now everyone blames Bhagavan Sri Krishna for this Kurukshetra war but that's the greatest sacrifice Bhagavan Sri Krishna did to save the planet Earth. If Kurukshetra was not conducted at that time under the controlled conditions and direct supervision of Bhagavan Sri Krishna, planet Earth would not have survived more than three years.
Character Sketch act of compassion that one can offer to the world. Bhagavan Ṣri Kṛṣṇa, the 8th most powerful purnāvatar of Ṃaha Viśnu, is the embodiment of pure celebration, boundless love, compassion, and completion. Bhagavan Ṣri Kṛṣṇa is the only incarnation demonstrating and expressing Ṣarva Ṃangalatva all the auspicious qualities a nd all dimensions of an avatar during His physical happening. The līla Bhagavan Ṣri Krsna is one of sheer innocence and The wide spread availability of the Astra shastras without Shastra, without the knowledge and vision, was posing a huge threat to the whole of humanity and planet Earth, and for life itself. The greatest achievement of Bhagavan Sri Krishna is destroying all the weapons in one controlled condition and saving planet earth, eliminating the nuclear weapons and the knowledge of these nuclear weapons to save humanity from total annihilation.
conflict-free way.
simplicity, in a peace-loving, diplomatic,
Bhagavad Gītā appears in the heart of Mahābhārat in Bhīṣma Parva, the sixth chapter of its eighteen chapters. Veda Vyāsa, the narrator, in glorifying the Gītā sings, 'the one who drinks the water of Ganges (the sacred river for Hindus) attains liberation, what to speak of the one who drinks the nectar of Gītā?
Gītā is the essential nectar of the Mahābhārat, bhāratamṛta sarvasvam as it is directly spoken by Nārāyaṇa, Bhagavān kṛṣṇa Himself.'
The armies assembled in the vast field of Kurukṣetra, now in the state of Haryana in modern day Bharat. All the kings and princes were related to one another, and were often on opposite sides. Facing the Kaurava army and his friends, relatives and teachers, Arjuna was overcome by remorse and guilt, and wanted to walk away from the battle out of total powerlessness unbecoming an invincible warrior among warriors.
Śrī Kṛṣṇa's dialogue with Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukṣetra out of His utmost concern and love for him and humanity is the content of Bhagavad Gītā. Of its seven hundred and forty-five (745) verses, Bhagavān Śrī Kṛṣṇa sings the Gītā in six hundred and twenty (620) verses responding to Arjuna's fifty-seven (57) enquiries.
Śrī Kṛṣṇa persuades Arjuna to give-up his powerlessness unfitting an Ārya—the spiritually evolved one who understands human life and urges him to raise himself again as Parantapa—the conqueror of enemy, and take up arms and vanquish his enemies. They are already dead,' says Śrī Kṛṣṇa, 'All those who are facing you have been already killed by Me. Go ahead and do what you have to do. That is your responsibility. Do not worry about the outcome. Leave that to Me.'
aprakāśo'pravṛttiś ca pramādo moha eva ca tamasyetāni jāyante vivṛddhe kurunand
O son of Kuru, when there is an increase in the mode of ignorance, madness, illusion, inertia and darkness are manifested
Let the light and wisdom of Kṛṣṇa, the Jagadguru, dispel your darkness and tamas.
yadā sattve pravṛddhe tu pralayaṁ yāti dehabhṛt tadottamavidāṁ lokānam alānpratipadyate
When one dies in the mode of goodness [satva], He goes to the highest of worlds
When a person who is steeped in the attributes of satva dies, he becomes divine.
rajasi pralayaṁ gatvā karmasaṅgiṣu jāyate tathā pralīnas tamasi mūḍhayoniṣu jāyate
When one dies in the mode of passion [rajas], he takes birth among those engaged in activities. When he dies in the mode of ignorance [tamas], he takes birth in the space of the ignorant.
The meaning of life is to be in the space of completion; to be in restful awareness, to realize our inner Divinity
karmaṇaḥ sukṛtasyāhuḥ sāttvikaṁ nirmalaṁ phalam rajasastu phalaṁ duḥkham ajñānaṁ tamasaḥ phalam
By acting in the mode of goodness, one becomes purified. Work done in the mode of passion results in distress, and actions performed in the mode of ignorance result in foolishness
When we are steeped in satva, we live in restful awareness
sattvātsañjāyate jñānaṁ rajaso lobha eva ca pramādamohau tamaso bhavato'jñānameva ca
From the mode of goodness, real knowledge develops; from the mode of passion, greed develops; from the mode of ignorance develops foolishness, madness and illusion.
Satva drives our journey towards our core, our true self, ātma.
We act like a wind-up toy when we are steeped in rajas, and like a battery- operated toy with a dead battery when we are in tamas.
Kṛṣṇa uses powerful words to drive home how desperate that state is: ignorance, madness, illusion, inertia and darkness. It is surprising how quickly one can slip from rajas to tamas. To slip from restless activity into inactivity and inertia is simple.
Activity without meaning, activity with tension and stress and activity totally focused on sensual satisfaction quickly leads to deep fatigue. The activity without any meaning that we find in tamas is not the same as activity without a purpose and goal that we experience in satva. Please do not confuse the two.
The real danger of rajas is that we are constantly focused on a goal and we forget to be in completion and enjoy the path as we pursue a meaningless purpose. Life has no purpose. It only has meaning. The meaning of life is to be in the space of completion; to be in restful awareness, to realize our inner Divinity.
To be divine and to realize that inner divinity is our true meaning in life. Anything less than that is meaningless. Being aggressive, being restlessly active, or being constantly on the move does not help us understand or realize this meaning. We will be running after one thing or another. We are just plain greedy
If we are driven by mere possessive obsession, we are bound to become tired sooner or later. Aggression results in deep depression. This is what is called as the 'depression of success'.
People struggle to increase their material wealth, disregarding everything else. People change cars every year, houses every third year
People run after material possessions and trophies without knowing the right context of 'why they are doing, what they are doing'. One day when they have acquired and reacquired so many things and still feel incomplete, unhappy, uneasy and listless, they wonder why they acquired the things that they struggled for. They go into deep depression, deep incompletion or what we call tamas.
The depression of success is difficult to address. To experience failure when we have always been successful and worked so hard is difficult to accept. What results then is depression, tamas. Tamas is generally born out of the ignorance of our true Self. Sometimes tamas can arise out of an effort to move out of that ignorance. A highly rājasic person, one who has been aggressively pursuing material gains, when moving into a spiritual path can easily move into tamas for a while.
Life happens to you inside and outside, both. If you think it is only inside and not outside, you don't know the outside. If you think it is only outside, you don't know the inside. If life is not happening to you inside, it is depression; if life is not happening to you outside, it is inefficiency. If life is happening to you inside, it is responsibility; if life is happening to you outside, it is success.
Tamas is darkness. It is negative. We can only remove darkness by bringing in light. In the same way, we dispel ignorance by bringing in awareness of the science of completion, pūrṇatva. The Upaniṣad says—tamaso mā jyotiṛgamaya—meaning, let my darkness be removed by light.
Let the light and wisdom of Kṛṣṇa, the Jagadguru, dispel your darkness and tamas.
In these verses, Kṛṣṇa tells us where the person goes after death when steeped in these attributes of satva, rajas and tamas. A sātvic person becomes divine. A tāmasic person chooses a lower life. A rājasic person continues to suffer due to greed.
In another verse in the Gītā, Kṛṣṇa tells Arjuna that a person is reborn based on the last thought before death. Here Kṛṣṇa explains how that last thought is not an accident. It is based on one's guṇa, nature, his patterns. The mental setup, the conditioning, the mūla vāsanā with which we led life and with which we leave our life as well. When we are reborn, our spirit finds another body to occupy
Every birth is your declaration of completion. You decide, 'Come on! I declare completion. I will now work from the space of completion.' During the birth you declare completion and start the whole think anew; and if you fall from the space of completion, you bring some of those past incompletions back. That is what is prārabdha karma. Karma which you bring back from the past incompletions is prārabdha. Whatever bio-memory you brought with you when you assumed the body is prārabdha. The muscle-memory you are accumulating is agāmya, and all collective bio-memories is sañcita. If you come to planet Earth only with bio-energy, without bio-memory, you are an Incarnation.
Only when you have found your root thought pattern and removed it and regained your consciousness, you will understand, 'Oh, God! I have literally wasted my whole life!'
Kṛṣṇa says that a person living in satva goes to higher spaces, the abodes of the realized sages. He becomes divine, tadottama vidāṁ lokān amalān pratipadyate (14.14). When we are steeped in satva, we live in restful awareness, the space of enlightenment. We live in the present moment. We are no longer attached to the results of our action and we are no longer controlled by fear and greed root patterns. We stop thinking about ourselves and we start living for others.
When one is in tamas, in deep ignorance and darkness, one sinks lower in rebirth. Kṛṣṇa says such a person is reborn as an animal. The lowest energy center of a human being is the mūlādhāra cakra, the root center. Human beings are provided with intelligence to move upward in consciousness. We have the freedom to make mistakes and we do make mistakes. When Kṛṣṇa talks about being reborn in ignorance and as animals, it is not to denigrate animals. He means, a human being who behaves instinctively, out of a blocked mūlādhāra cakra, and out of an animalistic nature, is ignorant of his potential as a human.
We are not human beings striving for a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings enjoying a human experience. That is the truth. We can be in this state only when we are in satva. When we are in tamas, we forget our spiritual nature. When we are in rajas, we have a vague idea; however, even that spiritual experience becomes an attachment, another pattern, goal and desire. We become attached to something that is beyond attachment. Kṛṣṇa says that we are reborn into this human form, back into this cycle of life and death, this cycle of saṁsāra, with all its suffering.
It is our choice to be instinctive and unconscious, in deep tamas, like an animal, or to be logical and chasing objects out of rajas. The third choice is to be beyond attachments, in a super conscious state of completion, in an intuitive state, in tune with our sublime satva nature. This choice determines our next birth. In fact, it determines whether we will even be born again.
Kṛṣṇa, the Master psychologist is right on the mark: Purification and knowledge are from satva, distress and greed are from rajas, and foolishness, madness and illusion are from tamas!