After I finished posting the blog ‘ When Rama Realized he Was Brahman’. I recalled another one from the Puranas.
This incident explains the law of Karma(Please read my posts on this under Hinduism)
Lord Krishna spent a long time on the Earth during the Dwapara Yuga and the Devas were concerned about his absence from the Vaikunta, the Abode of Lord Vishnu.
They consulted the Great Dhurvasa Rishi and he consoled them saying the time for Krishna was fast approaching.
The Devas asked him,
‘No body can kill Krishna and we dare not ask him for Dehavyhoam (leaving the Body)
Dhurvasa smiled and told them to watch.
After the Mahabharata War was over, the Pandavas and what remained of the Kauravas , along with the Yadavas (Krishna’s Clan) , were sitting together and fooling around the banks of the River Yamuna.
All of them were drunk.
Lord Krishna’s son, Sambhavan, playful by nature, dressed himself as a pregnant woman and with his cronies approached a group of Seers(Rishis) and prostrated before them and requested,
‘Please Bless Me for Safe delivery’
The Rishis said,
‘We know, you are the son of Lord Krishna, yet, we Bless you with Safe Delivery of a Wooden ladle(உலக்கை ) and your Clan will be destroyed by it’
உலக்கை,Ulakkai
When Lord Krishna was told of it, he shrugged and said he could do nothing about it!
They had a Wooden ladle delivered after nine months, and to ensure that it was destroyed, they broke it into pieces and immersed it in the river.
The bottom portion ,made of iron was swallowed by a Shark and it was caught by a Fisherman.
While seasoning the Fish, the fisherman found the iron piece and sold it to a Hunter.
The Hunter , his fixed it to the tip of his Arrow.
After some time, the same group was engaged in a drinking bout at the same place.
Salliya, the Man who drove and deserted Karna in the Battle field at a crucial juncture was there.
Salliya was the Father in Law of Karna.
Lord Krishna.
One among the gathering remarked,
‘Look,here is a fellow who deserted his king and relative at a critical time, who was on the losing side ,eating and drinking with us, the Victors’
Salliya retorted saying , ‘A bunch of Herdsman need not talk about a Kshatriya’
And a Battle of words soon became a full-fledged fight among all.
They went on attacking each other.
As they had no Arms,they plucked the ‘கோரைப்புல்’-Nut Grass around them and attacked each other with the Nut Grass,
As soon as they plucked them they became the Wooden Ladles and killed those attacked with them.
Barring Krishna, the Yadava Clan was wiped out.
(The Immersed wooden pieces , on reaching the shores , grew into Nut Grass and became weapons; that is the reason why Nut Grass is not used in Religious Ceremonies but Kusa Grass is used).
Some time later when Lord Krishna was roaming the Forests , he became tired and rested under a Tree, lying in a Fetal Position.
The Hunter saw, what looked like a Deer from a distance’ sent an Arrow.
It struck Krishna at the Center of His Foot and He lay dying.
The Hunter , on reaching Krishna begged for Mercy and felt remorse.
Krishna said to him,
” Don’t worry, it is not your fault.
During Ramavataras Rama,, I killed Vaali, hiding behind a Tree.
Now I am repaying it.
I fulfilled my duty of serving Lakshmana who served me as a younger brother during Ramavatar, as Bala rama as my elder brother in this Avatar as Krishna and breathed his last.
Even God can not escape the Law of Karma, once born!
True, those who climb mountains climb despite hazards and payments start all over again for the sheer pleasure of it.
Edmund Hillary put it better, when he asked why he kept on climbing Mountains,
‘Because it is there”
Appears to be true.
But they too need Money to climb mountains and they go in for some other jobs or for sponsors for expenses.
So Money is needed.
The point is we do get pleasure in doing what we want to and we perform better,yet if the basic needs are not met you can not do do or work what gives you pleasure.
The crux is the result of the Work.
If the work is appreciated by others and if the work is creative and not destroyed we work better.
So work or performance Pleasure and efficiency is determined by the results it produces.
Yet the results of work is not determined by our efforts or work alone.
It has other factors to influence the results, like the other factors , environment and people.
Even a simple task like brushing one’s teeth assumes and needs other factors like Gravity,paste being available at a given time and most imp importantly one should be alive.
These factors, agents are not in one’s control and as such the outcome of any work depends heavily on these external factors.
The best one can do is to efficiently manage the one factor in one’s control, that is Himself.
If one were to worry about the other factors like others’ opinion and other factors,the very thought will impair on’e efficiency, thus lowering the chances of the work being completed successfully and as a result the pleasure one can derive.
Therefore to improve efficiency and derive pleasure out of work is to change the mind-set into one of detached attachment.
An action that is performed is non action when there is no involvement or motivation.
An action that is performed with the results in mind are Actions, which may cause disappointments when one is not appreciated or the work is destroyed.
Non action is an action is one where one performs an action or work because it has to be done without bothering about the consequences .
Here there is action and yet there is no anticipation of results and consequently no disappointment; if it is appreciated or remains for some time you are Happy, it is a Bonus.
This is the way one has to approach to work to be Happy and be more efficient.
One should be careful in understanding this thought as this does not mean non involvement or irresponsibility.
When we think about how people work,the naive intuition we have is that people are like rats in a maze — that all people care about is money, and the moment we give people money, we can direct them to work one way, we can direct them to work another way. This is why we give bonuses to bankers and pay in all kinds of ways. And we really have this incredibly simplistic view of why people work and what the labor market looks like.
At the same time, if you think about it, there’s all kinds of strange behaviors in the world around us. Think about something like mountaineering and mountain climbing. If you read books of people who climb mountains, difficult mountains, do you think that those books are full of moments of joy and happiness? No, they are full of misery. In fact, it’s all about frostbite and difficulty to walk and difficulty of breathing — cold, challenging circumstances.And if people were just trying to be happy, the moment they would get to the top, they would say, “This was a terrible mistake. I’ll never do it again.” (Laughter) “Instead, let me sit on a beach somewhere drinking mojitos.” But instead, people go down, and after they recover, they go up again. And if you think about mountain climbing as an example, it suggests all kinds of things. It suggests that we care about reaching the end, a peak. It suggests that we care about the fight, about the challenge. It suggests that there’s all kinds of other things that motivate us to work or behave in all kinds of ways.
And for me personally, I started thinking about this after a student came to visit me. This was a student that was one of my students a few years earlier. And he came one day back to campus. And he told me the following story: He said that for more than two weeks, he was working on a PowerPoint presentation. He was working in a big bank. This was in preparation for a merger and acquisition. And he was working very hard on this presentation — graphs, tables, information. He stayed late at night every day. And the day before it was due, he sent his PowerPoint presentation to his boss, and his boss wrote him back and said, “Nice presentation, but the merger is canceled.” And the guy was deeply depressed.Now at the moment when he was working, he was actually quite happy. Every night he was enjoying his work, he was staying late, he was perfecting this PowerPoint presentation. But knowing that nobody would ever watch that made him quite depressed.
So I started thinking about how do we experiment with this idea of the fruits of our labor.And to start with, we created a little experiment in which we gave people Legos, and we asked them to build with Legos. And for some people, we gave them Legos and we said,”Hey, would you like to build this Bionicle for three dollars? We’ll pay you three dollars for it.” And people said yes, and they built with these Legos. And when they finished, we took it, we put it under the table, and we said, “Would you like to build another one, this time for $2.70?” If they said yes, we gave them another one. And when they finished, we asked them, “Do you want to build another one?” for $2.40, $2.10, and so on, until at some point people said, “No more. It’s not worth it for me.” This was what we called the meaningful condition. People built one Bionicle after another. After they finished every one of them, we put them under the table. And we told them that at the end of the experiment, we will take all these Bionicles, we will disassemble them, we will put them back in the boxes, and we will use it for the next participant.
There was another condition. This other condition was inspired by David, my student. And this other condition we called the Sisyphic condition. And if you remember the story about Sisyphus, Sisyphus was punished by the gods to push the same rock up a hill, and when he almost got to the end, the rock would roll over, and he would have to start again. And you can think about this as the essence of doing futile work. You can imagine that if he pushed the rock on different hills, at least he would have some sense of progress. Also, if you look at prison movies, sometimes the way that the guards torture the prisoners is to get them to dig a hole and when the prisoner is finished, they ask him to fill the hole back up and then dig again. There’s something about this cyclical version of doing something over and over and over that seems to be particularly demotivating. So in the second condition of this experiment, that’s exactly what we did. We asked people, “Would you like to build one Bionicle for three dollars?” And if they said yes, they built it. Then we asked them, “Do you want to build another one for $2.70?” And if they said yes, we gave them a new one, and as they were building it, we took apart the one that they just finished. And when they finished that, we said, “Would you like to build another one, this time for 30 cents less?” And if they said yes, we gave them the one that they built and we broke. So this was an endless cycleof them building and us destroying in front of their eyes.
Now what happens when you compare these two conditions? The first thing that happenedwas that people built many more Bionicles — they built 11 versus seven — in the meaningful condition versus the Sisyphus condition. And by the way, we should point out that this was not a big meaning. People were not curing cancer or building bridges. People were building Bionicles for a few cents. And not only that, everybody knew that the Bionicles would be destroyed quite soon. So there was not a real opportunity for big meaning. But even the small meaning made a difference.
Now we had another version of this experiment. In this other version of the experiment, we didn’t put people in this situation, we just described to them the situation, much as I am describing to you now, and we asked them to predict what the result would be. What happened? People predicted the right direction but not the right magnitude. People who were just given the description of the experiment said that in the meaningful condition people would probably build one more Bionicle. So people understand that meaning is important, they just don’t understand the magnitude of the importance, the extent to which it’s important.
)ஆறு மனமே ஆறு அந்த ஆண்டவன் கட்டளை ஆறு
ஆறு மனமே ஆறு அந்த ஆண்டவன் கட்டளை ஆறு
தேர்ந்து மனிதன் வாழும் வகைக்கு தெய்வத்தின் கட்டளை ஆறு
தெய்வத்தின் கட்டளை ஆறு
ஆறு மனமே ஆறு அந்த ஆண்டவன் கட்டளை ஆறு
ஒன்றே சொல்வார் ஒன்றே செய்வார் உள்ளத்தில் உள்ளது அமைதி
இன்பத்தில் துன்பம் துன்பத்தில் இன்பம் இறைவன் வகுத்த நியதி
ஒன்றே சொல்வார் ஒன்றே செய்வார் உள்ளத்தில் உள்ளது அமைதி
இன்பத்தில் துன்பம் துன்பத்தில் இன்பம் இறைவன் வகுத்த நியதி
சொல்லுக்குச் செய்கை பொன்னாகும் வரும் துன்பத்தில் இன்பம் பட்டாகும்
சொல்லுக்குச் செய்கை பொன்னாகும் வரும் துன்பத்தில் இன்பம் பட்டாகும் – இந்த
இரண்டு கட்டளை அறிந்த மனதில் எல்லா நன்மையும் உண்டாகும்
எல்லா நன்மையும் உண்டாகும்”) Tamil.
An action is worth thousand words.
When one does there is no necessity for words.
Nor does one to need to communicate and the action earns approbation beyond words.
Bhisma, The Grand Sire of the Bharata Clan, was felled by the arrow of Arjuna in the Epic Battle of Mahabharata.
He was in acute discomfort, the countless arrows being uneven on the ground.
He was awaiting the Northern Path, or The Uttarayan of The Sun to leave the mortal coil.
He looked around his Clan, including Arjuna and Lord Krishna and fixed his eyes on Krishna.
Krishna looked at Arjuna.
Arjuna extracted a string of arrows and arrayed them evenly, had Bhishma lifted,placed on this bed and Bhishma was comfortable, the level being even.
He was thirsty and no amount of water could quench his thirst.
Arjuna sent an arrow down the earth near Bhishma’s head, and out came Ganges,The River Ganga, Mother of Devavrta,now known as Bhishma.
Bhishma was quenched of his thirst and his yearning to see his mother before his death.
When The Heart communicates there is no need for words.
Compare this with
“கண்ணொடு கண் நோக்கொக்கின் வாய்ச்சொற்கள் என்ன பயனும் இல’
(If Eyes were to communicate, words are of no use)
Vivid descriptions are known to us about the Birth of Lord Krishna in the prison of Kamsa in the dead of the night on Ahstami Thithi,Rohini Nakshtra to an extent that even Krishna’s date of Birth has been determined.
Lord Vishnu is said to be Brahma Swarupam and is Beyond Birth ,Death and is Indescribable(Avyakthan)
While going through the Bhagavad Gita Chapter 49 (read the Gita daily, a Chapter a Day first thing in the morning for the past 10 years-every day I get new insights and new doubts!)
When I read the 7th Sloka where Krishna uses the word ‘srujaami’ meaning ‘reveal’ while describing how he is born time and again, I had this doubt.
How come, then, He was said to be born of Devaki?
The use of the word ‘srujaami’ means revealing and not born and I know the Bhagavad Gita is very careful in choosing words.
Lord Krishna’s Birth
So I started checking Srimad Bhagavatham which describes the birth of Lord Krishna in detail.
To my surprise I found that Lord Krishna was not born to Devaki as mortals would from the Womb for He is Ayonijan(One who does not stay in the Womb)
This is what the Bhagavatham says of Lord Krishna’s Birth,
” Thereafter, at the auspicious time for the appearance of the Lord, the entire universe was surcharged with all the qualities of goodness, beauty and peace. The constellation Rohiṇī appeared, as did stars like Aśvinī. The sun, the moon and the other stars and planets were very peaceful. All directions appeared extremely pleasing, and the beautiful stars twinkled in the cloudless sky. Decorated with towns, villages, mines and pasturing grounds, the earth seemed all-auspicious. The rivers flowed with clear water, and the lakes and vast reservoirs, full of lilies and lotuses, were extraordinarily beautiful. In the trees and green plants, full of flowers and leaves, pleasing to the eyes, birds like cuckoos and swarms of bees began chanting with sweet voices for the sake of the demigods. A pure breeze began to blow, pleasing the sense of touch and bearing the aroma of flowers, and when the brāhmaṇas engaging in ritualistic ceremonies ignited their fires according to Vedic principles, the fires burned steadily, undisturbed by the breeze. Thus when the birthless Lord Viṣṇu, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, was about to appear, the saints and brāhmaṇas, who had always been disturbed by demons like Kaḿsa and his men, felt peace within the core of their hearts, and kettledrums simultaneously vibrated from the upper planetary system..
Vasudeva then saw the newborn child, who had very wonderful lotuslike eyes and who bore in His four hands the four weapons śańkha, cakra, gadā andpadma. On His chest was the mark of Śrīvatsa and on His neck the brilliant Kaustubha gem. Dressed in yellow, His body blackish like a dense cloud, His scattered hair fully grown, and His helmet and earrings sparkling uncommonly with the valuable gem Vaidūrya, the child, decorated with a brilliant belt, armlets, bangles and other ornaments, appeared very wonderful.
O Madhusūdana, because of Your appearance, I am becoming more and more anxious in fear of Kaḿsa. Therefore, please arrange for that sinful Kaḿsa to be unable to understand that You have taken birth from my womb.
SB 10.3.40: After you received that benediction and I disappeared, you engaged yourselves in sex to have a son like Me, and I fulfilled your desire.
SB 10.3.41: Since I found no one else as highly elevated as you in simplicity and other qualities of good character, I appeared in this world as Pṛśnigarbha, or one who is celebrated as having taken birth from Pṛśni.
SB 10.3.42: In the next millennium, I again appeared from the two of you, who appeared as My mother, Aditi, and My father, Kaśyapa. I was known as Upendra, and because of being a dwarf, I was also known as Vāmana.
SB 10.3.43: O supremely chaste mother, I, the same personality, have now appeared of you both as your son for the third time. Take My words as the truth.
Preventing Vidhura from entering the Battle field.
Sidelining Karna till the tenth day or the death of Bhishma.
Allotting his Vrushni Sena to Kauravs and Himself standing by the side of the Pandavas.
Misguiding on the Full Moon Day for the War Ritual of sacrifice.
Prevention of Karna from using the Nagastra twice;of making him fight only with Arjuna’of preventing him from using the Brahmastra;
making Karna part with his Punya pala on the Battle field;disarming his Kavacha and Kundala Armor;preveting him from attacking any of the pandavas other than Arjuna.
Use of Sikandi against Bhishma.
Announcement of the death of Aswathama by Yudhistira to kill Drona.
Hiding of the Sun by His Sudarshana to draw out Jayathratha.
There were some of the tactics by Lord Krishna used by Lord Krishna in preparation and during the Mahabharata War at Kurukshetra.
He was also instrumental in forming the Battle plans.
Indian Epics used advanced Battle Formations in War.
The List .
Carving showing the warrior Abhimanyu entering the chakravyuha – Hoysaleswara temple, Halebidu, India (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
You must be logged in to post a comment.