“Day after day countless living entities in this world go to the kingdom of death. Still, those who remain aspire for a permanent situation here. What could be more amazing than this?” (Maharaja Yudhishthira speaking to Yamaraja, Mahabharata, Vana-parva, 313.116)

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अहन्य् अहनि भूतानि
गच्छन्तीह यमालयम्
शेषाः स्थावरम् इच्छन्ति
किम् आश्चर्यम् अतः परम्

ahany ahani bhūtāni
gacchantīha yamālayam
śeṣāḥ sthāvaram icchanti
kim āścaryam ataḥ param

“Coping mechanisms are real. The pain from defeat, from things not going your way, from the wrong outcomes to events, can be stinging, long-lasting, biting, and difficult to tolerate. One way to cope is to simply reinvent the reality. When the real world is no longer tolerable, just make up a different world. Convince yourself of things which are not true. Move to that parallel universe, so to speak, and then enjoy peace and calm from knowing that everything is now okay.

“I have directly witnessed this sequence play out. There was a movie made recently about an influential female figure in the world of politics. Her time on the scene was almost fifty years ago. This movie was obviously made to portray this woman in a negative light. They depicted scenes which were actually recorded on television when they first happened. This means that the honest viewer can go back and compare against how the truth was later shown in the movie.

“The movie totally distorted reality. They made up scandals when there were none. While this female figure was overwhelmingly defeating her political opponents on the debate stage in real life, the movie shows her as unintelligent, mean, and hesitant. The entire proposal is absurd. You can see that these opponents could not win on the merits of their arguments. They decided to instead rewrite history, to take shelter in a fictional world where they are portrayed as the victors instead of the losers that they surely are.

“I bring this up because some might say that there is correlation with the escapism, for lack of a better term, that takes place in bhakti-yoga. The premise is that the material world is miserable. We are in the fallen age of Kali, with its rampant quarrel and hypocrisy. Right is now wrong. Dharma is now adharma. Real religion stands only on one remaining pillar. Things are so bad that we have to take shelter in the holy name, in worshiping God through His identity in the sound of Krishna.

“Is this not really a way to quit the game, so to speak? You shift to some fantasy world, where everything is supposedly great. This magical place is known as Vaikuntha, which means ‘free of anxieties’. We shift the consciousness to Vrindavana, where Krishna happily plays. He has nothing to do; there are no responsibilities. Everyone loves Him. This is supposedly our original home. What is the response to the critics who will say that this is only mythology and thereby a coping mechanism for dealing with the harsh realities of life on earth?”

The only mythology mistakenly accepted as truth is the belief that we can somehow find a permanent situation of happiness in a land of misery, in a place which is always changing. Though the collective energy known as prakriti is eternal in nature, the individual manifestations are never fixed. This is why there are events known as birth and death. It is mythology to believe that we can solve all of the problems in a place where everything is destined to be erased.

Yudhishthira Maharaja says that the most amazing thing in this world is that people think that what happened to countless others in the past will not happen to them. My ancestors are no longer in this world. My parents, my loved ones, my mentors, my teachers – they are either no longer with me or I do not see them on a regular basis. The closeness of the relationship could not hold; it was temporary the entire time.

The genuine presentation of religion, known as sanatana-dharma, begins with the truth. It gives the harshest of reality checks in reminding the individual that the body does not identify them. Take something that does not exist. Take something that is not real. Then place the material body on the same level. Like in a math equation, where the two sides must equal one another, despite how the terms are written out. That is one way to understand our predicament when associating with a temporary body.

“The Vedic wisdom encourages self-realization on the basis of the nonexistence of the material body. Therefore, in either case, whether one believes in the existence of the soul, or one does not believe in the existence of the soul, there is no cause for lamentation for loss of the body.” (Shrila Prabhupada, Bhagavad-gita, 2.28 Purport)

We have the presentation of Bhagavad-gita, wherein the illusioned Arjuna for a brief moment foolishly believes he can prevent death and secure the future wellbeing of countless others. He believes he can do this by refusing to fight, by declining to uphold dharma in alignment with his occupation, which is a kshatriya warrior.

To the wise person, the proposal is so silly that it almost warrants a laugh. Before dispelling the mythology created by Arjuna, Krishna smiles. Krishna is kind. He could mock. He could make fun. He could chastise. But there is so much love that Krishna would rather correct. This is the way of the spiritual guide. They can be as hard as a thunderbolt and as soft as a lotus flower, depending on the situation and what approach is needed.

तमुवाच हृषीकेशः प्रहसन्निव भारत
सेनयोरूभयोर्मध्ये विषीदन्तमिदं वचः

tam uvāca hṛṣīkeśaḥ
prahasann iva bhārata
senayor ubhayor madhye
viṣīdantam idaṁ vacaḥ

“O descendant of Bharata, at that time Krishna, smiling, in the midst of both the armies, spoke the following words to the grief-stricken Arjuna.” (Bhagavad-gita, 2.10)

The subsequent recommendations to worship Krishna, to make offerings unto Him, to always remember Him, and the like are based on reality. Abandoning all varieties of dharma for the single pursuit of working through surrender to the Supreme Personality of Godhead represents genuine and lasting reality. Moreover, the choice is up to Arjuna. He should deliberate on the presentation and then make up his mind. He should be assertive in the path forward. He should know what is real and what is not. There is no question of escaping that which did not exist in the first place.

इति ते ज्ञानम् आख्यातं
गुह्याद् गुह्यतरं मया
विमृश्यैतद् अशेषेण
यथेच्छसि तथा कुरु

iti te jñānam ākhyātaṁ
guhyād guhyataraṁ mayā
vimṛśyaitad aśeṣeṇa
yathecchasi tathā kuru

“Thus I have explained to you the most confidential of all knowledge. Deliberate on this fully, and then do what you wish to do.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad­-gita, 18.63)

In Closing:

Only the soul to persist,
The body never to exist.

Then how escape can call?
When highest being of all.

Directly to disciple recommending,
Like thesis expertly defending.

Rather than to mythology tied,
Arjuna on ageless wisdom relied.

Categories: questions

Tags: dailyprompt, hare krishna, mahabharata, poem, poems, poetry, yudhishthira