14 Dec 2014
Shri Anil asked “Arjuna has no intension to kill Kauravas. Krishna rubbed His intension on Arjuna to kill them. Therefore, the fruit of this work should go to God only and not to the soul. Here, your concept is reversed. ‘I’ itself is ego. Without ‘I’, no work can be done. Shri Ramana Maharshi advised to concentrate on ‘I’. How to answer these three points?”
Swami replied: Arjuna has no intension to kill the Kauravas and the reason for such absence of intension is not non-violence but his relationship with them. If Kauravas were not his relatives, Arjuna must have killed them for their injustice. Killing the unjust people is protection of justice, which is the duty of the caste of Kshatriyas. Arjuna killed several unjust people in the earlier wars and the concept of non-violence did not appear in those wars. This non-violence suddenly appeared in this war only since the unjust persons to be killed happened to be his kith and kin. Hence, killing the Kauravas is a good work and not a bad work. God preaches through scriptures always advising the human beings to do good actions. When people do good actions, they get good fruits. The gun is inert and the shooter is living being. Here, in the place of gun both inert and living parts exist. The inert part is the bow and arrow, the living part is Aujuna. Arjuna fought and killed Kauravas after getting the intension only. Krishna gave the logical analysis and explained to discriminate good and bad works. After hearing the analysis, Arjuna was aware of the good work and decided to kill Kauravas after overcoming the relationships in the context of destroying the injustice and establishing the justice. Krishna did not rub His intension on Arjuna. At the end of preaching the Gita, Krishna told that Arjuna should also analyse and take the final decision. Krishna only helped him in the analysis and gave full freedom to do again the analysis and to take the final conclusion (Vimrushyaitadasheshena...). Krishna neither rubbed His analysis nor His conclusion on Arjuna. Therefore, the fruit must go to Arjuna only. Krishna preached Arjuna through the Gita, which is intensive analysis. Krishna asked Arjuna to analyze His analysis also and take the final decision. By this, Krishna wanted that Arjuna should get the final good fruit and hence, He wished Arjuna to take final decision by himself through his own analysis. The analysis given by Him is expected by Krishna to kindle the analysis in the mind of Arjuna blocked by grief taking a wrong decision to protect sinners. Had this war been wrong, Krishna should receive the bad fruit. But, this war is a good work. God always advises every human being to do good work and enjoy the good fruit. This Gita naturally becomes a part of that divine programme only and this is not different event.
Once Arjuna took the decision to kill Kauravas and started the war, Arjuna experienced a divine vision while shooting the enemies with his arrows. Before his arrow strikes the enemy, Lord Shiva was killing the enemies. Arjuna experienced that his arrows killed only the dead bodies. Arjuna narrated this experience to Veda Vyasa also. This means that God is doing all the work based on the intension of the doer. Therefore, God is doing all the work and the soul is appearing to do the work with intension. Since, this vision happened only after Arjuna’s intension, God will not get the fruit. Hence, the entire concept given in the previous message is perfectly leak proof.
Another example for this concept that God is the actual doer and does not get any fruit because the intension lies with the soul only, is given here. Ashvaththama used a divine weapon (Brahmaastra) to kill the child in the womb of Uttara, who is the daughter-in-law of Arjuna. Krishna opposed this since it is wrong work. The divine weapon is also Brahma or God. In this case, God has done the wrong work like the inert gun. This wrong work is opposed by God and Krishna gave life to the dead baby delivered. Therefore, God always opposes the wrong works in the final stage. Brahma or Krishna is the same one God and hence, Brahma cannot receive the bad fruit. Brahma did not have this wrong intension to kill the baby of a good person. Ashvaththama had such intension and was punished by God with leprosy. In this case also, the concept is correct without any error.
Secondly, you cannot say that the basic ‘I’ itself is ego. ‘I’ appears in the self-praise in statements like “I have done this great work, which cannot be done by anybody”. Here, the basic ‘I’ is pervaded by the ego-poison. Basic ‘I’ itself is not ego-poison. If it is ego-poison, the basic ‘I’ used in statements like “I am lowest at the feat of God” should also stand for ego. But, in this statement, ‘I’ is pervaded with submissive obedience, which is quite opposite to ego-poison. Hence, the basic ‘I’ is simply indicating the doer. Neither ego of self-praise nor the obedience of self-blame can be its meaning. It is just in between these extremities and can be dragged to any side forcibly to get the specific colour of that side to which it is dragged.
Thirdly, you said that Shri Maharshi asked people to concentrate on ‘I’. You cannot take this single statement to arrive at the intension of Maharshi. You have to take the second statement of the same Maharshi regarding the same ‘I’. You should correlate both these statements spoken by the same person regarding the same concept of ‘I’. You should not find any contradiction between these two statements spoken by the same person. The correlation between these statements can be given like this: If you say that ‘I’ is ultimate item according to the first statement, the ‘I’ should not have another source. ‘I’ should be the ultimate source or God so that you can concentrate and meditate upon ‘I’. The second statement contradicts this, which says that you should search the source of ‘I’. The source of ‘I’ must be God since it is the ultimate, because Maharshi did not ask further to search the source of the source of ‘I’. Since, Maharshi stopped at the source of ‘I’ only and did not proceed further, the inevitable conclusion is that the source of ‘I’ is the ultimate God. Since Maharshi did not give the name or any details of the source of ‘I’, it naturally means only unimaginable God. Since you cannot meditate upon the unimaginable God, the concentration here means only to search the source of ‘I’. If you concentrate on ‘I’, what is the use of meditation or concentration of such ‘I’, which is only an existing limited item. If you concentrate on a house or a tree or a hill, which is an existing limited item, what is the new benefit that can be achieved by you? If you concentrate on yourself as body, mind, intelligence and pure awareness, all these items already exist in you like your earned property, what is that you achieve extra? Of course, the unimaginable God is beyond any imagination and hence, there is no possibility of concentration. Unless you grasp, you cannot concentrate on it. Since God cannot be grasped, you cannot concentrate or meditate on God. For this purpose of meditation, the mediated God is necessary. ‘I’ indicates the awareness like the golden pot indicates gold. All the modifications of gold like biscuits, jewels, plates, vessels etc., can be called as gold. Similarly, all the words including ‘I’ can be called as awareness, which are its modifications. You can take any single modification and call it as gold or awareness. ‘I’ means awareness. The unimaginable God takes awareness as the medium. The awareness is not independently seen. Awareness is always available through a living being only. Among the living beings, human being is top most in view of the finest form of awareness, which is knowledge. Among the human beings, the human being radiating excellent knowledge is the top most, which is the human incarnation of God. Thus, ‘I’ indicates human being in which God exists as the human incarnation. The concentration should be on the human incarnation. The ‘I’ indicates the awareness resulting in container of awareness, which is living being and the finest living being, which is the human being and finally the human being containing God. The Gita clearly says that God enters only the human being (Manusheem tanumaashritam). Thus, ‘I’ indicates the medium into which God enters, which is the living being, the human being and finally human being possessed by God like the steps of address. Awareness, human being and the human incarnation are the three steps of address like the name of city, the name of the street and the final house number.
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