Fight!

 

Queen Kunti told a story for her son Yudhisthira: There was once a very intelligent woman named Vidula. She was highly devoted to Kshatriya dharma & thus somewhat prone to pride & anger. Her son Sanjaya was once defeated by the King of Sindhu. After leaving the battlefield, he simply lay down as if lifeless, overwhelmed by despair

 

Vidula came & rebuked him with harsh words: You’re such a eunuch that I’m ashamed to call you, my son. Don’t be such a coward. Go and fight your enemy. It is better to die like a hero than to admit defeat like a weakling. It is better to blaze up like a flaming piece of wood rather than smolder like a burnt rice chaff

 

How can you bear to go on living after avoiding your duty as a kshatriya? Having received human birth, if one doesn’t perform some praiseworthy act that is talked about by people in general, he has served no other purpose than to increase the population. Indeed, one who has not earned fame-either for his charity, austerity, learning, wealth or honesty-is no better than his mother’s stool

 

Being prodded like this, Sanjaya questioned: Dear mother! If I were to do as you advise & die on battlefield, how could you bear to go on living? Vidula said: Son, to live by depending upon others is the most wretched condition of life. A Kshatriya who gives up his manliness to subsist upon others should no longer be considered living. A Kshatriya only deserves this title when he is able to maintain all others & when he never refuses to give charity to Brahmanas. Indeed, the prosperity attained by ruling a kingdom is life itself for Kshatriya

 

Sanjaya said: Mother, because of your obsession with Kshatriya heroism, you have become so ruthless & stone hearted that you no longer care about death of your own son. She said: I’m encouraging you in this way as I know that to see you earn infamy as coward would be more painful for me than your death. If, in the name of affection, a mother allows her son to fall into disrepute, that sort of maternal love is no better than that which is felt by the she-ass for her offspring

 

Inspite of hearing these strong arguments, Sanjaya pleaded not to encourage him to fight but to comfort him in his grief stricken condition. But, Vidula was adamant & at last she declared: I will urge you to go & fight, for that is my duty

 

Krsna says in Bhagvad Gita to Arjun:

sukha-duḥkhe same kṛtvā lābhālābhau jayājayau
tato yuddhāya yujyasva naivaṁ pāpam avāpsyasi

 

Kṛṣṇa says that Arjuna should fight for the sake of fighting because He desires the battle. There is no consideration of happiness or distress, profit or loss, victory or defeat in the activities of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. That everything should be performed for the sake of Kṛṣṇa is transcendental consciousness, so there is no reaction to material activities. 

He who acts for his own sense gratification, either in goodness or in passion, is subject to the reaction, good or bad. But he who has completely surrendered himself in the activities of Kṛṣṇa consciousness is no longer obliged to anyone, nor is he a debtor to anyone, as one is in the ordinary course of activities

 

Do we all also fight our battles in God consciousness? Thoughts? #gameoflife