lelihyase grasamānah samantā-
llokān samagrān vadanairjvaladbhih |
tejobhirāpūrya jagat samagram
bhāsastavogrāh pratapanti visno ||11.30||
Completely swallowing all the people with your effulgent flaming mouths, you lick again and again. Filling up the entire world with brilliance, your fierce flames burn, O Lord Vishnu!
Īśvara doesn't seem in any way sympathetic here. On the contrary, he seems to be enjoying this destruction, licking his lips and devouring those people who are entering into his mouths. When Arjuna asked for this vision, he expected to see something wonderful, and he did. But he wasn't prepared for the other side of it. When everything is Īśvara, he is not only the creator and sustainer, but also the destroyer too.
ākhyāhi me ko bhavān ugrarūpo
namo'stu te devavara prasīda |
vijñātum icchāmi bhavantam ādyam
na hi prajānāmi tava pravrttim ||11.31||
Salutation to you O Lord, the exalted among all Gods! Please tell (me), for my sake, who you are, having (this) terrible form? Be gracious. I wish to know you, the cause, because I do not understand at all your actions.
Arjuna is confused now. He doesn't understand why the protector Lord Vishnu becomes a destroyer. And he seems to be intent on destroying all these people. Therefore he asked Lord Krsna to release his confusion.
śrībhagavān uvāca
kālo'smi lokaksayakrt pravrddho
lokān samāhartum iha pravrttah |
rte'pi tvām na bhavisyanti sarve
ye'vasthitāh pratyanīkesu yodhāh ||11.32||
Śrī Bhagavān said: I am time, the destroyer of people, the one who is all over, whose activity is to make people age and die here. Even without you, all these warriors who have assembled in the opposing armies will cease to exist.
Īśvara as the time principle in the transactional world, where the integration of the pair of opposites such as birth-death, happiness-sorrow, association-dissociation, etc. are there. To be totally free living in this pair of opposite world is possible, either one totally accept it or totally giving it up. But to accept or to give up, one should have total understanding about the truth of it which is ātmā-jñānam. In Gītā chapter 3.2, Arjuna get confused about Lord Krsna's teaching, where moksa is to be attained only by knowledge, but why he asked Arjuna to do karma. Then in verse 3 Lord Krsna told him that there are two lifestyles one can life freely in this transactional world, either the life of the renunciate or the life of karma-yoga. Both lifestyles are backed up by ātmā-jñanam. Therefore with self-knowledge one can totally accept this destroyer aspect of the Lord in transactional world and continue active in society, having as though association but not being affected by them. Or one can totally give up any role in the society, renounces association and only abides in one-self.
Here Īśvara has come for activities of destroying people. This is going to happen whether Arjuna decides to fight or not to fight. Arjuna thinks that all the destinies of these people is on his hand, but it is not so. "Do not think you are the author of action. Your fitness is only in doing or not doing, not in the result. May you not incline to not doing your duty," Gītā 2.47.
tasmāt tvam uttistha yaśo labhasva
jitvā śatrūn bhunksva rājyam samrddham |
mayaivete nihatāh pūrvam eva
nimittamātram bhava savyasācin ||11.33||
Therefore, get up and gain fame. Conquering the enemies, enjoy the prosperous kingdom. These (people) have already been destroyed by Me. May you be merely an instrument, Savyasācin (Arjuna)!
To enjoy fame and prosperous kingdom is Arjuna's prarabdha. In the same way, destruction is the prarabdha for the opposite army. If Arjuna choose not to kill them, they will also perish in different way. Arjuna is just an instrument for the law of karma.
If we are only instrument for Īśvara's law, is there any free will on our part to do action? Are we only puppet in this transactional world?
continue....
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