KRISHNA AND ARJUNA

I came across some lines from the Bhagaved Gita, the Hindu book that Gandhi loved and read throughout his life. The god Krishna appears to Arjuna, a warrior who on the eve of battle suddenly becomes reluctant to go to war. The enemy army is a clan in which Arjuna has many relatives - how can he bring himself to kill them? On the other hand, if he doesn't fight he is leaving his own army without a leader and they will killed by the enemy clan. Krishna urges Arjuna to fight but Arjuna says that will bring bad karma to his soul. Krishna says there is a way to avoid this karma. "It is not possible not to act. But it is possible to act without creating karma. One does this by performing all action without hatred or desire. Be intent on action, not the fruits of action....Action imprisons the world unless it is done as a sacrifice. Free from attachment, perform action as a sacrifice."
     This is undoubtedly one of the sections non-violent Gandhi loved, in this book that is ostensibly about going to war. Krishna is saying that you must detach from anger and hatred and not focus on whether your actions succeed or fail. Think only of the importance of acting.  "Action imprisons the world"...action that is all about success and failure, and your own needs and expectations, action that comes out of ego, can only lead to pain and suffering. Let go of attachment. Become selfless in the sense that your actions aren't attached to your ego - they're focused on a higher power and performed for a greater good. "Perform action as a sacrifice."
     Selflessness and self-sacrifice - they are among the ideals we value the most. They're universal and at the heart of Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism and Islam. They're as highly valued in the secular world. We admire the person who rushes into a burning building to save a child or the person who performs an act of kindness without desire for thanks or acknowledgement. We admire actions that are detached from self-interest. The first section of Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search For Meaning, is a memoir of his time in a concentration camp. He says, "The best of us did not come back." The ones who, even in that inhuman world, managed to care for others, or shared what little food they had, those who sacrificed their own survival - they are the best of us.
     In the camps, survival often depended on a person's ability to remain intact, grounded in a deep sense of self and one's humanity, which was the very thing the Nazis wanted to exterminate. This gets to another wonderful paradox: only those with a strong, secure sense of self can act selflessly and be ready to sacrifice. When you are deep in ego, when your sense of security depends on the outside world, you are too bound up in self to think of another; desires and demands, needs and expectations block out the light of compassion for the world and the desire to connect with something or someone beyond yourself.
     Finally, Krishna tells Arjuna to focus all his actions on him. In this, he is the universal god who says in many traditions and languages, "Give all your doubts, pain and suffering to me. Focus on me and you will expand yourself."