There are many facets of Krishan's personality
that attract me. I think Krishna lived
his life in the present without worrying about the future, he didn't reject or get attached
to anything. He lived his life as it presented itself, accepted whatever came his way, and didn’t
try to run away from anything, let it be love,
mischief, embarrassment, war, politics, wickedness, criticism, or even
death. He enjoyed his life to the fullest and remained calm and cheerful during
most of the epic, even during the war.
Krishna not only
preaches the theory of Karma in Mahabharat but he is also an ideal example of
it. He accepted the consequences of all his actions without any complaint. War
was not the result of his actions; he was not responsible for starting the war. But
still, at the end of the war, Gandhari (Duryodhan's mother) blamed him for not doing
enough to prevent the war and killing her 100 sons. Without getting into arguments, he listened to her
patiently. She cursed him that his family would also meet the same fate and
everyone would get killed like her sons. He accepted her curse without any
complaint as he knew that some of his actions during the war were
responsible for her pain and suffering. He is the perfect example
of the theory of Karma, everyone including him has to face the consequences
of their actions (good or bad). No one should escape the result of their
actions. One can see the shades of all traits found in human
nature in Krishna's personality, he is all-inclusive, and maybe that's why the Mahabharat gives him the status of god. The Kuru army was
much stronger than the Pandav army and Krisha had to use tricks, magic, and deceit on Pandava's behalf to defeat them. Mahabharat teaches
us many lessons like, just being on the right side doesn't guarantee
victory we have to earn it, we should not underestimate our enemy at
any stage, evil is not always weak and every action will produce its
results, sooner or later.
In the epic, he is seen as a reliable friend, lover,
clever politician, cunning and ruthless war strategist, intelligent foreign
policymaker, spiritual guru, peacemaker, etc. He is the one
powerful character in the story who can dictate the course of events
using his charm, intelligence, and if necessary, force. He was the one who
protected Pandavas whenever they were in danger and needed his help, but failed to protect his own family from destruction. He is the person who
fights with the king of Gods, Indra, to save the villagers of Vrindavan from Indra's
wrath by lifting Govardhan mountain and this is the same Krishna
who is accidentally killed by a hunter in the forest. He did not die a heroic death of the warriors; he died like any
other creature in the forest.
I think he is the one among all Gods to whom
humans can relate very easily and this might be the reason for his
popularity. We all see parts of Krishna (and many other characters from Mahabharat) in us at different stages of our lives. That is why I like this story as we can easily relate to it. It's impossible to understand Mahabharat completely without
understanding all aspects of Krishna's personality;
he is the heart and soul of this epic. It would have been easy for the authors of Mahabharat to make Krishna a perfect and ideal
God, who always upholds dharma and uses his unlimited powers to achieve his
goals, but they didn't. They preferred to give us a character that
is very much like all of us, with many limitations. They showed us how dharma is
subtle and many times it's difficult to differentiate right from wrong. As I
wrote in one of my previous posts, we all face situations in real life like
Arjun's dilemma at the beginning of the war and many times wish to have
someone like Krishna to advise us.
I don’t think two or even ten posts are enough to
describe Krishna's character completely.
I may keep coming back to him in my future posts whenever it's necessary
but for right now I will stop here and would like readers to study
and understand all aspects of his character, maybe it will help us
to live our lives in a better way.
Thanks for the reading and please share your
thoughts.
(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)
(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Complete_Works_of_Swami_Vivekananda/Volume_1/Lectures_And_Discourses/Krishna
ReplyDeleteDo read this....