Krishna – Ramana's Musings

Vishweshwar And Jaganmohan.

My dear friend Vishweshwar who does not feature ever as a commentator here in the blog posts, reads all my posts and comments on facebook when the mood takes him. Another friend Jaganmohan, with who my readers are familiar, also reads my blogposts and is himself a web poster with his own website to stream videos live. He too does not comment on my blogs but prefers to discuss matters directly with me.

Vishweshwar, in Sanskrit is a compound Vishwa Eshwar meaning, The Lord Of The Universe. A name for Shiva.

Jaganmohan is also a compound Jagat Mohan, meaning Charmer of the Universe. One of the names for Krishna.

These two friends named after very powerful Gods decided to bestow their munificence on me for Twenty Fifteen and have gifted me with the only things that they think I lack, books.

Vishweshwar gifted me with The Hot Belly Diet. I hope that he will comment on this post as to quite why he thought that I should read it.

And Jagan, was more generous with three books; Secrets Of Karma, The Gone Girl and The Fault In Our Stars. Jagan tells me that these three books have been read by him and he wants me to share his joy in having read them.

My cup runneth over. Thank you Vishweshwar and Jagan.

Giving.

A story that many spiritual teachers use to illustrate the art/science of giving and also to illustrate how our ego works has once again been brought to my notice after many decades by a fellow spiritual traveler Geetha. This being the season for giving and receiving, I reproduce it below.

Once Krishna and Arjuna were walking towards a village. Arjuna was pestering Krishna, asking him why Karna should be considered a role model for all Danas (donations) and not himself. Krishna, wanting to teach him a lesson snapped his fingers. The mountains beside the path they were walking on turned into gold. Krishna said “Arjuna, distribute these two mountains of gold among the villagers, but you must donate every last bit of gold”. Arjuna went into the village, and proclaimed he was going to donate gold to every villager, and asked them to gather near the mountain. The villagers sang his praises and Arjuna walked towards the mountain with a huffed up chest. For two days and two continuous nights Arjuna shovelled gold from the mountain and donated to each villager. The mountains did not diminish in their slightest.

Most villagers came back and stood in queue within minutes. After a while, Arjuna, started feeling exhausted, but not ready to let go of his ego just yet, told Krishna he couldn’t go on any longer without rest. Krishna called Karna. “You must donate every last bit of this mountain, Karna” he told him. Karna called two villagers. “You see those two mountains?” Karna asked, “those two mountains of gold are yours to do with as you please” he said, and walked away.

Arjuna sat dumbfounded. Why hadn’t this thought occurred to him? Krishna smiled mischievously and told him “Arjuna, subconsciously, you yourself were attracted to the gold, you regretfully gave it away to each villager, giving them what you thought was a generous amount. Thus the size of your donation to each villager depended only on your imagination. Karna holds no such reservations. Look at him walking away after giving away a fortune, he doesn’t expect people to sing his praises, he doesn’t even care if people talk good or bad about him behind his back. That is the sign of a man already on the path of enlightenment”.

Action.

Blogger Mother had a post on Blog Action Day in her blog and we exchanged comment and response as follows there.

I: I wish that I had known!

Mother: I wish you had known, too. Do it now!

And that gives me the inspiration to write this post. As my regular readers know, I am finding it difficult to write every day on my blog and this gives me an opportunity to write.

Action inevitably leads to reaction which in turn becomes an action that creates a reaction. In the spiritual path that I am on, the whole purpose of the disciplines that one is expected to follow is to become action oriented and to give up being reaction oriented.

The way one goes about it is to stop performing any action with the outcome in mind. Outcomes of any action can be, 1. Exactly as expected; 2. Less than what was expected; 3. More than what was expected, or 4. Completely different to what was expected. The Yogi knows this fully and accepts whatever comes as a result of his action as the result of the laws of karma and prevents generating further action / reaction cycles.

This is best described in the Bhagwad Gita as:

KARAMANYAVADHIKARASTHE MAA PHALESHU KADACHANA
MAA KARMA PHALA HETUR BHURMA TE SANAGOSTVAKARMANI

You have the right to work only
but never to its fruits.
Let not the fruits of action be your motive.
Nor let your attachment be to inaction.

Ch II V 47

The most powerful part of that advice from Krishna to Arjun is in the last sentence where he is clearly told not to take recourse to inaction to escape the cycle of action and reaction.

Those who are interested can of course go deeper into this by just googling for Bhagwad Gita Ch.II Verse 47.

Desire.

Once upon a time a man owned a beautiful garden full of awesome flowers and fruit trees. Melodious and colorful birds tweeted, bees droned and butterflies fluttered about in that garden. It was a lively place, like a piece of paradise. It had a small pond too housing many kinds of lotuses. The owner cared for his garden more than anything else in the world. In particular, he loved a rare flower, a black Himalayan lotus with a heady scent that flowered in all seasons.

One morning, he was tending to the roses and tulips while a nightingale sang most sweetly. He longed to see the bird more closely and went in the direction of the sound. There he saw the young bird pecking at the black lotus. Its petals had come off and the lotus was mostly destroyed. He was furious and hurled a rock at the bird but the nightingale took a swift flight and escaped unscathed.

Grieved and angered, he vowed to catch and kill the bird. Scattering barley, sesame seeds and jaggery near the pond, he spread a net and waited patiently. Surely, a little while later, the nightingale came flying again and noticed the food. She landed on the mesh and ate to her heart’s content but, realized her mistake when it was time to take off; she was stuck.

The man got hold of the bird and clutched it tightly by the neck. “I’ll kill you,” he said.
“Kill me? But, why? The food was lying on the ground. I didn’t steal from your granary.”
“No, not for these grains but because you destroyed my black lotus.”
“I’m sorry,” the nightingale pleaded. “I was only following my food chain. Have mercy. I always thought that the owner of this beautiful garden must be a tender, caring and a loving person. Little did I know…”
The man thought about it and a sense of compassion enveloped him.

“Okay, I’ll let you go.” He loosened his grip.
“I want to tell you a secret, my friend,” the nightingale said. “My vision is penetrating. There’s buried a pot full of gold at the root of the old peepul tree in your garden. It’s yours for the taking.”

The man dug up the pot filled with gold coins and was ecstatic beyond bear.

“I’m curious,” he said to the nightingale perched on the bough. “How come you could see the treasure hidden under the land but couldn’t see the wide net clearly spread on the ground?”
“I had no use or craving for the gold, but I longed to eat the sesame seeds and jaggery. While flying towards the food, all I could see was the food. My desire had made me blind.”

That’s pretty much all one needs to know: desires make us blind. A mad pursuit of endless desires makes one oblivious to what’s already there to be enjoyed. That’s why Buddha called it the root of all suffering and that’s why Krishna preached detachment from the outcome of desires. Desires keep you busy, they keep you on your toes, and above all, they make everything you already have appear small and lacking.

Cow Boy Unchained.

I went to see Django Unchained yesterday with my friends Neena and Anil and we had a great afternoon of movie, pop corn, soft drinks, shopping, tea and some serious problem solving for Anil with his iPad and mobile telephone.

After the dust settled down and I booted up the computer, I posted on FaceBook that I had just seen Django Unchained to keep my well wishers informed that I am on track for doing ‘things’ during 2013. This is all that I said – “Saw Django Unchained earlier this afternoon. Typical Quentin Tarantino effects but a story well told and enacted by all the cast.”

This morning when I opened my mail, I found two alerts as comments on my FB wall. The first was from my irrepressible nephew Jai who said – “I think this is what is called Ramana Unchained.”

Okay so far. Jai will be Jai and I will not have him any other way.

A surprise message came from David which stumped me completely, as I am sure it will most of my readers. This is what David had to say:

“It’s interesting that large numbers of “cowboys” after the civil war were ex slaves…hence the term “cow boy”…yet the average american only knows about white cow boys…. before the civil war the cattle industry relied on slavery to a great extent.

Texas of course viewed itself as a none slave state…when it attained independence from Mexico the Mexicans insisted on no slaves..so the Texans introduced 99 year indentures (as in indentured servants).

I remember my father telling me about Black cowboys…and today we heard a programme about them on the BBC….
The one I recall hearing about was Nat Love…. he wrote his own biography I believe.”

I could not locate the BBC programme but a little research took me to this clip on YouTube.

Okay, all of you must be wondering what prompts this rather unusual post. I suspect that Tammy would have already known that she would feature in this post and she is right. She inevitably calls me the Cowboy as she remembers my having translated my family name a long time ago. My family name translated into English is King of Cowboys. That is what Krishna was and our name is one of the many that He goes by.

Yes Jai I am now unchained and as you would have noticded, I have been doing many things that I had not been able to the last so many years. I wonder if you too had this cowboy coincidence in mind?

Half Truths.

I hope that you enjoy reading another post of the Friday Loose Bloggers’ Consortium when eleven of us post on the same topic chosen by one of us. Today’s topic has been chosen by Conrad.

Please do visit Ashok, Conrad, Grannymar, Magpie11, Maria, Gaelikaa, Helen, Judy, Anu and Ginger to see ten other views on the same topic. Some of these bloggers may be preoccupied with vacations, examinations, family problems and/or romance, so be a little indulgent in case they do not post or post late.

What is a lie, what is truth and what is a half truth? Humanity has struggled with these questions since time immemorial and even the blog world is full of posts on the subject.

Indians however are very clever people. They have role models and even Gods to come to their help in getting rid of guilt. Let me give you a classic case of deception that is part of India’s greatest epic, The Mahabharatha, which with about one hundred thousand verses, long prose passages, or about 1.8 million words in total, is roughly ten times the length of the Iliad and Odyssey combined.

Yudhishtira is the eldest of the Pandavas, the good guys. Yudhishtira is famous for his honesty and uprightness. Drona is the opposition’s greatest hit man. In fact, Drona was the teacher for both sides of the divide. Krishna, the God in human form is the charioteer for Arjuna the hero of the good guys.

In the war, the Kuru commander Drona was killing thousands of Pandava warriors. Krishna hatched a plan to tell Drona that his son Ashwathama had died, so that the invincible and destructive Kuru commander would give up his arms and thus could be killed.

The plan was set in motion when Bhima killed an elephant named Ashwathama, and loudly proclaimed that Ashwathama was dead. Drona, knowing that only Yudhisthira, with his firm adherence to the truth, could tell him for sure if his son had died, approached Yudhisthira for confirmation. Yudhisthira told him: “Ashwathama has died”. Yudhisthira, who could not make himself tell a lie, despite the fact that if Drona continued to fight, the Pandavas and the cause of dharma itself would have been lost, then added: “Praha kunjara ha”, which means he is not sure whether elephant named Ashwathama or the man Ashwathama had died.

Krishna, knowing that Yudhisthira would be unable to lie, had all the warriors beat war-drums and cymbals to make as much noise as possible at the critical moment. The words “Praha kunjara ha” were lost in the tumult and the ruse worked. Drona was disheartened, and laid down his weapons. He was then killed by Dhristadyumna, another hit man from the good guys.

If God could arrange for such deceptions, who are we, mere mortals to shun half truths or whatever else you want to call them? I refuse to be guilty whenever I have to speak half truths. Why, I often tell full lies, like Nick gives examples of. When the food is awful in my host’s home, I shall not feel guilty if I praise the food and manage to eat enough to back up that lie. And I am not God, I am just human.