Arjuna as the chosen one.

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Om Namo Narayanaya.

 

Something more on Arjuna...............

 

Arjuna is the epitome of Sakhya-bhakti; in Geeta 4.3 Bhagawan expresses his love

for Arjuna & says " Bhakto-si-main-sakha-cheti " you are My devotee and My friend.

Arjuna had innumerable qualities; to elaborate on a few:

 

1) Whether in learning or devotion his concentration was remarkable:-- we all

know the story of him seeing only the bird's eye during archery, when everyone

else was seeing a lot more than just the bird's eye. The same thing with

devotion; once Balaram asked Krishna, 'why do you like him so much?' and Krishna

asked Balrama to go to Arjuna's room when he was asleep. Balaram went there and

found Arjuna in deep sleep; he was puzzled and was coming away when he heard

'Krishna, Krishna'; Balarama was surprised---there was no one else around; he

walked up to Arjuna's bed and realized that even in sleep, Arjuna was saying

'Krishna, Krishna' --his very breath was focused on the Lord.

 

2) Deep sense of gratitude:- it was this that actually caused the dilemma at the

start of the Mahabharata war -- to Arjuna the battle was not between dharma and

adharma; it was between dharma-dharma -- to secure Dharma, he had to fight the

Kauravas; not to fight wd have been wrong. But then he would have to kill his

most beloved and esteemed elders--how could he do that? the very people who

taught him everything, how could he kill them?

 

3) Extreme foresight:-- it is human nature to ask God many things--money, power,

comforts, etc; humans don't ask or tell God 'I want You' -- but when given a

choice between choosing Krishna and His army, Duryodhan chose the army and

Arjuna (he had the first choice) chose Krishna; he said, 'Keshav, I want you

with me; if you are with me I can fight the world'.

 

4) Integrity:-- whether in work or love, Arjuna was steeped in integrity -- in

an effort to acquire more knowledge of weapons/warfare, archery and other

martial arts, Arjuna went to Lord Indra's kingdom; here Arjuna also learnt music

and dance from Urvashi, the beautiful celestial nymph. She fell in love with

Arjuna, but Arjuna had no such feelings towards her, she was his teacher.

Disappointed in her love, Urvashi cursed Arjuna that he would become eunuch for

one year. This curse later was to prove beneficial to Arjuna during his exile to

stay incognito for one year. But the story points to Arjuna's sincerity to his

cause; he had an acute sense of what he had gone there for and what he could and

could not do. (Here we can also draw a parallel with Swami Vivekananda who was

much admired by a young and rich woman who wanted to marry him so that she could

bear a son like him. Vivekananda did namaskar to her and said " you can consider

me as your son! " There is a similar story about Lord

Buddha. These noble souls were keely aware of their goal in life and never

allowed anything to divert them from that path)

 

5) Self-respect/self-confidence:--he was a man of his word and a man of supreme

confidence. When he offered Dronacharya guru-dakshina, Drona wanted King Drupad

as prisoner; Arjun went out and fought by himself and brought Drupad to his

guru. Arjuna was also never afraid of losing in the Mahabarata war; all during

his vishaad yoga, Chapter 1, at no point he says he is afraid of losing; that

thought never occurs to him.

 

Arjuna has been described as a true representative of mortal man. He faced a

dilemma and was confused and didn't know what to do and surrendered to Krishna.

Despite his enormous talents, he was also human and acknowledged that he was

confused. We don't need to be at war to have problems like this; all of us have

situations where we face difficult choices- this job or that job, to listen to

wife or to mother, to do as the boss says (which may be completely idiotic or

even wrong sometimes) or do what you know to be right. Having to make choices

and deciding what principles we want to live by-- we have to go through this

quite frequently. So we have Bhagawan Krishna imparting to Arjuna, our

representative, the supreme principles of life. If the cow represents the

Upanishads, Vedvyasa is the milkman, the Geeta is the milk; Arjuna is the calf

and we are all enjoyers of that milk.

 

Om Namo Narayanaya.

Sarvam ShriKrishnaayasamarpayami.

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Qualities of Arjuna: understood from listening to discourses of Shri Pandurang

Shastri Athavale. Esp. his discourse on diffrent forms of Bhakti (Hanuman as

daasya bhakta & Sudama and Arjuna as Sakhya bhaktas)

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