When war becomes dharm

[Pita das]

As I have been readin Mahabhrata nowfor the last few nights I would like to make a very simple comment.

War becomes Dharma when the personal avengedas of controlling power is self motived.

The Dharma must repel this power as the sourse and goal of all endevors must be the pleasure of Shree Radha Govinda.

Because the Pandavas are devoted to this course there fight is Dharma.

If some how our every action can be done to satisfy and for the pleasure of Radha Govinda

then we have won the war for Dharmas sake.

Each day we fight this battle with every post the prabhus make post for the pleasure of the Radha Govinda and there is never conflict

 

[Gauracandra]

Not to change the subject, but Pita Das, I've tried going to your website, and every time I do my browser crashes. I figured there might be some nice devotional artwork to look at. Is there some alternate route to your site?

 

Gauracandra

[Guest guest]

<h3>When war becomes dharm</h3>

 

By Francois Gautier

The Indian Express

 

In the Bhagvad Gita Arjun once throws down his bow and tells Krishna, "I will not fight." Many scholars consider this an exhortation to an inner war instead of a physical one, against one's own ego and weaknesses. While the Gita is essentially a divine message of yoga -- of transforming one's own nature while reaching for the

absolute -- it reconciles war with the notion of duty and dharma. Since the beginning of times, war has been an integral part of man's quest.

 

Yet, war is the most misunderstood factor of human history. Shri Aurobindo in his remarkable Essays on the Gita writes: "Man's natural tendency is to

worship nature as love and life and beauty and good and to turn away from her grim mask of death." War has always repelled man: Ashoka turned Buddhist after the battle of

Kalinga, American youngsters refused to participate in the Vietnam war, and we are witnessing today massive protests against the atom bomb.

 

Yet, the Gita says that while protecting one's borders, wives, children and culture, and when all other means have failed, war can become dharma. War is a universal principle of our life as Shri Aurobindo argues: "it is

evident that the actual life of man can take no real step forward without a struggle between what exists and what seeks to exist". And that humanity periodically experience time in which great forces clash together,

resulting in destruction and reconstruction,

intellectual, social, moral, religious, andpolitical.

 

According to the Gita, there exists a struggle between righteousness and unrighteousness, between the self affirming law of good and the forces that oppose its progression. Its message is, therefore, addressed to people whose duty in life is to protect those who are at the mercy of the strong and the violent. "It is only a

few religions," writes Shri Aurobindo, "which have had the courage, like the Indian, to lift up the image of the force that acts in the world in the figure not only of the beneficent Durga, but also of the terrible Kali in her blood-stained dance of destruction."

 

Has India understood this great nationalist message of the Gita? Yes and no. On the one hand, you have had a Shivaji, a Rani of Jhansi, and a Shri Aurobindo, who, let

us remember, gave a call as early as 1906 for the eviction of the British -- by force if need be -- at a time when the Congress was not even considering independence. On the other hand, the Indian masses seem never to have resisted invasions for centuries. Wave

after wave of Muslims intruders were able to loot, rape, kill, raze temples and govern India, because Hindu chieftains kept betraying each other and no national

uprising occurred against them; the British got India for a song, bled it dry (20 millions Indians died of famine during British rule), because except for the Great

(misguided) Mutiny, there was no wave of nationalism opposed to them until very late.

 

We witnessed how in 1962 the Indian army was routed because Nehru had refused to heed the warnings posed by the Chinese. Just a year ago, we also witnessed how India reacted during the hijack of the IC flight from

Kathmandu: instead of storming the plane when it was in Amritsar, India's leaders got cowed down by the prospect of human casualties from their own side and surrendered to terrorism. But in the process India's image and self-

esteem suffered a lot and the liberated separatists are now spitting even more venom and terror.

 

Why is this nationalistic message of the Gita forgotten? There are two main reasons: Buddhism and Mahatma Gandhi. Buddhism made of non-violence an uncompromising, inflexible dogma. Thus it was literally wiped-off the

face of India within a few centuries. Buddhism indirectly influenced Hinduism and Mahatma Gandhi, whose sincere but rigid adherence to non-violence may have indirectly

precipitated the 1947 Partition. Today, well-meaning "secular" Indians intellectuals still borrow from the Buddhist and Gandhian creed of non-violence to demonstrate why India should not have the bomb and get

wiped-out by Pakistan or China, countries which have no such qualms.

 

There is, however, a lining in the sky: the Kargil war has shown that Hindu, Muslim and Christian soldiers can put their country above their religion and fight alongside each other. Today, we see a new wave of

nationalism, both in India, as well as amongst its influential expatriate community, particularly in the US. The nationalist message of the Gita is still relevant

today as well as essential for India's survival in the face of so many threats. One would be tempted to say "arise again O India and remember Krishna's message to

Arjun: truth is the foundation of real spirituality and courage its soul."

 

Gita's message is forgotten today because of Buddhism and Mahatma Gandhi.

 

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Evidently, the author of the above sentence is not familiar with Mahatma Gandhi's recommendation: <font size="4">"I do believe that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence I would advise violence . . . but non-violence is infinitely superior to violence."</font>