Good shall prevail

Tapasya or penance along with prayer strengthens the will power. The will power is a powerful weapon to solve both mundane and spiritual pro...

Tapasya or penance along with prayer strengthens the will power. The will power is a powerful weapon to solve both mundane and spiritual problems. It is also a weapon of war, be it of words, clash of interests, a terrorist onslaught or a world war. The will to achieve the aim gives one an invisible but invincible weapon as powerful as Vajra.

As per popular Indian folklore, Indra, king of celestials, begged Rishi Dadheech for his bones to make an invincible weapon, the Vajra. The aim was to defeat the demon king, Vrittrasur, an arch-enemy of Indra. It is said that the will power of Dadheech made the Vajra and its wielder invincible. The feeling of invincibility also raised the morale sky high.

The Vedic concept of war also placed great reliance on the fighting man8217;s morale: as is the general so will the foot soldier be. Indeed the high morale of the general and his jawans is a war-winning factor. The symbolic story of India8217;s Vajra made of a rishi8217;s bones highlights a total war where saints and soldiers are equal participants in a mission to make the good prevail over the evil. The killing of the demon king is a metaphorical story for the common folk.

Why did the evil prevail over the good on that black Tuesday, September 11, 2001 in New York and Washington DC? Well, the forces of good were not vigilant. They paid the price for that, like the Indians did initially in Kargil. On the other hand, the evil forces had been scheming for months, nay, for years. The moral of the story is, never lower your guard, otherwise the evil will strike.

One may ask why should the good always take a beating at the hands of the evil whenever the battle is joined? Is it not like a Bollywood film story wherein the hero is willy-nilly at the receiving end for a major part of the film footage and annihilates the villain at the fag end of the plot? Perhaps the Bollywood audiences like it that way.

Swami Dayanand Saraswati, a 19th century seer and commentator of the Holy Vedas, writes in his book Satyarth Prakash: defence of a country is to be attended to daily. The deception plans of the enemy and his stratagem codes must be broken. Stalk the enemy like a tiger. Attack him from a position of strength like a lion. In the Vedic philosophy of war, the enemy is not to be given a kid glove treatment. A pre-emptive strike against the evil forces will be the best form of defence of the forces of good.

Yogeshwar Krishna, a strategist par excellence, sided with the good against the evil, notwithstanding the numerical superiority of the latter. His life is a lesson for lesser mortals like us. Be in the driving seat from day one, wrest the initiative from the enemy and bring him to battle on grounds of your choosing. Let Lord Krishna8217;s sermons on the battlefield be your beacon light. He said 8216;8216;na dainyam, na palayanam,8217;8217; that is, never go down on your knees nor turn tail. Thus the good shall prevail.