Krishna Bhakti

With Janmashtami coming hot on the heels of Independence Day, it’s interesting to recall Pandit Nehru’s words in The Discovery of India: “Arjuna becomes the tortured spirit of man, which from age to age has been torn by conflicting obligations and moralities”. De profundis, out of the depths of despair, Arjuna calls out to Krishna to save his sanity. Out of deepest pity, it seems, the Lord first brings Arjuna out of his agitation into a state of calm. Step by step, over the eighteen parvas of the Gita, He explains the correct response of a human being to his own self, to family, to friends, to society at large and to that Knowing, which is God.

If I had to make an abstract of these five relationships, I would draw five concentric circles with the individual in the centre. I would imagine it to be a configuration of energy fields with currents flowing back and forth between fields. In the dynamics between these circles is the practical living of one’s day-to-day life, informed by the moral force taught by God himself.

It is the nature of things that Krishna explains to questing Arjuna, in terms of the threefold sufferings. One, our circumstance (physical and social). Two, our personality (are we positive or negative about what befalls us). And three, the larger-than-life stuff, disasters and miracles, called Acts of God. God recommends that while we perform our duty with non-attachment (karmanevadhik- araste ma phaleshu kadachan), and treat everyone and everything with equal detachment (stith pragya), we should just dump ourselves on God’s mercy (sharanagati). Was it to make these daunting tasks easier for us, that God assumed the most endearing and beautiful form of Krishna? So that as we slip and stumble along the way, we have something so lovely to rest our tired eyes on, that we blink back the tears, square our shoulders and manage wobbly smiles? I guess we do believe this. We’ve believed it for ages.