Gita study Mumbai 2012- 03.21-24 Are Krishna’s action are immoral

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Aacharati Shrestha Tat Tadeve Tarojanaha Tat Tadeve Tarojanaha Sayat Brahmanam Gurute Sayat Brahmanam Gurute Aacharati Aachar is action Just as Shrestha the great people act Itarha other people Eve similarly they act And Brahmanam Brahman we know That is method of acquiring knowledge Brahman in this particular context means standard because Brahman means a reliable way of acquiring knowledge So when we say Pratheksha Brahman Pratheksha can also be a reliable way of acquiring knowledge but within some limited context So Brahman means that which is a reliable thing That is standard So whatever standard they set Lokas Tadanu Vartate Lokas Tadanu Vartate People start emulating that Now the context of this verse I will give a recap of what we were doing on Friday is that Krishna is talking about Krishna was talking about the importance of Arjuna to practise Karuna So he talked about if you remember the spiral example So he talked about how for you better than Gyana Yoga is Karma Yoga and otherwise if you can’t practise Karma Yoga practise Karma Tantra and even if you think that you are qualified to practise Gyana Yoga still practise Karma Yoga is an example for others and he gave one example of Janaki Manoj and he said that if somebody is truly attached to this world then it won’t matter to the person whether he is acting or not acting for his own sake it won’t matter because he is already attached but for the world people will dance because people in the world are always acting with attachment and if they see a person living in the world acting without attachment then that will inspire them to also act without attachment and then they can follow the path to liberation So Lokasandhra Deva for the sake of Lokasandhra for the sake of setting for actually maintaining Sandhra means to collect or maintain so the actually it is the models of the world to maintain the world this is what Ropal explains in his purport that actually one’s acharya has to be determined by scripture to the extent the person follows the scripture to that extent he can do good to the world and to the extent the person neglects the scriptures then he cannot know what is right or wrong even if he has some good intentions so as we there are three levels there is vichar there is achar and there is prachar so vichar is a thought process how does one think achar is how does one behave and prachar is how one speaks so the sanyasi is a trirandi randi means he offers his body, mind and words for krishna’s sake so he offers his body that is the achar he offers his words that is the prachar and he offers his mind that is the vichar all three the sanyasi is going to offer to the service of the lord now among these three at one level actually the easiest is the prachar it is very easy to give instructions to others and to implement it ourselves is much more difficult and actually to implement it externally is easier than to implement it internally to speak about krishna is easy to act like krishna’s devotee is more difficult and to actually internally develop love for krishna is the most difficult so in general krishna prabhupada has given us a process in which we do all three we have the achar which we call the bodily principles we do our sadhana by which we are actually realigning our behaviour by which we act like krishna but the whole purpose of krishna consciousness movement is to change the way people think it is to change the way people think what does it mean? what is the default way of thinking of people they think that everything in this world is for my enjoyment as soon as i see a car i should know about this car as soon as i see a good news and soft news it is for my enjoyment no, we change the way we think it is for krishna’s pleasure so this is the ultimate purpose of krishna consciousness and as such the prabhupada called the movement as society for krishna consciousness not as krishna activities or krishna preaching so in that sense consciousness is about vichar but we cannot directly go to thoughts to change our thoughts we need to gradually act in the external sphere so we change our behaviour and by changing the behaviour samadhi is trying to change the thought process gradually thought process gets moulded and krishna is telling arjuna that your acharya has to be example you are a responsible head of the state and to the extent you act properly to that extent you will be able to set up an example for others and here in our modern society if we see there is this whole clear notion that a person has his personal life and his professional life and personal life are completely unconnected so when Bill Clinton had a big scandal with some lady and he was almost impeached because of that he was impeached in one house but the impeachment was cancelled in another house so at that time he was actually proven to be have committed a moral lapse and he said on oath that actually i had not done anything but then it was proven through medical tests that actually he had a illicit interaction and it was almost see the problem there was not illicit the problem was that it was non-consensual that means there was not any consensus of both the parties whatever it was it was a big scandal and Clinton spent 40 million dollars to defend himself and the other party spent 10 billion dollars overall 50 million dollars was spent over the whole case but what was his primary defence his defence was that I am doing my job well you know American economy is flourishing and all of you are living in prosperity what I do in my personal life doesn’t matter so their idea is that the personal life and the professional life are two different things and don’t bother about what a person is doing his personal life and just focus on whether he is doing his job well or not whether he is doing his professional work properly or not however we cannot separate the two like this for example if a man is lusty and he is going around hunting for women that’s his default thought we call it his personal life but even when he is in profession he is going to think of the same things isn’t it actually the consciousness that a person has cultivated is going to be with him whether he is alone or in his personal life or when he is in his professional life it’s always going to be the same so we can’t compartmentalise the two so actually Krishna Consciousness means that we certainly have our profession not exactly profession in terms of we get paid for it but we have our duties we preach and manage and we act as guides and leaders and other things but along with that what is also important is how we are personally so this separation of people’s personal and professional lives is something which is not very natural and Krishna is telling that it doesn’t work ultimately people will not see how you speak but they will see how you live so if you abandon the pain then what will happen you describe the next verse but Krishna has not instructed Arjuna directly because the discussion is going to a more evolved philosophical level so he will talk in terms of the example that he himself is setting for us na me partha asti kartavyam na me partha asti kartavyam vishu lokeshu kinchana vishu lokeshu kinchana na na vaptam vaptavyam na na vaptam vaptavyam ko partha na me asti kartavyam but actually there is no kartavya part of it kartavya means obligation or duty, there is no duty for me in all the three words vishu lokeshu na na vaptam vaptavyam see we act because of two considerations one is duty and the other is desire, these are the two things that make us act either I have to do some things or I like to do some things but the two main motivations for action duty and desire that means people go and work in say IT companies or wherever they are going working they work for 10 hours, 12 hours, 14 hours not many people like the work that they do but they do it because it’s a duty because they feel that this is how I get my salary this is how I maintain my family so they do it because it’s a duty and then they may come home and sit in front of their TV and watch TV for hours they may dance like madmen in India all that they are doing is because of desire basically if you look at the actions that we do it is either because of duty or because of desire Krishna is saying I have no duty and I have no desire na na vaptam vaptavyam vartaye vachitam actually there is nothing that I have not got which I have to get na na vaptam vaptavyam means there is nothing which I have not got which I can get afterwards nothing na na vaptam na na vaptam means wanted or to be gained nothing like that so then if there is neither duty nor desire then why would a person act Krishna is saying that I am acting such an example for others so let us discuss this read through all the three verses together and then we will come and discuss this point more yadiya mam na varteyam yadiya mam na varteyam jaatu karmanya tantritaha jaatu karmanya tantritaha mam vartamanu vartante mam vartamanu vartante so Krishna is saying vartaye vachitam I act why do I act he is answering by explaining what will happen if I don’t act so because of this on sequence I act if I don’t act varteyam jaatu karmanya if I don’t act certain mechanism tantritaha tantritaha means I am absorbed I am absorbed I act mam vartamanu vartante this is a famous verse which will come again in 4.11 the same half line will come but the meaning is a challenge there mam vartamanu where does this come ye dhamam prapadyante nama sthiyo jaameham mam vartamanu vartante in 4.11 this is 3.29 there its entirely different meaning they are saying all people follow my path where as Krishna is saying all people will follow my example we will discuss about that verse when we come to it there are several cases in the Bhagavad Gita where either one fourth of a line or half of a line or one fourth of a verse or half of a verse or even three fourth of a verse is deleted three fourth of a verse is most famous in Manmana 9.34 and 8.65 similarly there is Shriyans that comes in the 3rd chapter that will also come in the 8th chapter so whenever there are repetitions we will discuss that so Krishna is saying people will follow my example mam vartamanu vartante mam vartamanu vartante and then what will happen if they follow my example I will describe in the next verse Utsi deyu rime loka Utsi deyu rime loka nakurya karma chetaham nakurya karma chetaham samkarasya chakarasyam samkarasya chakarasyam so Utsi deyu isra kishu rime loka all these people loka can mean people, loka can mean planets so it can be both all these people will be misled all these abodes will be disrupted nakurya karma chetaham if I don’t act samkarasya chakarasyam I will become the cause of varnasankara upahanyam ima praja and then I will cause destruction and destruction for all these people so this is the answer to Krishna Arjuna’s question of varnasankara so we will discuss the 3 verses are there 22nd verse is saying that although I have no duty and no desire, still I act 23rd verse is saying that if I don’t act, all people will follow my example and 24th verse says if all people follow my example, what will happen they will get ruined their lives will get disrupted society will get disturbed so let us look at these 3 so Krishna is saying that I have no duty nor do I have any desire so Prabhupada quotes in the Parpotam Sita Shankar Upanishad it says that absolute person has no duty there is nobody equal to him what can we speak of somebody who is superior to him so Krishna the definition of God if you remember we discussed in the Vishwamitra course he is perfect and because he is perfect in the western intellectual tradition the idea of perfection was like a frozen perfection like a painting remember I discussed this so if I improve the painting it gets worse if I keep improving the painting when it comes to a particular point it becomes perfect if I try to work on it further it becomes worse so at a particular point we have to stop so like that the idea of God is Plato had the idea that God is an unmoved world he moves everything but he is unmoved because he doesn’t have any reason to move but if he moves that will impact that will affect his perfection so the Vedic tradition agrees with this analysis but categorises that as a preliminary understanding God is surely perfect at a material level but he does not act completely but at the same time it is spiritual that he does act and he acts not out of any duty or even out of any desire any incompleteness he acts to share his completeness so we discussed if you remember how Ramacharya says that God’s actions are like a play he plays so it’s not that he has a work to do but he is playing, he realises play the Vedic tradition says that his play actually indicates that he needs pleasure he will play to get pleasure Krishna’s actions are like do you remember like a dance like a dance when a person dances it is not that he dances to become happy it is because he is happy that he dances so all of the actions of God at the spiritual level are expressions of the ecstasy coming so Krishna has nothing to do at the first sight he has no obligation nor does he have any desire whatever he wants he satya santalpa, he immediately fulfils and yet he acts so now after telling this he tells in the next verse that still I am also acting why am I acting because ensuring that people don’t get misled so now somebody may say that Krishna’s actions are very unexemplary Krishna steals butter Krishna also dances with the gopis so if the gopis are apparently wedded to other men then how is Krishna setting an example so first of all generally if we see all these activities that Krishna performed where especially his leelas in Vraja are before he took up any leadership position Vrindavan leela is not so much to set an example for the world Vrindavan leela is just for the sake of religion he with his devotees is religion but when Krishna took up a leadership position as he never became the king of Varka because he wanted to do that honour to Ugrasena who had been deprived that honour by his by Chiksa and Kamsa so also there was the curse which Yati had given that anybody in the other dynasty will not become the king so Krishna wanted to honour that curse of so because of that he did not become the king personally you know that story he wanted to exchange his old age with the youth so then Yati said no I won’t do that because I want Krishna to come past in this way and then Yati didn’t understand he felt that he is selfish he cursed him that he will not become the king then his younger son accepted that his father’s old age and he was very clear that your dynasty will become the kings in future then Krishna honoured that and that’s why Krishna even after he defeated Kamsa and he slayed Kamsa he did not himself become the king of Mathura or Varka he made Ugrasena the king but still he was in a responsible position he was a member of the royal family so as soon as he became a member of the royal family and was a part of the royal court and he was like a leader of the citizens then he always acted in exemplary ways for example in the Sarkar Chaitanya court he went and actually won the queens in Swayamvar and further if you look at when Naraguni visits Krishna in Varka at that time you see that he is waking up early in the morning and he is performing meditation and he is doing religious rituals and giving charity he is arranging for the marriages of his sons and daughters and he is worshipping his gods and he is doing all the activities that are due for a Kshatriya to do so Krishna does do his activities once he is in the administrative that’s the first point if somebody says that Krishna is immoral Krishna’s actions are un-exemplary so are Krishna’s actions exemplary what is the first point in Vraja he was not a leader as a leader in Varka his actions are indeed exemplary for a Kshatriya secondly even about Krishna’s activities there are certain activities which are to be seen as an example for us to follow and there are other activities which are to be seen as manifestations of the Supremacy so in the 10th canto when the Rastila narration is going on Rishi Maharaj sees that several of the assembled Rishis and Munis some of them are yogis they are a little uncomfortable they see that Krishna is dancing with the gopis at night so on behalf of them he asks the question that actually Krishna is supposed to come to establish Dharma then why is he acting apparently in a Adharma way so at that time Shri Krishnadevaraya Goswami gives a very interesting answer he says that the violation of the laws by a great person bruises transcendence the violation of the laws violation of morality so now in one sense it’s not violation they are not immoral they are transmoral transmoral means transcendental morality this is the moral platform immoral means that which is below the moral platform and transmoral means that which is above the moral platform so Krishna’s actions are exemplary in the sense that this action is what we should see Krishna also accepted teachers I should also accept a teacher Krishna also did all those rituals, Krishna was respectful to his elders so I should also respect humans but then sometimes Krishna exhibits superhuman powers so that time we have to see that this is what Krishna did therefore if Krishna acts in superhuman ways which are apparently sometimes immoral that indicates Krishna’s superiority Krishna’s divinity so therefore it is not that Krishna is immoral he is transmoral but overall if you look at Krishna’s life it is exemplary and here itself the fact that Krishna has come to be by the side of Arjuna, in the battle field so that indicates that he is committed to serving his devotees see what the Sanskrit author said that the Lord is committed to the service of his devotees the Lord is committed to the service of his devotees actually we are not committed to the service of the Lord but the Lord is committed to the service of his devotees that commitment is often in a comma 22 is very low you can make it 25.6 so now are there any other actions which Krishna will see immoral marrying 16,000 wives is not immoral it is you don’t have to have transmorality over that because Kshatriyas are not monogamy see monogamy means a husband having one wife so that is the modern legal standard but even a few decades ago in India there are many Hindus who don’t have any wives they have 2 wives, 3 wives there are several reasons for that in traditional Indian society often the number of women was more than the number of men therefore polygamy was necessary sometimes and then Kshatriyas in general because they are very much living in a Jodhpuram they are brinjals or brinjals so they are allowed to have any wives when they have any wives at that time they are also expected to maintain all those wives properly and Krishna does that so the point is not that he had many wives from the Kshatriya morality point of view that’s totally wrong now of course he married 16,000 wives and that was because in one sense the demon didn’t get abducted and they would have become disgraced and so he protected them from divine disgrace and accepted them as his wives so that actually is an expression of his kindness now see the same lord can act differently in different ways and at that time he is teaching different lessons see actually when Ravana abducted Sita even after she passed the Agni Pariksha Lord Rama still ended up on hearing the rumour of somebody who would have lost on the other hand these these philosophers they had actually been abducted by Rama but when they requested so Lord Rama was married and still he rejected his wedded wife but here Lord Krishna was not married but he accepted this wife actually different demand different actions so Krishna the supreme lord says Lord Rama he is setting the example of Marjala Vishwa so when he gets married to Sita he tells her you will be my only wife I will never accept any more wives he tells her that and from the point of view of many feminists Sita is the example of a woman who is oppressed and exploited and she is rejected for no fault of hers but if you look at the whole context of the Ramayana firstly if Lord Rama had remarried again then we could have said that it was Lord Rama had some enjoyment that’s why he rejected one wife and wanted another but Lord Rama did not marry so he sent Sita out of Ayodhya but he did not marry so what was the reason why he did that first of all some people say Lord Rama banished Sita there is no question of banishment banishment means one is sent out of the kingdom into the jungles where one has to fend for oneself that’s how Lord Rama himself fended that’s how Pandavas fended out of the kingdom into the forest where one has to fend for oneself and that’s why when Bharat hears that Ram has been banished he is shocked he said that banishment is the punishment reserved for the worst of the criminals and there is only one level below execution the worst punishment is to kill somebody one level below that is banishment what crime could Rama have committed that he is banished there is no question of banishing Sita because Lord Rama safely arranged for Lakshmi to take her to Valmiki’s ashram and Valmiki’s ashram was in Lord Rama’s kingdom so that means Sita was still protected indirectly by Lord Rama so Valmiki was under Lord Rama’s protection and Sita was under Valmiki’s protection so Sita was indirectly protected by Lord Rama so that’s why to say that Lord Rama banished Sita is entirely wrong but still you can say that he sent her out of his palace to a forest and for a lady who has lived in a palace that can be said to be quite austere that is true but it was austere for the Lord also to live without his consort now why did he do that? because, say, he wanted to set an example for others so when Lord Rama had come he wanted to set an example of how the king should be spotless Vedic culture all depends, the focus of the Vedic Vedic culture is to devote oneself to transcendence to actually attain eternal life for the sake of attaining eternal life the biggest obstacle is attachment to material things and the king has fabulous opulences more opulences than what any ordinary citizen can ever dream of achieving and even after having such fabulous opulences, the king is indispensable or rather without any exception an exception is required to renounce all the opulences and take on himself. If you look at all the kings in Mahabharata in the Bhagavatam also, they all take on themselves in particular so what is the reason for that? that is they show through the example the lesson there is so much enjoyment that I had but I keep it all up for the sake of their happiness and the citizens see that we never had this kind of enjoyment, we can’t even have it but still after having this, this king is giving it up that means there must be something to do with happiness and there they become settled on their higher goals the king, although they live in opulence they set an example of abstinence when they take on himself and that is how they lead their citizens also to the path of renunciation now even while the kings are living in opulence they show their their diligence to dharma by respecting the sages by respecting the sages when he was wandering along the streets the ordinary men women and children, they thought that he is a mad man they were throwing stones at him and they were mocking him and jeering at him but when he came to the assembly and when he came to the banks of the Ganga river at that time what happened? all the sages got up they all got down all these great people are respecting him they got offended and they ran away from there so what does this indicate? this indicates that often the sages are not seen as respectable by common people but when they see that the king is respecting the sage so even when the Kshatriyas are living in royalty they submit to the sages and that is another common philosophy these two are the ways in which Kshatriyas opulence does not go to their head one is while they are ruling they submit to the sages and they know that even before I die I voluntarily have to do this so why should I do a new moral thing or ethical things or undutiful violent things it’s kind of negative now Lord Rama wanted to go further and set a better example that the king should show no attachment to worldly things while living in the best of the worldliness therefore if the king was suspected that he was having his consort wife although her character was suspect and why was he keeping her because he is attached to her that’s what people would think and that would make them justify their own attachments to their wives Lord Rama said no I will show that I am not attached to my wife so I remember I talked about moral crisis and ethical crisis so ethical crisis means there are two moral choices which is the higher morality so for Lord Rama one moral duty is that he has to act as a protector of his wife other moral another moral duty is that he has to act as exemplary king so now which duty do we have so actually Lord Rama’s conflict is something similar to Arjuna’s conflict over here Arjuna he in one sense should protect his grandfather and his teacher on the other side he has to act so that the people have a righteous king he will lead them on the path of harmony so among these two you see what the moral crisis is that higher the one’s family is the right thing to do so Lord Rama also sets the same example by showing that how he led the sacrifice what he is what what he would love to do to have Sita with him but so how does Lord Rama reconcile these two he does not give up his duty of protecting Sita but he arranges for her protection indirectly by having her entrusted to the protection of Valmiki and even in Valmiki’s ashram there are elderly ladies who are also like Kshipatris and Valmiki tells them treat Sita like your own daughter protect her so in that sense Lord Rama gives his duty as a king highly a priority but he does not neglect his duty as a teacher he also fulfils that line directly but in Krishna’s case when he accepted the 16,000 money the question here was not there is no report of Dwarkavasi having any suspicion about this character or anything else the issue over here was these women are next to him nobody would accept them and therefore they did not accept him so actually it was Krishna’s kindness to them so the same lord can act differently in different situations according to what is best for that woman so in this case for those women they would have no option the young women were abducted by this demon and they would have no prospect for any future in a culture society except for the lord accepting them the lord accepted them that is his kindness so here that means the actions may be different because at different times different values have to be communicated at different times different values have to be communicated so Lord Rama communicates the value of detachment Lord Krishna communicates the value of compassion of protection of upliftment of those who have been wronged so in this way there are different situations where different views are talked so now apart from this Krishna seems to have acted immorally in the Purushithra battle so if you see there were four main Maharathas on the Kaurava side Bhishma, Drona then Karna and Duryodhana himself and of course there were some others like Purusha but these four were main and all four were felt unethical all four were felt unethical and all four Krishna was involved so what does this indicate now Krishna in the Mahabharata is indicating pragmatic morality what is pragmatic morality people are cunning we have to be cunning people are cunning we have to be cunning people Kshatriyas have their moral principles at the start of the Purushithra war the two sides meet and then from the Kaurava side there is Bhishma and Drona and Dushyasana they all say that now please remember the codes of morality and all of us should follow the codes of morality so Dushyasana is the commander on the Kaurava side and he says yes we follow the codes of morality and he starts thinking and then he says we will not be the first to violate the codes of morality but if you violate the codes of morality then we will not let our interest suffer just for the sake of morality we will not be the first to violate the Kshatriya code but if you violate then you also violate so the point here is that look at all that the Kshatriyas had done, the Kauravas had done earlier and especially the most brutal was the way they killed Abhimanyu therefore Krishna tells them that if you have to kill them do whatever it takes to do and of course when Karna says Lord entertain the thought and I entertain my Kauravas and wait till I am in proper condition to fight and remember the codes of virtue so at that time Arjuna lowers his head and then Krishna shouts over to Karna and he says oh Karna it is fortunate indeed that today you remember the codes of virtue you know where was this remembrance of the codes of virtue when you suggested to Dushyasana that Draupadi need this robe where was your virtue when you participated together to burn the Pandavas alive in Palanavar where was your virtue when you boarded Shapuni along to dispossess and cheat Yudhishtira in the red gambling match where was your virtue when you conspired with 5 other Maharakas to kill the 16 year old young single lad Abhimanyu if it was virtue that you used at all those times Arjuna will summon that virtue today and kill you laughter and he said Arjuna shoot and then Arjuna killed Karna so Krishna demonstrates what is a pragmatic morality we are not he says that actually speaking we have to be cunning with the cunning because it is a real world and if we try to act as exemplars of morality certainly we have to see the larger interests there are larger interests and for the sake of larger interests sometimes the small interests are just attached so when the when the Islamic invaders came to India many of the Kshatriya kings in India they tried to imitate Krishna’s example not of Mahabharata but other example of where Krishna forgave and released Jarasandha 17 times so there was Budhiraj Chauhan who released the Islamic conqueror who had come several times each time he would go away and what happened next time he would come with a bigger army and finally when Budhiraj Chauhan was caught the Islamic conqueror didn’t release him he was slaughtered so forgiveness cannot be used against those who are unmerciful similarly when these Islamic invaders found that the Hindus are having a lot of respect for cows so what they would do is when they would attack they would bring a whole herd of cows and they would be behind the cows and from behind the cows they would shoot arrows at the Hindu warriors and the Hindus would say how can we shoot arrows at the cows we are trying to shoot them but the cows are in between and in this way they would just defeat or other times if they were on the banks of a river and a war was going on they would just slaughter cows and put the cow flesh in the river water and the Hindus would think how can we drink this cow blood how can we drink this water which has cow flesh in it and without drinking water they would become weak and they would starve to death or they would just be overpowered so now the principles of Dharma are important but then the higher principle is the law of protection of Dharma so what happened in all these cases was that for the sake of the lower principles of Dharma certainly cows have been protected but there may be a few hundred or a few thousand cows who have been killed in the war field but if the rule of Dharma is destroyed millions of cows get killed so actually speaking which of the law of actions are to be emulated and which of the law of actions are to be taken in a pedestrian examples of this supremacy Krishna can pursue Jarasandh 17 times and still effortlessly can defeat him but other sages cannot do that so therefore Prabhupada also explains in this part 4 that we should not try to imitate Krishna Krishna sets an example for us some of his actions are exemplary and some of his actions are just transcendental and the standard example is Prabhupada has taught Shiva drinks poison so he says many Shaivites like to drink haam, I think Shiva also drinks haam but can you drink poison, I don’t know or people like to do rasa dance but can we therefore actually speaking we should know which of Krishna’s actions can be emulated and which of Krishna’s actions have to be shifted any questions about this who violated the first code on the first or second day itself there was a Maharaja on the side of Pandavas his name was Shweta Shweta was just going around and slaughtering the Kauravas and even Bhishma couldn’t stop it was a very fierce war at that time while Bhishma was trying to defend him some other Kshatriya warriors also attacked other Kaurava warriors attacked and there was multiple warriors attacking one warrior and that’s how eventually Shweta won that was the first violation but in general as long as Bhishma was present, Bhishma tried to check check the violations of the law but still there was some infringement and it started first from the killing of Shweta but especially it’s not Shweta, it’s Shweta Shweta is a Kannada Indian Shweta is that we are Shweta Kumar Shweta is a masculine Indian so then especially he fought through everything apart from the killing of Kauravas because there are certain things that happen in the heat of the moment and there are other things that are systematically planned so that is systematically planned that now you see among all these four incidents which happened Bhishma getting killed actually that is how Bhishma was ordained to die and was it unethical? firstly because Bhishma himself told the Pandavas, this is how we should kill and secondly Bhishma himself had taken a vow, he had told Duryodhana in advance that I will not raise weapons against you and it was Duryodhana’s responsibility to ensure that Shikhandi couldn’t get close to Bhishma so normally whenever there is a war if any party has a weakness exploiting that weakness is simply war strategy that is not exploiting the enemy’s weakness, it’s not considered unethical what is unethical is violating the laws of the city, so actually when a war is going on each party would like to look at what is the other person doing, just like in cricket when somebody is not a good player of spin, and as soon as the batsman comes along, you bring a spin ball along that’s not unethical know the weaknesses and use that what would be unethical is that sometimes you just try to put your saliva on the ball and make an extra spinning and whatever do all sorts of things other than somebody not out claim that he is out we know clearly exploiting the weakness of a person is not considered unethical, so what the Pandavas were expecting killing of Bhishma was not actually unethical, although they used Shikhandi ahead, but it was more of the Kauravas not being able to protect their greatest warrior from his weakness now with respect to the killing of Drona certainly there was some violation you could say that Yudhishthira apparently spoke a lie but what Yudhishthira spoke was not exactly a lie he said so actually not a human but an animal elephant was killed, but as he spoke Ashwathama is killed so Drona was getting that and as he started speaking Krishna blew his conch and then Drona couldn’t hear that so this could be considered unethical, and then of course Krishnadevaraya killed Drona when he was he had just given up his weapon and was sitting in a mystic trance that was surely brutal Arjuna lamented that Arjuna regretted that, but the point here again is that Dronacharya he was a person who hatched the idea of how to kill Drona Drona then went to Karna and said Karna even in your presence this Abhimanyu is destroying my whole army please do something and Karna said it is only because of my friendship to you that I am staying on the battlefield after being wounded in this way otherwise any other Kshatriya warrior after placing the arrows of Abhimanyu would have fled from the battle he said but he is equal to Arjuna in every way the only way to kill Karna is you have to ask him, he is the most experienced he will come up with something and then Drona says this is what you have to do that was a serious blunder from Dronacharya and if we then look at Karna, Karna had said that he had himself done so many wrong things and of course Duryodhana was the root of it and what had happened was even when Duryodhana was hit below the thigh actually how it was that that was also the fulfilment of a curse when the Patavas had gone to the forest at that time Karna, Shakuni and Duryodhana were still conspiring what should we do so Karna was suggesting they are weak right now, let us go right now with our full army and attack them and kill them in the forest because there is no chance of their coming back after 40 minutes and they all agreed Shakuni did not want war normally speaking because he was afraid of his own life but he thought now we are strong and they all started taking their army and Duryodhana is so wicked he already disposes them if you carry out your real intention I encourage you to die and Duryodhana no matter how wicked he was he knew about the power of Ramayana so he quietly came back and left then after that just before the war was there the peace negotiations were happening so Maitreya Rishi came there and Maitreya Rishi so they asked him actually Maitreya will come Dhritarashtra said please tell me how can Duryodhana be protected so he said Maitreya Rishi will be coming and if he listens to what Maitreya Rishi is saying then Duryodhana will be protected otherwise he is going to be destroyed by his own sins then Maitreya Rishi comes along and Maitreya Rishi says don’t fight a war kill them all so everybody else is listening but Duryodhana is so defiant as an expression of defiance he beats his thighs he beats his thighs Maitreya Rishi said fool for your good I am telling you you are so defiant the very thighs that you are proud of those thighs will break and they will become the cause of war so that will be the cause and Maitreya’s curse was fulfilled by Duryodhana so in my sense what Gandhari did was she made the battle unequal so Duryodhana had greater skill Bhima had greater strength but what Gandhari did was by her glance she made him invincible and she rigged the match in one sense by making the odds unfairly on the side of Duryodhana because no matter how much Bhima hit him Bhima hit him, hit him, hit him several times and normally one blow of Bhima would have smashed his chest or smashed his skull so Duryodhana was just laughing nothing is happening so then Krishna thought actually Gandhari’s mystic power has empowered him in a particular way and the only way he can be killed is by exploiting his powers so we can say that was unethical but that was necessary and it was like choosing a lesser evil to avoid a greater evil so that’s why Krishna’s actions may not be exemplary in terms of idealistic morality but the real world is never the ideal world real world is never the ideal world and therefore there are situations when one has to have practical morality so ideal world means what I will never do anything immoral but real world means there is no chance for me to do anything immoral I have to do a lesser immoral thing or a greater immoral so what should I choose lesser immoral so actually this is also very important there is a story in the Quran once a brahmana had gone to he was he had gone to a village he was taking rest he was taking rest at some place at night so he went and knocked at the house of a brahmana he knocked at the house of a brahmana there was a brahmana so please come and stay at my house and that night that brahmana’s wife became upset and she approached him with the intention for sexual intercourse and she said no I am your guest can you do this and she started screaming no no no I cannot do this and she realised that this person was actually saying no and she would get disgraced so she took a knife and she went and killed her own husband killed her own husband and she started tearing her clothes and she started screaming help help help and she started screaming like this actually they were not a brahmana and a brahmina they were just a village household so all the neighbours came and then she said he is so lusty I thought he is a brahmana and I gave him shelter in my house but he wanted to abuse me and when my husband can protect me he killed my husband also and then and now people didn’t know whom to believe he said no I am innocent but then they believed the woman and they said because you used your hands in such a evil way he cut off your hands so his hands got cut off and then as he was leaving the village dismayed at that time I complained to him about this why did such a thing happen to me I was so dismayed and then he got a revelation in his previous life he was a brahmana who had taken a vow he had taken a vow so once he was meditating under a tree at the village cross road then a cow came along the cow was running so fast as the cow ran once again and then a butcher came swinging a big knife I said where did the cow go he said how can I make the cow leave but how can I break my vow so then you indicated with your hand where the cow had gone because you indicated with your hand what happened then the butcher went there caught the cow, killed the cow and now he said that butcher he had become the husband and the cow had become his wife so the cow was killed by the butcher so then the cow killed the butcher because you had pointed you had caused the murder of the cow by pointing with your hand so this is how karma works so the point of this is so the point of this story is that truthfulness is a virtuous thing but there are situations where there can be a virtue higher than truthfulness so if one sticks to a lower virtue and sacrifice a higher virtue then one becomes not virtuous, one becomes immoral by that so what Krishna added was choose a higher virtue and sacrifice a lower virtue so in that sense it is not that he is immoral he is choosing a higher morality and sacrificing a lower morality and that is example so even in that sense Krishna always acts in acceptance Thank you very much