When the battle of Kurukshetra was taking place, there were many observers and participants. The battle was primarily between the Pandavas and Kauravas. Dhritrastra did not participate in the battle and yet he was most attached to the results of the battle. He was so attached to his son Duryodhana that he desperately wanted him to win the battle. On the other hand, Bhishma participated in the battle from the side of Kauravas and fought to the best of his capacity since he had centered his life around his duty towards Hastinapur. Yet, he had an awareness of the truth and justice, however faint, and that awareness guided him when he revealed the secrets of his death to Pandavas. The death of the material body resulted in the freedom of his soul from all the emotional attachments.
Thus, we see two different extremes. On the one hand, there is a height of attachment in the form of Dhritrastra who is so attached to his sons that even while not participating in the battle, he is greatly affected by each and every event in the battle. On the other hand, we see Bhishma who is fighting the battle from the sides of Kauravas honoring his promise to defend Kurukshetra, and yet he can listen to the call of his soul, to the extent that he reveals the secret of his death to Pandavas.
Some people are fully engrossed in this world, like Dhritrastra and Duryodhana, and the sole guiding force of their lives is their greed and desires. Some have greed and desires that are acceptable to society, while some have ones that are not so acceptable. Based on that, society divides them into two categories: "good" and "bad." The people who have greed and desires to suit society's purpose are considered to be "good", and the others are called "bad". However, the "good" may be actually more fixated on their greed and desires than the "bad" and society conveniently ignores that.
That is how most people live life. They make something acceptable to society (such as greed, ambition, or desires) as the center of their lives and close their eyes to the rest of humanity. They are least concerned about what is happening in the society. They become an island disconnected from the rest and become insensitive to their surroundings. It doesn't matter if the water is polluted, they will get their own mineral water. It doesn't matter if the air is polluted, they will get the air purifiers installed at home as well as office. So what if there is inequality and injustice in the world, they will gather money and power to get preferential treatment. Stupidly, such people are busy making their own islands, and then there are power tussles and turf wars among the islands. In the race of isolation, the sensitivity to oneness is lost somewhere and when these people see some sensitive person, concerned about the world, they make fun of that person calling that person a fool.
It is so stupid of us that what we can see in Ravana and Duryodhana, we can't see in ourselves. We glorify our ambitions, greed, and desires and burn Ravana every year. We fail to realize that we may close our eyes to this world and everybody around us and live in our ivory towers, but that insensitive isolation has a huge cost on our souls. While we have comforts and pleasures in our ivory towers, our souls cry. The deafening murmurs of the soul may be ignored by raising the volumes of the vulgar music of greed and ambitions, but sooner or later the sufferings of the soul become unbearable as we grow. If we do not attend to these murmurs, they will try to wake us up in our dreams. We will take sleeping pills to ignore their voice and they will appear in the form of diseases and psychological disorders. Mindfulness is selective insensitivity towards the surroundings. Rather it is that inner connection that naturally connects us to everything. Like Krishna participating in the battle of Kurukshetra and yet unaffected by the outcomes. Krishna is concerned about everybody and yet realizes that those who are obsessed with their greed and ambitions, and in the process disturb the harmony, will have to die. That is the law of nature. Everybody has to evolve, either voluntarily or by force, either in this life or after death in the next life.
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