Today, in our Sunday Dialogue at the Krishnamurty Foundation, there was a discussion on choice. How do we make choices? There was a view that choices are based on our experiences and memories. Few conscious and many unconscious. On the other hand, there was also a view that when there is clarity, there is no choice. That made me introspect as to whether Arjuna had a choice between Krishna and his army? Did he calculate the benefits between Krishna and his army? Definitely not. That calculation was made by Duryodhana and that's why he was very happy with the choice he made.
Arjuna loved Krishna and had absolute trust in him so much so that even amid the battle of Kurukshetra, when he is experiencing a conflict and feels like running away from the battle of Kurukshetra, thinking that fighting the battle will not be an appropriate act, and the generations to come will suffer, he approaches Krishna for the guidance. His mind is full of calculations when he is trying to make a choice. On the one hand is his vow and the injustice done to the Pandavas, and his desire to take revenge, and on the other hand is the societal conditioning not to hit the relatives and teachers. He is trying to make a choice and this choice is taking him nowhere. In fact, the first chapter of Geeta is a portrayal of the dilemma of Arjuna and why he is not able to make the choice.
Now what is Krishna doing in the process? Is he trying to give Arjuna a decision making matrix like a management guru? Is he trying to offer Arjuna any theory like "maximisation of the economic benefits" like an Economist? No, he is doing none of these. He is simply telling Arjuna the truth of life. Once Arjuna knows the truth of life, he does not need to exercise the choice. There is no conflict. He just does what his Swadharma is. All the choices aim at the maximisation of the desired result, and on the contrary, Krishna tells Arjuna not to think about the results. Whenever we make choices, we try to calculate as to which option will maximize what we want in life. Somebody may want security, somebody comfort, somebody power, and so on. Whatever we like, we try to maximize the same by making the choices. In simple scenarios, choices are easy to make when the outcomes are linear and in complex situations like being faced by Arjuna, it may be extremely difficult to compute.
However, the conflicts in decision making have to do more with the fundamentals. Suppose we want money because we feel that money will make us comfortable and safe. Now a question arises whether money actually makes us comfortable and whether comfort is actually the purpose of life. If we look back at our lives, probably the most fulfilling times were when we made a lot of struggle because in those moments we used our energy to the maximum. In the moments of comfort, we end up wasting a significant portion of our life energy. We are quite alert and aware in the moments of crisis. That's why these moments are so powerful and leave us with lifelong memories. Having contemplated over the "comforts" and "challenges", we may have a fundamental doubt about what we desire and if there is a confusion about what we want from life, "choice" becomes almost impossible.
As long as we adhere to a limited understanding of life, making choices becomes easy. Duryodhana feels no confusion. Karna, Bhishma, and Drona also experience no confusion because they have established a meaning in life, and their decisions are guided by those meanings. Arjuna, however, is confused due to the conflict among the various meanings he has assigned to life, which is why he turns to Krishna for guidance. Krishna does not offer management advice to Arjuna but instead instructs him to follow his Swadharma rather than merely making choices. Does this imply that someone could justify killing others in the name of Swadharma? Absolutely not. Krishna does not encourage Arjuna to kill anyone. Arjuna is a trained warrior whose Swadharma compels him to fight when a battle is thrust upon him. If trained soldiers flee the battlefield, ordinary citizens would then have to take up arms, leading to widespread disaster. Krishna is not telling VedaVyasa to fight; he is an author busy writing the Mahabharata during the battle so that people like us can benefit from its message. That is Krishna's point. One must simply follow their "Swadharma" rather than getting lost in the maze of choices created by the mind. However, that requires absolute clarity about life, which is quite rare and that is why almost all of us are lost in the maze of "Choices".
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