Compassion of Krishna

Gandhari, after the battle of Kurukshetra, when all her sons have been killed by the Pandavas, is full of anger. Krishna visits her, and she asks Krishna many questions. Krishna, why did you not prevent the battle while you could have? Krishna, why did you allow so many people to be killed? She is not ready to listen to the answers of Krishna because she is so stuck on her mental stories around loss of children, grief, anger and hatred that she curses Krishna that Dwarka will submerge into the ocean and all his family members will die. 

Why did Krishna lack compassion, and why did he not save all the Kauravas and Pandavas? Didn't compassion demand that He should have prevented the battle? In fact, not only the Kauravas, Pandavas lost all their son in the battle. Abhimanyu was killed. Ghatotkacha was killed. Even if the death of the Kauravas was required for the larger good, why did he not use his Sudarshana Chakra and finish the battle in one go so that none from the side of the Pandavas would be killed?

That's the dilemma that every person on the path of inner journey has to face. He would feel like fulfilling many unreasonable demands just to avoid conflicts. He would also feel like stepping into the shoes of incompetent people and doing their work so as to maintain order. Krishna also could have negotiated peace. He could have offered the Pandavas to stay with him in Dwarka. He also could have used his Sudarshana Chakra and finished the battle without any loss on the side of the Pandavas. If that were the case, the divine would have acted alone in this entire universe. There is no need to create so many human beings and other creatures. What Krishna is trying to do is to help the Pandavas understand how to live life with that "complete awareness" rather than what society has told us. "Complete awareness" means when we understand the whole of it, rather than a part thereof and decide from that "limited perspective".

Fighting the battle on behalf of Arjuna is not the purpose of Krishna being there at the battlefield. It is to enable Arjuna to fight his own battle. All of us are products of our own conditioning. Since childhood, we have acquired numerous impressions in our conscious and unconscious minds. The rights and wrongs, good and bad. We acquire these impressions quite often without examination. Because we are not aware of the whole of reality. Because quite often discussions in society are very narrow. Arjuna will have the impression that he should not raise arms against his teachers and elders, but will not be told what to do when that elder or teacher is fighting for something harmful to everybody around. Will a son listen to the parents who want him to take dowry? Will a son listen to the parents who want him to exploit his wife for not bringing dowry? Will a son not resist the command of his parents who ask him to take a bribe? Obviously, he will have to resist. That's what Krishna told Arjuna. 

That's what an aware person does. He does not avoid conflicts. Avoiding conflicts is like brushing the garbage under the carpet. That will make the entire room filthy. It's just a dereliction. We will have to face the conflicts with greater energy at a later date. He will not fight the battle for Arjuna but rather enable him to fight his own battle. Arjuna can fight the battle only when he is fully aware of what's going on inside him, as well as what's going on inside the opponent. That requires complete awareness in the present moment. Each one of us will have to fight our own battle, just like Arjuna. We must make decisions to confront conflicts directly in our lives rather than avoiding them. We need to fight our own battle rather than depend on someone else to fight it. Similarly, we can't fight another person's battle.

Awareness is the key. We just need to be vigilant. Whether our decision to avoid conflict comes from laziness, fear, or the wisdom to strategise? Whether our decision to fight springs from restlessness, compulsive behaviour, provocation, or intelligent choice? Are we helping to enable others or merely becoming a tool to perpetuate their laziness and exploitative mindset? Whether we can be fully aware of our conditioning and consciously let go of it, or whether we get swayed by it? Compassion does not mean mindlessly pleasing somebody; rather, it means making them "aware" of their inner movements and enabling them to fight their own battles.