Krishna asks Arjuna to hit arrows at Bhishma while Arjuna is hiding behind Shikhandi. Krishna also asks Yudhistira to confirm that Ashwathama has been killed, when the fact was that it was not Ashwathama rather an elephant that was killed. He also asked Arjuna to kill Karna while the chariot of Karna was stuck in the mud. He also asked Bhima to hit Duryodhana on his thigh, which was against the rules of the game. Rama also killed Bali while hiding behind the tree, which was against the rules of that time. But how can Krishna and Rama do something that is Adharma? It is because what matters is the larger cause and not the details.
Spying on somebody and intruding on somebody's privacy is not good, and yet almost every country has a spy agency. When it comes to the security of the nation, individual privacy does not matter. Killing, per se, is bad, but when the soldiers at the border kill the soldiers of the other country, that's celebrated by the country. Marriage is a promise that a person makes to their spouse to stay together, but Buddha broke that promise when he left to seek the meaning of life. When we make decisions for the family, the individual interests of the family members do not matter.
Any and every division gets subsumed into a larger one. Krishna is fighting the battle of Kurukshetra for the larger benefit, and therefore, it does not matter whether the rules of the battle are complied with or not. What matters is the frame of our awareness. For example, development looks very attractive concept when one examines it from the limited frame of the economy. Within that limited frame of awareness, the assumption is that more money and economic prosperity make us happier. However, when we look at development from a larger frame of the ecosystem, we see the danger of development. We see that mindless development will harm the environment, and such development will not be sustainable. Similarly, when we look at development from the frame of spirituality, we notice that true happiness is not in possession but rather that lies in dropping. Then we have a very different take on the environment. For a person who looks at development from the perspective of the environment, filing a petition against the most needed road on the grounds of ecological damage may be very much justified, while for someone looking at it from the perspective of pure economic development, that may sound like obstruction.
The crucial thing is perspective or frame. The larger our frame of life and the less significant the rules that operate within divisions would be. When it comes to national security, the laws of the states do not matter. When it comes to public security, inconvenience to individuals does not matter. That's what Krishna set an example. He can accept thousands of ladies as his wives to give them a dignified existence in society. He can steal the clothes of the Gopis to teach them a lesson to take care of themselves. He can break the rules of battle to ensure that Hastinapur is ruled by the Pandavas, who work for the welfare of the people. Traffic rules do not matter to an ambulance that is on a mission to save a life. The problem is that we sit in the seat of judgment and start forming opinions about even Rama and Krishna without ever appreciating the larger frame of life they operated from.
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