So many battles were fought in India and other parts of the world. What was so different about the Battle of Kurukshetra? Battle of Kurukshetra was a Dharamyuddha. Why? Because the Pandavas fought the battle under the guidance of Krishna himself to establish Dharma. Unlike other battles, it was not a battle fought for greed or dominance. It was a battle for the larger interest.
When the battle started, Arjuna wanted to run away from the battlefield because he did not want to fight his own cousins and teachers. Arjuna felt that it would be better not to fight the battle rather than take the blame for killing his own grandfather Bhishma and teacher Drona. Then Krishna told him about the real form of Dharma. He told the entire Bhagavad Gita to Arjuna. He said that all living beings and also non-living things have taken birth from Krishna and will merge back into Krishna. That's why truth and only truth shall be the guiding force behind the decision to fight or not to fight the battle. He also told Arjuna that he should not fight or abstain from fighting for his selfish interest; rather, he has to decide based on the wider interest.
The wider interest is not so easy to understand, because we often do not get to see beyond self-interest. When Duryodhana decided to fight the battle, he had the greed for the kingdom in his mind, and when Arjuna decided to abstain from the battle, he had social validation in his mind. Both frames are equally narrow. Duryodhana wants something tangible. Arjuna wants to protect his self-image of being good. Dharma is not confined to self-interest; therefore, someone obsessed with self-interest can never understand Dharma. Someone whose awareness is confined to the Earth can never understand the logic and rationale behind the play of nature in the universe.
However, it is almost impossible to do away with self-centrism. Since decisions are made by the brain, it will always be centred around something while making them. That's why our understanding of self has to expand. Just because I have been born and brought up in a certain religion, community, or belief system, am I confined to that belief system? Just because I have had certain experiences in life, am I confined to the conclusions based on those experiences? Just because I was born into a family, am I confined to that family? It's easy to confine oneself. That's comfortable. It's difficult to widen it. To understand Dharma, one has to have the widest understanding of self. Generally, the battles are reactions. They are very short-sighted. That's why they don't reach anywhere. No systemic solutions are arrived at. Systemic solutions require understanding the limitations of our own frame, rather than proving that the frame of others is limited or wrong. DharmaYuddha is not about my view vs your view; right vs wrong; good vs bad; rather it is about whole vs part. When a part tries to project itself as the whole, the whole comes to this earth to show reality to the part. It's light vs ignorance.
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