The same battle of Kurukshetra is being fought by many. Every warrior shares the same target: to win the battle. Yet the locus is so different. With the same purpose, how can the locus be so different? Duryodhana fights for the greed of the kingdom, Karna to prove himself a better warrior than Arjuna, Bhishma to honour with a bow, Shikhandi to take revenge, and the Pandavas against injustice and unfairness. The same battle, and so many different loci.
What decides our locus? The answer to the question "Who am I?" If you ask the same question to Duryodhana, he would say, "I am the king of Hastinapur, and I am fighting the battle to protect my interests". Karna would say, "I am an outstanding warrior, and this world has not recognised my bravery just because I was born in the family of a charioteer; I am here to prove my bravery and to prove that I am better than Arjuna in archery." Bhishma would say, "I am true to my words and have a responsibility to protect Hastinapur since I have taken that vow, and that's why I am fighting from the side of the ruler of Hastinapur to protect the interest of Hastinapur". Shikandi would say, "I was Amba in the past birth and I was humiliated by Bhishma, and I have taken this birth to take revenge". Pandavas will say, "We are the rightful king of Hastinapur and we have been cheated again and again by unfair means and we have been deprived of our rights and that's why we are fighting to regain our rights".
Whatever choices we make in life are based on our locus, and the locus is dependent on our understanding of "Who we are". If the answer to the question "who am I?" is based on the social narrative, or a limited understanding of the self, we may believe we are free to make choices, yet we may be prisoners of our own conditioning. Isn't Duryodhana just a prisoner of his own conditioning, whereby he feels that his greed is justified? Isn't Karna a prisoner of his own conditioning, whereby he feels that society has not given him due respect and that he owes revenge to society? Isn't Bhishma a prisoner of his own conditioning that he has to respect his word even if, in substance, he is damaging Hastinapur by fighting on the side of the Kauravas? Isn't Shikandi a prisoner of his own conditioning, driven by the feeling of being a victim, so much so that she would take another birth to take revenge? Aren't the Pandavas prisoners of their own conditioning, whereby they carry a deep sense of injustice in their hearts?
If our choices are driven by our conditioning, and we have no capacity to see the conditioning as conditioning, where is freedom? None of them is free when choices are driven by conditioning. The day Karna felt being victimised, he lost his choices. Meeting Duryodhana, Duryodhana taking a stand for him, and him feeling obliged was just bound to happen. He was free to choose, but his brain, for the first time, made him feel like a victim. He could have examined "Who am I?" Nachiketa took the same curiosity about "who am I?" to Yama, and Yama offered him all kinds of luxuries in this world. Nachiketa just asked a very simple question: "Are these things temporary?" Yama had to admit that none of those things was temporary. Nachiketa decided to settle for nothing less than the truth, and that's why Yama was forced to finally answer him, "Who am I?"
Savitri went after Yama to bring her dead husband back to life, and Yama offered her all types of things. Savitri was driven by pure love, so she asked for a boon for everyone around her and would not settle for anything less than her husband's life. When we understand the meaning of "who we are", and when this answer is not contaminated by any mental story or social narrative, we understand that "we" are not what society made us to believe. We are not what our fear, greed, or ambitions made us believe. Rather, we are pure consciousness, connected to every other being. When we realise our true nature, we are driven by love for the fellow beings and by a drive to explore nature and its secrets. We don't accept any bondage, slavery, belief or orthodoxy. We want to examine anything and everything. We challenge every dogma and belief system and encourage people around us to challenge the same. Freedom becomes the centre of our existence. We can no longer be confined to any fixed framework, however comfortable and tempting. We feel suffocated within the boundaries. When truth, and only truth, is the locus, we participate in the battle of Kurukshetra like Krishna, who is fearless, has no greed, nothing to achieve and therefore is not bound by any rule.
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