INTRODUCTION🔗

What follows now is a bunch of fantasies that Arjuna's mind weaves in an attempt to justify his dilemma. It is what the human mind conjures up time and again as its projection of the unconscious samskaras, trying to justify its actions. Sanjaya says that Arjuna was overwhelmed with pity. Some translate this as compassion. True compassion is nondiscriminatory. To the truly compassionate person, the whole world is an extension of his own self. Anything that hurts any object around such a person would hurt him and he too would feel the pain. However, Arjuna's emotion was discriminatory. He felt pity only because they were his kinsmen and he identified with them. This was pity born out of himsa, violence.

TRUE COMPASSION

ARISES FROM A STATE

OF ABSENCE OF

EGO, WHERE THE

FEELINGS OF 'I' AND

'MINE' HAVE

DISAPPEARED. It is a state of bliss. It happens when the individual self merges with the universal Self. Arjuna's pity arose out of fear of losing his identity, his ego. He was mortally afraid. He claimed that his throat was parched, his hair was standing on edge and his divine bow was slipping from his sweaty hands. Arjuna's dilemma was an existential one. What is the point of eliminating others if it results in one's own elimination? It is a dilemma. If one did not know Arjuna better, one would have considered him a coward. Arjuna was no coward. He was not concerned that he might be injured or that he might die. But he was afraid of breaking social and ethical laws. His values and beliefs, his samskaras, told him that what he was doing was wrong and unacceptable. So powerful was this feeling, that he was reeling, quivering, dazed and unable to think or function.

Why should I destroy myself? For what purpose?' These are the questions that naturally follow this line of reasoning. Arjuna was far wiser than many modern philosophers in posing this as a doubt, but without venturing any answers. Arjuna is undergoing a process of transformation. The problem was that Arjuna was a thinking man unlike Duryodhana, or even his own brother Bhima. This ability to think, to be aware, was what had got him into trouble now. Doubts assailed him. 'Am I really doing the right thing? Am I not destroying myself and all that I stand for when I wage this war against my own people.

To help the child understand what is true compassion.

1. Briefly describe Arjuna's main concern with fighting in the war?

2. Why did Arjuna feel sad and in dilemma?

3. What do you understand about 'true compassion'?

MATERIALS NEEDED:

PROCEDURE:

Encourage the children to draw ego in a pictorial format and ask them to explain what ego means for them.

Seriousness is ego and seriousness is nothing but paying undue importance to something at the cost of everything else.

WATER PACKETS - HOLDING ON THE THOUGHTS

Have enough water packets so that everyone will get a chance to get a turn. Fill each packet with water, and keep extra water in the tub.

WATER PACKETS - HOLDING ON THE THOUGHTS

Procedure: Gather everyone around and show them the activity. Talk about thoughts. What happens when we are full of thoughts? We are weighed down in our minds and hearts because of all the inner chatter that is going on inside. We can't think very clearly. The water packet illustrates our mind, the water is our thoughts. When we hold on to our thoughts, we are filling ourselves full of nonsense. But if we realize what we are doing, we should just release it, squeeze it out and be empty. Only then great things will happen. Drop the mind and be free, un-clutch the thoughts one at a time and all inner chatter will disappear and bliss will enter our lives instead. Demonstrate how to squeeze the water out of the packets and have the thoughts behind, leave the water packet also illustrating how we can drop the mind and go on to do great things.

Place the children into groups where they can discuss: "Arjuna is undergoing a process of transformation; he is going to rewrite his future!"

Arjuna had become a seeker of Truth. He wished to go beyond the sastras, the stotras and the sutras. He questioned them. Arjuna Vishada Yoga, is the name of the first chapter of Gita. Vishada means grief, sorrow, despondency, despair, depression, dilemma and such. Here what we see is the dilemma that Arjuna was in, not knowing whether what he had been taught all his life and what he had believed to be true, was really true after all. We create illusions in our mind about the situations we face, about how critical they are to our existence. Then we create fantasies in our minds about what is going to happen to us, be it an imagined good result or a difficulty. We do everything except face the present moment with awareness.

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