Do Not Be Afraid🔗

11.32 Sri Bhagavan said:

I am the mighty world-destroying Time, I am now destroying the worlds.

I have slain all these warriors; you are a mere instrument, Arjuna.

Do not be afraid; fight and you shall conquer your enemies in battle.

Krishna explains in these verses what He really is.

'I am Time,' says Krishna. 'I devour and destroy the world.'

This is one of the most potent truths uttered by Krishna in the Gita. He has earlier talked to Arjuna about atman, about rebirth, about the nature of karma, about doing work without getting attached to the result of work and about His glories.

For the first time, He takes off His mask and says matter of factly, 'I am the Destroyer.' He pulls no punches in responding to Arjuna's query, 'Who are you, and what is your purpose?'

'I am kala, Time,' says the Lord, 'and I destroy.'

Time never stands still. It moves on inexorably. Nothing can stop the flow of time. Nothing can bring back time. Nothing can move Time forward. Time destroys.

The future constantly moves into the present, and then into the past. At the frequency of our life, we can only see the present, and remember what we can of the past. The sad part is that though we can only experience the present, we constantly try to escape the present. We are forever caught in the fantasies of a future we know nothing about and the regrets of a past we never really lived when it was our present.

Our entire story is one of missed time. We destroy time. We allow time to destroy us. We miss and kill the present, which is the only facet of time that is available to us. Instead of being where the present is and shaping our future, we fantasize and let the present as well as the future be destroyed.

The only certainty in our life is that when time moves on, it is forever lost. However much we may regret and repent, nothing will change what has happened. But we do have the power at the moment of the present to shape our future. Every human being has the freedom and free-will to choose his action at the present moment. He can let go by default and claim that whatever happened was predestined. Predestination is simply the choice that we did not exercise.

Only when we are aware in the present moment can we craft our future. Not when it is still the future and not when it slips into the past. The first is impossible and the latter is too late. By being grounded in the present, by being aware of the present, one can become aware of the future and one can shape one's future. We need to use all our intelligence, energy and creativity to live blissfully in this moment, not in thoughts about the future or regrets about the past.

Krishna is stating a simple fact here. 'With or without you,' He says, 'all these warriors will be dead. As Time, I shall devour them. It is not you who are the cause. You can be the superficial reason. By being the instrument of their destruction, be the gainer of fame, wealth and power.'

It is easy to interpret these words of Krishna to mean that the future is predestined, since He says all these enemies of Arjuna will be destroyed. From this we can even interpret that His role is to protect the good and destroy the evil.

As Mahakala, Time personified, Krishna destroys all, the good and the bad. Time does not differentiate. Time does not keep accounts of whether you did good deeds or bad. Time moves on and destroys the present into past, future into present and past.

As Time, Krishna is neutral. He just is. He knows what will happen in the future and yet He does not influence it. As Time, He lets happen what happens. He is the Supreme Energy that just flows.

When one is in tune with Krishna, when one surrenders to Him, to His Will, things happen as they should. There is no interference on our part. We do what we ought to, what we need to, without worrying about what ought to happen and how. We then are in the flow of time, we are in the flow of Krishna's energy.

When we resist and try to have things the way we wish them to be, rather than the way they would be, we get in the way. Like the rock that gets pounded by the river and eventually gets reduced to fine dust, we too get reduced to nothing by Time. By imitating the reed in the river that bends offering no resistance, we can flow with Time.

Struggling to choose is not freedom. It is the bondage of the mind. There is no need to make a choice. Choice happens at the level of mind, not being. When we relax into our being, we are in bliss, choiceless awareness. We can let the choice happen by itself. Choicelessness can be the choice.

When we are conscious of the present moment, when we are truly aware of what we do in that present moment, whatever we do becomes the choiceless option. We don't need to make any special effort. Whatever happens in the present moment's awareness is the right choice.

When Krishna speaks of destroying and wiping out the world, He is talking about the destruction of the illusory physical and material world. He is the destroyer of fantasies, He is the destroyer of identities, He is the destroyer of egos and he is the destroyer of all that is unreal.

As He has said earlier on, what gets destroyed is the shell, the perishable body-mind, not the imperishable atman. What the mahakala - Time- destroys, is the psychodrama that is being played out on the battlefield.

It is important to understand what Krishna means in these words. As the Supreme Consciousness, He too is the energy of Shiva, the Rejuvenator. Shiva is not the Destroyer as He is made out to be. He recreates by destroying. There can be no creation if there is no destruction. There can be no life without death. Shiva's aspect of kalabhairava is the Time that Krishna refers to. He is the controller of past, present and future and all that happens in these time zones.

When one surrenders to this Supreme Consciousness, one loses all fear of Time. One falls in tune with Time. One flows with Time. Whatever one does is the right thing at the right time. When one loses fear of Time, one also loses fear of death. All that dies is recreated.

Arjuna expressed his dilemma earlier as one of having to destroy his elders, his teachers and his relatives. Unknown to him, one of his opponents was his half-brother Karna. Just before the war, Kunti, mother of both Karna and Arjuna, tries to avoid bloodshed by letting Karna know that she is his mother, who gave him up as a newborn child. Karna tells her that it is inevitable that one of them, Karna or Arjuna, will die in the other's hands and that she will still have five sons.

Arjuna had elaborated on his fear of killing all those he loved and respected. He wondered whether he was causing the destruction of his entire lineage by doing this. In truth, Arjuna was fighting against the destruction of his own conditioning. His samskaras, past memories of parental, teacher- related and other conditionings were difficult to destroy. This Great War is really the fight between Arjuna and his samskaras.

Krishna once again takes responsibility for this destruction. Earlier there were only words. Now Arjuna had seen the destruction for himself. He had seen the Kaurava warriors being consumed by the destructive destination that Krishna had become. It was impossible for Arjuna to disbelieve what he had seen - Bheeshma, Drona, Karna and others disappearing into the vast form of Krishna.

Now Krishna consoles Arjuna. ‘You have seen the Truth of what happens. They have been destroyed already. Do not lose heart. Do what you have you do. Fight and destroy what remains, which is just the illusion of your fears.’

Q: If Time is absolute and Time decides everything, then where is the question of free will and choice? Even if we accept choicelessness, how can we drop the fear of not knowing what will happen?

An excellent question. Let me start with the second part first.

The fear of the unknown is what disturbs everyone the most. At its core, the fear of death is the fear of the unknown and vice-versa. We do not know what is going to happen when we die. Some say we are reborn. Some say we will go to hell. Others say we can go to heaven if we donate cows or do charity work or whatever.

This fear of death, which is at the root of all our fears, is born from the fear of losing our identity. From childhood we have cultivated an identity that is unique to us. We feel that we are special. We are not the same as our neighbor, our friends. We like to think we are a little better. We are islands. This is how we create our identity.

Death frightens us because we don’t know what will happen to the identity that we’ve built up around ourselves. We are no longer there to protect, nourish and

expand upon our identity. We fear that Death will cut off all our moorings, and we will be suspended in an unsupported vacuum.

If you talk to people who have had a ‘near-death experience’, you will find a common thread. They have all lost their fear of death. They have faced death and found it welcoming. In fact, they were all reluctant to come back.

The way to shed any fear, especially of death, is to face that fear. How to face the fear of death? In all our courses, there is a session that takes you through an experience akin to dying. It helps you feel the separation of mind, body and spirit. Once experienced with awareness, this meditation allows you freedom from the fear of death.

Once you have overcome the fear of death, all other fears related to the unknown drop automatically. If you are not afraid of dying, what else is there to be afraid of? In case you find it difficult to believe this, talk to people who have had a near-death experience. There are websites that describe these experiences. You will find that all these people have been transformed in a similar manner. They are free from all fears. They have faced their worst fear and come away unscathed.

Death is related to Time. It is the ultimate ‘present.’ Future and past both merge into the present at death. But you do not have to die to experience the present moment, which is what Time is all about. The present moment is the destroyer of the past and the creator of

the future. Time is not merely the destroyer. Time is also the creator and the sustainer. Time is Maheshwara, Maha Ishwara, the God of Gods. Time is the integration of past, present and future; creation, sustenance and destruction.

It is Time, as the present moment, that decides everything. What happens in the future is decided by what happens now. What we cannot do to influence our present will certainly not help us in forming our future.

When Krishna says that all the Kaurava are already dead, He is speaking the Truth that everyone born as a mortal will die at one time or another. It is also true of Arjuna and the other Pandava. Krishna's focus now is to get Arjuna to stand up and fight. If Krishna had not persuaded Arjuna and made him aware, the possibility existed that Arjuna might have walked away. With Krishna's inputs the result was different.

There is always the element of free will and choice in what we do. What we need to remember is that our choice of action will not necessarily result in what we expect. This is the point where most of us have problems. We confuse choice with the end result. There is no guarantee that our choice will result in what we wish, though there is a connection.

That is why time and again in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna exhorts Arjuna to drop expectations and attachments. He tells Arjuna to do what he has to do, but with no expectation and attachment to the fruits of what he does. This is the key to success, even in the material world, especially in the material world!

All of us in the corporate world and in the material world of running households need to remember this well. Most of us are so focused on what we expect, so obsessed with the end result, be it our quarterly performance or the end-of-the-day result, that we lose sight of what we need to do 'now.' What is important is the 'now,' not the future. If we take care of the 'now,' the future takes care of itself.

We are never in the present moment. We are always in the past, recalling what we should have done, how we should have acted so that what happened could have turned out differently. We are full of regrets and guilt. Drop these regrets and guilt and move on. Nothing we do now can in any way influence what happened already. Even if we think that by ruminating over the past we can decide better for the future, we are wrong. We do not have the intelligence to learn from our mistakes. We keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

We can never achieve anything by speculating about the future. We can daydream as much as we want, whether we call it positive thinking or visualization, but nothing, nothing at all can happen unless we do something about it 'now.' Yes, thoughts influence, but they have to influence our current actions first, before they influence our future. They can only influence our future if they influence our present.

When we truly stay in the present, we become aware of what we are doing and what is happening around us. Our mind is where our body is. Whatever we do in this present moment will be right for us. Whatever path we take will lead us into the right destination. The present-moment awareness is one of intuition that determines what is best for us, without the need for rational analysis. We are in tune with the Universe and what happens is in our best interest.

This is the seeming dilemma of free will and surrender. When we are in the present moment we exercise our free will by surrendering to the Highest Cosmic Energy. That is a decision we make. It is not an accidental happening. It is a choice to let things happen as they do in the present moment, without being concerned about the past and the future.

Meditation is the key to being in the present moment. In fact when we are in the present moment we are in meditation. There is no difference at all. From the conscious state of mind we are elevated to a super-conscious state that makes us aware of what we need to do. There is absolute clarity.