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Their limited army is protected by Bhima.

1.11 Now all of you, wherever you are positioned,

Promise full protection to Bhishma.

1.12 Bhishma, the mighty grandsire of the Kuru dynasty and Grandfather,

Then blew upon his conch loudly, roaring like a lion and Duryodhana was joyful.

Duryodhana was a coward by nature, suffering from a deep inferiority complex and a strong need for attention. He had always been threatened by the fact that his Pandava cousins were superior to him and his brothers. He was especially afraid of Arjuna and Bhima, who were physically stronger and more skilled than him. Like all bullies through the ages, Duryodhana was only afraid of being overpowered by someone whose physical power was greater than his own.

Duryodhana felt secure only when surrounded by cronies. His strength and valor arose from the feeling of being supported by his clan and the army around him. On the positive side, Duryodhana was an extremely generous friend who gave his all for the sake of someone he trusted. This quality had attracted strong men like Karna to him who swore undying loyalty. Even though Karna knew that Arjuna was his own brother, all he could say to his mother Kunti was that she would finally be left with five sons, implying that one of her sons, either Arjuna or Karna, would perish in the war. Such was the loyalty that Duryodhana evoked in his friends.

Duryodhana now rightly went on to claim that there were a number of people, who were great warriors, who would willingly lay down their lives for him. These warriors might have been aware that Duryodhana was an immoral person, but such was their commitment to him that it did not matter.

Duryodhana then began to boost his own morale by saying that the power of the Kaurava army led by the redoubtable Bhishma was immeasurable, whereas the Pandava army with Bhima as one of the commanders was limited in power. Duryodhana's reference to Bhima alongside Bhishma was due to the fear that he had, of the oath that Bhima had taken - to break Duryodhana's thigh and drink his blood to avenge the insult to Draupadi. Duryodhana knew in his heart that this would happen and the only factor that could prevent it would be the protection of Bhishma.

Duryodhana then addressed the Kaurava army exhorting them to support their Commander-in-Chief Bhishma. In response, Bhishma blew on his conch like a lion, making Duryodhana joyful.

Bhishma was the first Kaurava Commander-in-Chief and Duryodhana wanted to make sure that the entire Kaurava army was committed to his leadership. In the past, Duryodhana had not hidden his feelings that Bhishma was partial to the Pandavas. Now, however, the die was cast, and Bhishma, the greatest warrior either side had known, was leading the Kaurava army. Duryodhana wanted to take no chances that his past hatred towards Bhishma would affect his assembled supporters.

In some ways Duryodhana had no choice. Though he knew that Bhishma, as well as Drona, would have gone with the Pandava princes and Krishna had they not been bound by their strong bonds of righteousness, he could not afford to antagonize them. In fact Karna, his dearest friend and one of the greatest warriors on either side equaled only by Arjuna, refused to fight in the war till Bhishma was leading the Kaurava army. Karna stepped in only after Bhishma was mortally wounded on the tenth day of the war. Yet, Duryodhana had to accept Bhishma's leadership as a choiceless option.

Bhishma had the great grandfather status to the Pandava and Kaurava clan. Bhishma was born to Ganga as Devavrata. He was the only surviving son of eight sons that Ganga had given birth to. When his father King Shantanu wanted to marry Satyavati, a daughter of a fisherman, Devavrata swore never to marry so that his stepmother Satyavati's children could have access to his father's throne. Satyavati was the grandmother of both Pandu and Dhritharashtra. Bhishma was highly respected for his valor and sagacity. It is one of the great perceived ironies of Mahabharata that wise men like Bhishma and Drona chose to take on Duryodhana's side, knowing fully well that whatever path Duryodhana was following was morally incorrect.

In the highest spiritual sense there is no moral right or moral wrong. Everything is neutral. Bhishma and Drona were not ordinary people. They were highly skilled in the scriptural truth. Moreover, they were fully aware that Krishna was an incarnation, and the very fact that Krishna sided with the Pandavas was a clear indication to them as to how the war would unfold. As great warriors themselves, they had no fears about their own deaths; more importantly they had no guilt about what they had embarked upon.

Men like Bhishma and Drona, as well as others such as Kripacharya, trusted their awareness. Duryodhana was their prince and they were committed to him. They were not concerned about the result of the war; to them it was a certainty that Duryodhana would perish and they would too, along with him. In fact, there is a point in the war when Krishna was greatly angered at the rout that Bhishma was causing in the Pandava army and unhappy at the deferential way Arjuna was treating Bhishma. Krishna got down from Arjuna's chariot that He was driving and advanced menacingly towards Bhishma.

Bhishma instantly laid down his arms, folded his hands in prayer to the advancing Krishna who was holding His sudarsana chakra, the divine discus weapon on His finger, and greeted Him. 'Lord, it will be the greatest blessing for me to die in Your hands.'

To these great warriors, dying on the battlefield was the duty of a kshatriya, a warrior. What was more important to them was that they were rooted in the awareness of the present moment, carrying out their duty. They weren't concerned with the righteousness of Duryodhana's motives. Their awareness transcended the moral rights and wrongs established by society and religion. They disapproved of Duryodhana's insult of the Pandava princes and Draupadi at the courts but did not protest. They disapproved of Duryodhana's instigation of this war and yet took up his side, knowing fully well that what lay ahead was destruction.

This was not foolishness or resignation. This was surrender to the inevitable, surrender to the divine. At the level of their consciousness, these great masters allowed nature to take its own course, and allowed themselves to be swept along in its tide.

To relax and allow whatever happens to happen is the sure sign of an evolved spirit. Ordinary human beings have the freedom to think, act and choose. As a result, they think they are in control of their destinies. In a sense they are; they make their decisions and act upon them. But it is their unconscious samskaras, the memories, value systems and beliefs that drive them into and through all these decisions.

A cycle is created as the samskaras lead to certain actions and those actions in turn mould their mental set up and reinforce these samskaras. Yet, a human being has the choice to break out of this cycle and live in freedom from his samskaras.

It is our constant conflict with nature that leads to our suffering. We believe that we act out of intelligence, when most of the time our actions are driven by instinct, the unconscious where the samskaras reside. The unconscious operates at much higher speeds and stores far more data than our conscious mind. Typically, if the unconscious mind is capable of storing and accessing 60 million images within a short time, the conscious mind during the same period can process 60 at best. The speed of the unconscious mind has been designed by nature to cope with life or death issues. Unfortunately, this system gets misused for all other mundane issues as well.

If we learn to flow with nature, like the reeds in a river as they say in Tao, we will always do the right thing. We suffer when we resist nature and therefore limit our options. There are two ways to live life. One is to accept the world and life as it is, what in Sanskrit is termed srishti drishti. The other way is to try to make circumstances evolve according to our viewpoint, called drishti srishti.

The first attitude, one of acceptance, brings happiness; the second, one of resistance, brings suffering. No one can change the world according to his viewpoint. It is an exercise doomed to failure.

In our lives, we cannot even change the attitude of our neighbor or our spouse.

At best, we can transform ourselves, that's all.

All talk about revolutionizing the world is just talk. No revolution has ever succeeded in bringing about any significant, positive change. Revolutionaries who claim that

they are against dictatorship become dictators themselves. That has always been history.

Ironically, an enlightened master has no such freedom. He is a faithful channel to the universal energy, Parasakti, the divine Existence. Every move and every thought is at the behest of the divine. An enlightened being is beyond choice. An enlightened being is in complete surrender to the Divine.

The scale that is applied to ordinary humans cannot measure the motives and actions of an enlightened being. Their actions are taken in a no-mind, thoughtless state that flows constantly in the present, with no expectations of what may happen in the future and no regrets about what happened in the past. Their actions may seem immoral or at least strange as perceived through the lens of the rules and regulations of society. But they are beyond society.

Bhishma was of divine origin, the son of Ganga. He had the gift of living as long as he wanted and to die when he wanted. His integrity and morality were the standard for his era. Yet Bhishma kept quiet when Draupadi was disrobed and insulted. He did not act when Duryodhana denied the Pandava princes even a patch of land. He chose to fight for Duryodhana.

However, when Duryodhana requested him to lead the Kaurava army, Bhishma told him that the Pandava princes were as dear to him as Duryodhana was, and while he would wage war against their army, he could not take their lives. This was the condition under which Bhishma agreed to fight against the Pandava army on Duryodhana's behalf.

Bhishma had repeatedly counseled Duryodhana against his evil deeds towards the Pandava princes and Duryodhana was aware of how Bhishma opposed his acts. Yet, in this instant, Bhishma's compassion for Duryodhana overcame his distaste for his actions and behavior. Bhishma understood the desperate fears running through Duryodhana's mind and felt the need to reassure him.

In response to these exaggerated claims of Duryodhana, Bhishma blew his conch as a sign of resounding affirmation of whatever had been said by Duryodhana. Sanjaya said that Bhishma's conch sounded like the roar of a lion, coming from the oldest and the bravest of all the warriors assembled on the battlefield. It was also an affirmation of Bhishma's own support to the Kaurava prince and the signal for the war to begin. Bhishma's conch was a celebratory signal, seeking victory.

Q: Master, how can there be no right and wrong in what we do? Can we then do whatever we wish without fear? Need someone have no fear of the hereafter if one is powerful enough to overcome societal authority?

At the highest spiritual level, at the level of Existence, right and wrong do not happen in the way we think. Nature does not follow our societal rules of right and wrong. This is why we often are in anger and sorrow when thousands are destroyed in natural calamities or when young ones die in accidents.

We say nature is cruel. We ask, ‘Does God exist? God is supposed to be compassionate. How can He allow these things to happen?’

We have no understanding of how nature operates. Nature just is. It does not accept any conditions known to our logic. Humans only dimly understand the laws of nature.

Let us imagine a situation where you are driving a car and you run over an anthill. The car destroys a whole colony of ants. Would you have even noticed it? You would drive on without being aware of what havoc you had caused upon this colony of ants. Had you run into a moose or a deer, you certainly would have known because your car would have been damaged, but not an anthill.

Nature takes as much notice of us as we do of ants. The frequencies are different, just like how our size and frequency are different from those of ants. Enlightened beings operate at the frequency of Existence. They follow the laws of nature, not of humans. When I said there is no right and wrong in nature, it applies at the level of Existence and enlightened masters.

It is true that at the level of human beings you need to have guidelines of right and wrong, of what to do and not to do. But be careful. When these are enforced without understanding they will never work. Most of the regulations laid down by many religions are beyond understanding. One religion will say you cannot eat pork. Another prohibits beef and yet another stipulates that everything can be and must be eaten. One religion will say that you can marry only once and must stay with that spouse for the duration of your life. Another will say you can leave one spouse and take another; some will say you can be married to four at a time.

Different religions say such confusing and contradictory things about what is right and wrong, and they have different gods and different versions of heaven and hell. It is as if each religion issues a different passport and visa when you die.

If one thinks about all this with awareness, the underlying reasons will become clear. The rights and wrongs that society and religions lay down have nothing to with the truth of existential reality. These regulations, which define our conduct, be they right or wrong, are in place for the sake of self-preservation. It is like saying, ‘I agree not to kill you and in turn you agree not to kill me.’ This gradually is extended across society. Such regulations are needed to provide safety to all those who live within that society.

What about those actions that extend beyond the individual? When one group attacks another group and kills its people, with or without provocation, how can you justify it? When you kill someone else in defense of your country you are called patriotic, and you are celebrated as a hero. But you are still a murderer! If the murder is carried out in the name of patriotism, does it become justifiable?

Throughout the history of mankind there have been hundreds, if not thousands of wars. In each war the victor was always considered to be in the right. All these wars were in defense of so-called noble principles. Whoever won had a nobler principle, that's all. If Hitler had won World War II, history would have been rewritten and he would have been a hero.

It is as the Tao says: there is no right or wrong, no good and bad, no light and darkness. Everything that is terribly wrong has something right in it for someone. Everything wonderfully right has something wrong in it for someone. Such is the truth of life.

What has been considered right at one point in time and space, is considered wrong at another point in time and space. What is considered absolutely incorrect at one time becomes universally acceptable in another era. At one time in India, it was considered a duty and an honor for a woman to commit suicide by walking into the funeral pyre of her dead husband. If she did not voluntarily walk into the pyre, she was forcibly burnt. At one time, so-called witches were burnt at the stake and it was considered justifiable. Today these acts are considered barbaric aberrations.

Fundamental, existential truths cannot oscillate between right and wrong. They have to be one or the other at all times and in all space. Unfortunately, in the true existential sense, there is no such definition. It is simply because Existence does not operate that way. Existence is random, truly random. Randomness cannot be differentiated as right random and wrong random.

Human nature is such that whenever rules are made, the first impulse is to break the rule. This impulse is deeply rooted in us and is part of our desire to be free of all bondages. If you have a speed limit, and if you do not see a cop, you will speed. If you happen to get caught speeding and you are in a country where corruption is an acceptable practice, you may try to wriggle your way out through a bribe.

One can understand a child doing such a thing. A child is driven by curiosity and does things that may seem dangerous and incorrect to an adult. But why does a conditioned adult consistently break rules? First of all he does not believe that the rule applies to him. He is perfectly happy to have the rule applied to everyone except himself. Each man and woman would like to be free from rules that bind, but want them to be applied to others so that they can be free from interference.

In India, when you travel in trains, and you buy the cheapest tickets, your seats will not be reserved. So you must fight to get a seat. People jump in through windows and push one another to get a seat. Then they try to prevent others from getting into that compartment! They will begrudge someone else having what they just struggled for.

Anything that you do out of a sense of duty to your conscience is always forced, because it is based only on

what you have been taught as right or wrong, Because it is forced, you will always want to break away in some way or other from some of those rules. It is only when you consider something to be right or wrong based upon a deep internal awareness, that you do it with earnestness. You do it because something deep inside you tells you it is the right thing to do. Conscience is societal. Consciousness is natural.

As an adult, whatever you do must be done in awareness, not out of force.

Unfortunately, we always get caught in this game of choosing between right and wrong. We are conditioned from early childhood to play this game. Our emotional strings are controlled as if by a master puppeteer, through greed and fear. It could be your church telling you that if you covet your neighbor's wife you will go to hell. Or it could be your legal system that tells you if you do not pay taxes you will go to jail. Or it could be your adult child blackmailing you emotionally to continue financial support.

It also could be the attraction of becoming the President of your neighborhood Rotary Club, if you raise a hundred thousand dollars for charity. Or the feeling of accomplishment that comes over you by jogging ten kilometers in the midday sun, because you have read it improves cardiovascular fitness.

In every action of ours, we are ruled either by fear or greed. Fear and greed are embedded deeply into our psyche through conditioned mindsets of good and bad. Be very clear, it is not your conscious mind directing you, not at all. It is your unconscious mind driving you through embedded memories, memories that you have limited access to.

If we act out of greed, we have temporary pleasure. Often even that pleasure is tinged with guilt. Even if you give to a beggar feeling charitable, you wonder at the back of your mind whether you are doing the right thing or possibly supporting one of their bad habits. Are you encouraging other able bodied people to beg? If the beggar is disabled, you remember stories about how children are maimed and used by beggar mafia in some countries. You can never win. For every well-intentioned action, your mind can bring up at least a few arguments against it.

If you do something out of fear, this bothers you even more. In addition to feeling guilty, you also feel you are a coward. In a big city like New York or Mumbai, you will see hundreds of people passing by a man or woman lying on the pavement. Or when some one is being mugged and crying for help, others refuse to get involved for fear of their safety. They will look away or close their windows. These people are afraid; they are afraid to get involved. They are afraid to help another human being in trouble. The same people will rush out to rescue a puppy. I am not against rescuing pups or kittens but why do you run away when another human seeks help?

Our concepts of right and wrong seem absolute to us, or at least absolute in relation to our conditioning. They

are not. If you read the history of countries that were colonized, you will find that colonizers introduced many bad practices in the name of civilization.

Such incidents have happened for thousands of years. They are happening now as you read these words and they will happen again and again in the future. So, what can you do? People ask me, 'Are we to keep quiet and do nothing?'

No. First, drop your judgment about something or someone being right or wrong. You are no one to judge and in any case, your judgments are based purely upon your own social conditioning. God Almighty does not judge, contrary to what your religions may say. Drop your negativities first. Then you will realize that your impressions about other people's negativities will also drop. You will start seeing good in each person and in every situation.

Second, raise your awareness through meditation. Look inwards and connect with your consciousness. There is no other way for you to understand and accept the ways of nature. There is no absolute right or wrong in nature. Nature just flows. With meditation, you too learn to flow.

As you flow, you learn to act in awareness. You learn to extend a helping hand to a passerby even if it seems to involve personal danger. Actually, you will fall so much in tune with Existence that you won't even feel that there is danger that can threaten you. You will begin to experience that everything is happening only for the good.

One of my healers told me this incident recently.

As he was walking to a meeting he passed a man lying face down on the road. Normally he would have walked by, and he almost did. Then something strange happened. He thought of me and his legs couldn't move. They in fact moved backwards to the spot where the man lay. Despite the delay, he stayed till an ambulance came to pick up the man.

This is not about right and wrong. This is about awareness. This is not about what others would say or do. He said a few hundred people passed by looking and not doing anything. If so many people chose to do nothing, then some would consider the right action based on that alone, is it not? But for the person who stopped to help, the correct action was to be of service.

There are people who interpret their religious scriptures to mean that they can destroy those who do not believe in their God or their principles. How can you call these people or their religious leaders who encourage this attitude spiritual? There are millions, perhaps billions, who believe this implicitly and therefore act without awareness. How can spirituality be exclusive? It is never exclusive. It is inclusive, always inclusive. This divisiveness is what causes the collective unconsciousness to rise in our society.

Whenever something is collective, it will be from the unconscious. It can never be from awareness. To be in consciousness, you need to work individually. Conscience can be collective; Consciousness is the path of aloneness.

Do not worry about what others say about right and wrong, including me. That is my awareness, not yours. Go into your inner space and find out your own answers through a process of connecting with your awareness. Only then can you be free from your bondages of fear and greed, as well as guilt. Only then you will be liberated.