Chapter 6 - Man and the Battle of Life

Man and the Battle of Life

We have seen that if we are to appreciate the teaching of Gita in its full spectrum, we must intellectually accept its standpoint. We need to understand its  courageous vision of the manifest nature and process of the world. The divine charioteer of Kurukshetra reveals himself in two aspects as :

·        On the one side, as the Lord of all the worlds and the Friend and omniscient Guide of all creatures.

And on the other side as

·        Time the Destroyer “arisen for the destruction of these peoples”

Faith in Supreme Power

Following in the spirit of the broad aspect of Hindu religion, the Gita affirms this also as God. It does not attempt to evade the enigma of the world by escaping from it through a side-door.

The human being has to start from a great, a difficult act of faith

if we do not regard existence merely

·        As the mechanical action of a brute and indifferent material Force

Or, on the other hand,

·        As an equally mechanical play of ideas and energies arising out of an original Non-Existence,

Or else

·        As reflected in the passive Soul

or

·        As the evolution of a dream or nightmare in the surface consciousness of an indifferent, immutable Transcendence. The transcendence which is unaffected by the dream and has not real part in it.

Similarly, this difficult act of faith is also required if like the Gita’s acceptance, we accept the existence of God.

·        The God who is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent.

·        At the same time, this God is also always a transcendent Being who

                   manifests the world

          and

                   manifests Himself in the world.

·        Who is not the slave but the lord of His creative Consciousness, Nature or Force (Maya, Prakriti or Shakti)

·        Who is not baffled or thwarted in His world-conception or design by His creatures - be it  man or devil

·        Who does not need to justify Himself by shifting the responsibility for any part of His creation or manifestation on that which is created or manifested

The necessity of Faith

This act of faith in God is necessary because man finds himself in a world which is :

·        Apparently a chaos of battling powers

·        A clash of vast and obscure forces

·        A life which subsists only by constant change and death

·        A life which is menaced from every side by pain, suffering, evil and destruction

An in such a world of negations and strife, the man has to see the omnipresent Deity. This is the act of faith as it can not otherwise be resolved by any rationalization or intellectualization of the conflicting principles.

The man has to be conscious that

·        beyond this enigma there must be a solution

·        In this Ignorance in which he dwells, there is also a Knowledge that reconciles.

The man has to take his stand on this faith. “Though Thou slay me, yet will I trust in Thee”

.

Transcending the conflicts

We have to understand that such an attitude of faith in God is involved in an explicit or implicit manner in all human thought or faith that is active or affirmative. It does not matter as to whether it is a theistic, pantheistic of atheistic thought or faith. All that it matters is that it admits and it believes. It admits the discords of the world and it believes in some highest principle. This principle may be of God, a universal Being or Nature. What is important is that it should enable us to transcend, overcome or harmonise these discords. Perhaps it may achieve all three at once – to harmonise by overcoming and transcending.

Period of transition and crisis

When we consider the human life in its actualities as explained above, we have then to accept its aspect of a struggle and a battle mounting into supreme crisis such as that of Kurukshetra. We have already seen that Gita takes for its frame such a period of transition and crisis. This transition and crisis is periodically experienced by the humanity in its history. In such a crisis the great forces clash against each other for a huge destruction and also reconstruction. This is in the form of intellectual, social, moral, religious and political aspects. In the case of actual psychological and social stage of human evolution, this crisis usually culminate through a violent physical convulsion of strife, war or revolution. The Gita proceeds from the acceptance of the necessity in Nature for such vehement crisis.

It accepts not only the moral aspect as represented by the struggle

·        Between righteousness and unrighteousness.

·        Between the self-affirming law of Good and the forces that oppose its progression

but also the physical aspect as represented by

·        the actual armed war

or

·        other vehement physical strife between the human beings who represent the antagonistic powers.

The situation at the time of Gita

We must remember that the Gita was composed at a time when war was a necessary part of human activity. This necessity was more at the time of the Gita than it is felt today. The idea of the total elimination of war from the life of humanity would have been an absolute chimera, an impossible idea. The gospel of universal peace and goodwill among men has never succeeded, even for a moment, in taking the possession of human mind and life during the historic cycle of our progress. Peace and goodwill go hand in hand. Without a universal and entire mutual goodwill there can be no real and abiding peace. The reason why universal peace and goodwill did not got rooted in the race is that the race was not prepared morally, socially and spiritually for this state. The poise of Nature in its evolution would not admit of its being immediately prepared for any such transcendence.

Working accommodation is not a lasting peace

Even now we have not actually progressed beyond the feasibility of a system of temporary working accommodation between conflicting interests. This makeshift arrangement may minimize the recurrence of the worst forms of strife. Ironically, the method and the approach adopted by the humanity towards this goal of peace actually results in a monstrous mutual massacre unparalleled in history. This method has been forced on humanity by its own nature. For achieving the noble objective of establishment of universal peace, the modern man has found a straight way and the triumphant means of a universal war which is full of bitterness and irreconcilable hatred !

Moreover, this noble objective is not founded upon any fundamental change in human nature.

It is founded upon

·        intellectual notions,

·        economic convenience,

·        vital and sentimental shrinkings from the loss of life, discomfort and horror of war,

and it is

·        effected by nothing better than political adjustments.

It does not give any sure and confident promise of firm foundation and long duration.

The reality of Life

We can dream of an age when humanity will be spiritually, morally and socially ready for the reign of universal peace. Surely such a stage will eventually come. However, in the meanwhile, any practical philosophy and religion must accept and account for the aspect of battle. It has also to accept the nature and function of man as a fighter. In fact, this aspect of man as a fighter is really an aspect and function of human activity in general. The Gita takes the life as it really is now (by now is meant the time of the war of Kurukshetra. But the condition existing today is no different from that of the ancient time. Therefore the ‘now’ is equally applicable to now as well as to the period of Kurukshetra) and NOT as it may become in some distant future. On this premise, it poses and answers the question of how to harmonise this aspect and function of human activity with the spiritual existence.

The fighter in Gita

Gita is therefore addressed to a fighter, to a man of action. One whose duty in life is that of war and protection.

In the first place, war is taken as a part of government for the protection of those who are :

·        Excused from that duty

·        Debarred from protecting themselves and therefore at the mercy of the strong and the violent

Secondly, by a moral extension of this idea, war is necessary

·        For the protection of the weak and the oppressed, and

·        For the maintenance of right and justice in the world.

Indian conception of the class ‘Kshatriya’ has incorporated all these social, practical, moral and chivalrous ideas. Kshatriya is the warrior and ruler by function and a knight and king in his nature. It is true that we are mainly concerned with ideas of the Gita having more general and universal application and not restricted to a particular class of people or nation or culture or even religion. However, for the purpose of better understanding the doctrine of the Gita, we need to consider the context in which the ideas in the Gita arose. The ideas which were influenced by the colouring and trend of peculiar Indian culture and social system prevailing at the time. That system differed from the modern time in its conception. To the modern mind, man is a thinker, worker or producer and a fighter all in one. The tendency of the current social system is to lump all these activities and to demand from each individual his contribution to the intellectual, economical and military life and needs of the community. This is done without paying any heed to the demands of his individual nature and temperament. The ancient Indian civilization laid peculiar stress on the individual nature, tendency and temperament. It sought to determine by it the ethical type, function and place in the society of a man. It did not consider man primarily as a social being. It did not consider the fullness of his social existence as the highest ideal. It primarily considered man as a spiritual being in the process of formation and development. It placed his social life, ethical law, play of temperament and exercise of function as means and stages of spiritual formation.

Segregation of function in Society

The functions of the society were carefully differentiated as follows :

·        Thought and Knowledge

·        War and Government

·        Production and Distribution

·        Labour and Service

Each of these functions was assigned to those who were naturally called to it. It provided the right means by which they could individually proceed towards their spiritual development and self-perfection.

Advantages of the modern system

We have, however, to accept that the modern idea of a common obligation in all the main departments of human activity has its own advantages. It helps in fostering greater solidarity, unity and fullness in the life of the community. It results in a more all-round development of the complete human being as opposed to some of the pitfalls of the old Indian system. The old Indian system eventually led to the endless divisions and over-specialisation. It also resulted in the narrowing and artificial shackling of the life of the individual.

Dangers of the modern system

On the other hand, we should not overlook the disadvantages of the modern system. In certain of its developments the too logical application of it has led to grotesque and disastrous absurdities. This is very much evident in the character of modern war. It had its origin in the idea of a common military obligation which is binding on every individual to defend and fight for the community by which he lives and profits. This has resulted in a system by which the whole manhood of the nation is hurled into the bloody trench to slay and be slain. It has not spared thinkers, artists, philosophers, priests, merchants and artisans. They have been torn from their natural functions. The whole life of the community gets disorganized. The reason and conscience is overridden. The system does not spare even the minister of religion who is paid by the State or called by his function to preach the gospel of peace and love. He is forced to deny his creed and become a butcher of his fellowmen !  The irony and tragedy does not stop at violation of the conscience and nature by arbitrary flat of the military State. When the national defence is carried to an insane extreme, it makes its best attempt to become a national suicide.

Benefits of Ancient Indian System

On the other hand, the Indian civilization made it its chief aim to minimize the incidence and disaster of war. For this purpose, it limited the military obligation to the small class who were marked out for this function by reason of their birth, nature and tradition. These people found in this activity their natural means of self-development through the flowering of the soul in the qualities of

·        courage,

·        disciplined force,

·        strong helpfulness and

·        chivalrous nobility

When the warriors life is pursued in these activities under the stress of a high ideal, it gives them a field and opportunities. The rest of the community was in every way guarded from slaughter and outrage. Their life and occupations bore minimal impact of the battle. The combative and destructive tendencies of human nature were given a restricted field. It was confined in a sort of lists of duties and codes of conduct so as to do the minimum amount of harm to the general life of the race. While at the same time it resulted in ennobling and elevating the spirit of the warriors instead of brutalizing it. This was achieved by subjecting the warriors to high ethical ideals. They were made to follow every possible rule of humanity and chivalry.

Specific type of War which is meant in Gita

We have to take a special note that it is a war of this kind and under these conditions that the Gita had in view. The war which is considered as an inevitable part of human life. The war which was so restricted and regulated that it served the ethical and spiritual development of humanity. It was put on par with any other human activity having same ends in view. We should remember that the ethical and spiritual development was then regarded as the whole real object of life. In this context, war becomes destructive within certain carefully fixed limits of the external bodily life of individual men while at the same time it becomes constructive of their inner life and of the ethical elevation of the race.

War and an Ideal

It can be easily seen from the actual experience of the race that in the past when the conduct of war was subjected to an ideal, it had helped in this elevation. This is reflected in the development of knighthood and chivalry, the Indian ideal of the Kshatriya and the Japanese ideal of the Samurai. This fact can only be denied by the fanatics of pacifism.

Contribution of War

When the system of War has fulfilled its function, it may well disappear. If it still tries to outlive its utility, it will then appear as an unrelieved brutality of violence stripped of its ideal and constructive aspects. It will be rejected by the progressive mind of humanity. However, the contribution of the system of War to the preservation and development of the human race must be admitted in any reasonable view of our evolution.

War as an aspect of World-Energy

However, the physical fact of war is only a special and outward manifestation of a general principle in life. Kshatriya is just the outward manifestation and type of a general characteristic which is necessary to the completeness of human perfection. War physically typifies and embodies the aspect of battle and struggle in human life. This aspect belongs to all life – both to our inner and outward living. It is applicable in the specific context of the world whose method is a clash and wrestling of forces. The world which progress by mutual destruction towards a continually changing adjustment. This adjustment is expressive of a progressive harmonizing. It is hopeful of a perfect harmony. The harmony which is based upon some yet ungrasped potentiality of oneness. The Kshatriya is the type and embodiment of the fighter in man who accepts this principle in life. He faces it as a warrior striving towards mastery, not shrinking from the destruction of bodies and forms. It aims towards the realisation of some principle of right, justice and law. This principle shall be the basis of harmony towards which the struggle tends. The Gita accepts this aspect of the world-energy and its embodiment in the form of the physical fact of war. It addresses itself to the man of action, the striver and fighter, the Kshatriya.

Contradictions of War

We are faced here with the extreme case of contradictions.

·        The soul’s high aspiration to peace within and harmlessness without stands in shark contrast with the destruction caused by war.

·        The striver and fighter whose necessary turmoil of struggle and action seems to be the very contradiction of the soul’s high ideal of calm mastery and self-possession.

And precisely this contradiction has been made an issue in the Gita. It is a point at which its terms meet. It is a poise which shall be the first essential basis of harmony and transcendence.

Man meets the battle of life in the manner which is most in tune with essential quality which is most dominant in his nature. There are three essential qualities or modes of the world-energy. Sankhya philosophy also advocates this notion. On the same line, there are also three modes of human nature.

These are

·        Sattva, the mode of poise, knowledge and satisfaction

·        Rajas, the mode of passion, action and struggling emotion

·        Tamas, the mode of ignorance and inertia

When the man is under the influence of tamas, he does not so much meet the rush and shock of the world-energies whirling about him and converging upon him. He succumbs to these energies. He is overborne, afflicted and subjected by them. At the most, when he is helped by the other qualities of Sattva and rajas,

Tamasic Man

the Tamasic man seeks only somehow to survive, to subsist so long as he may. He tries to shelter himself in the fortress of an established routine of thought and action. In this fortress he feels to a certain extent protected from the battle. He is able to reject the demand which his higher nature makes upon him. He feels excused from accepting the necessity of farther struggle and from the ideal of an increasing effort and mastery.

Rajasic Man

Dominated by rajas, man flings himself into the battle and attempts to use the struggle of forces for his own egoistic benefit He wants to slay, conquer, dominate and enjoy. When he is helped by a certain measure of sattwic quality, the rajasic man makes the struggle itself a means of increasing inner mastery, joy, power and possession. The battle of life becomes his delight and passion. It is partly for its own sake, for the pleasure of activity and the sense of power and partly as a means of his increase and natural self-development.

Sattwic Man

When a man is dominated by sattwic quality, he seeks for a principle of law, right, poise, harmony, peace, satisfaction in the midst of the strife. The purely sattwic man tends to seek this within himself. He does this for himself alone or when he has won over the strife, with an impulse to communicate it to other human minds. He does this usually by a sort of inner detachment from or an outer rejection of, the strife and turmoil of the active world-energy. When the sattwic mind is also influenced by the rajasic impulse, he seeks rather to impose this poise and harmony upon the struggle and apparent chaos. He tries to vindicate a victory for peace, love and harmony over the principle of war, discord and struggle.

All the attitudes adopted by the human mind towards the problem of life derive from the domination of one or other of these qualities. They may also derive from an attempt at balance and harmony between these qualities.

There also comes a stage in which the mind recoils from the whole problem and it gets dissatisfied with the solutions given by the threefold mode of Nature, traigunya. In such a state, it seeks for some higher solution outside or above these three qualities. It looks for an escape into something which is outside and void of all qualities and therefore of all activity. Alternatively ,it also looks for an escape into something which is superior to the three qualities and is master of them. In such a state, it is at once capable of action while at the same time remain unaffected, undominated by its own action, in the nirguna or the trigunatita. It aspires to an absolute peace and unconditioned existence. It may also aspire to a dominant calm and superior existence. The natural movement of the former attitude of absolute peace and unconditioned existence is towards the renunciation of the world, sannyasa. The latter attitude of dominant calm and superior existence leads towards the superiority to the claims of the lower nature and its whirl of actions and reactions. Its principle is equality and the inner renunciation of passion and desire. The former is the first impulse of Arjuna when he recoiled from the calamitous culmination of all his heroic activity in the great cataclysm of battle and massacre, Kurukshetra. In the process, he lost his whole past principle of action. For him the only issue of overwhelming importance were the inaction and the rejection of life and its claims. But he is called by the voice of the divine Teacher to an inner superiority to the three qualities and NOT to the physical renunciation of life and action.

Arjuna is the Kshatriya, the rajasic man. He governs his rajasic action by a high sattwic ideal. He advances to this gigantic struggle, to this Kurukshetra with the full acceptance of the joy of battle called as ‘a holiday of fight’. He does this with a proud confidence in the righteousness of his cause. He advances in his rapid chariot tearing the hearts of his enemies with the victorious clamour of his war-conch. He wishes to look upon all these Kings of men who have come here to champion against him the cause of unrighteousness. They want to establish as a rule of life the rule of a selfish and arrogant egoism. However, the uprush of the tamasic quality into the rajasic man who is Arjuna induced a recoil of astonishment, grief, horror, dismay, dejection and bewilderment of the mind. It caused the war of reason against itself. It caused collapse towards the principle of ignorance and inertia. This resulted in the shattering of the confidence within Arjuna. He gets a severe blow on his customary attitude and mental basis of life. As a result, he turns towards renunciation.

Arjuna strongly feels that it is better to live the life of a beggar who lives upon the alms rather than

·        This dharma of the Kshatriya, this battle and action culminating in undiscriminating massacre.

·        This principle of mastery and glory and power which can only be won by destruction

·        This vindication of justice and right by a means which contradicts all righteousness

·        this affirmation of the social law by a war which destroys in its process and result all that constitutes society

Sannyasa is the renunciation of life and action and of the threefold modes of Nature. But it has to be approached through one or other of the three qualities. This may take any of the following forms :

·        The impulse may be tamasic, a feeling of impotence, fear, aversion, disgust, horror of the world and life. It may also be the rajasic quality tending towards Tamas. This is reflected in an impulse of weariness of the struggle, grief and disappointment. It is refusal to accept any longer this vain turmoil of activity with its pain and its eternal discontent.

·        Impulse may also be that of rajas tending towards sattwa. It is reflected in the impulse to arrive at something superior to anything life can give, to conquer a higher strength which seeks to break all bonds and transcend all limits.

·        Impulse may also be sattwic. It is reflected in an intellectual perception of the vanity of life and the absence of any real goal or justification for this ever-cycling world-existence. It may also be reflected as a spiritual perception of the Timeless, the Infinite, the Silent, the nameless and formless Peace beyond.

The recoil of Arjuna is the tamasic recoil from action of the Sattwa-rajasic man. The Teacher may confirm it in its direction, using it as a dark entry to the purity and peace of the ascetic attitudes of the sattwic tendency of renunciation. Or he may purify it at once and raise it towards the rare altitudes of the sattwic tendency of renunciation. In fact, he does neither ! He discourages the tamasic recoil and the tendency to renunciation and encourages the continuance of action and even of the same fierce and terrible action. But significantly, he also points the disciple towards another and inner renunciation which is the real issue from his crisis. It is the way towards the soul’s superiority to the world-Nature while at the same time retaining its calm and self-possessed action in the world. Not a physical asceticism, but an inner detachment is the teaching of the Gita. 

............... based on Chapter 6, Essays on the Gita by Sri Aurobindo

Chapter 5 - The Battleground of Life

The Battleground of Life

We must now again consider the situation from which the Gita arises before we proceed further. For this purpose, we have to follow in the large steps of the Teacher of the Gita. We have to observe his tracing of the triune path of man. This path is that of his will, heart and thought raising themselves to the Highest. It leads us into the being of that which is the supreme object of all action, love and knowledge. However, this time we have to do this in its largest bearings as a type of human life in general (and not just the particular and peculiar situation of Arjuna) and even of all world-existence. It is true that Arjuna is himself concerned only with his own situation and his inner struggle and the law of action which he must follow. However, as we have already seen, the particular question he raises, in the manner in which he raises it does really bring up many more questions.

These are the question of

·        Human life and action

·        What the world is, and

·        Why it is so, and

·        How possibly, it being what it is, life here in the world can be reconciled with life in the Spirit

Moreover, the Teacher insists that the issue of resolution of all this deep and difficult matters of life is the very foundation of his doctrine of ‘command to an action’. Having reached this stage of understanding, this resolution then must proceed from a new poise of being and by the light of a liberating knowledge.

We have now to see as exactly what is the difficulty for the man who has to do the two things simultaneously :

·        Outwardly, he has to take the world as it is and act in it, and

·        He has also to live the spiritual life from within.

We have to discern as to what is this aspect of existence which appeals his awakened mind and at the same time brings about the dejection and discouragement. This is highlighted by the title of the first chapter of the Gita which it significantly calls the Yoga of the dejection of Arjuna. It is the dejection and discouragement felt by the human being when he is forced to face the spectacle of the universe as it really is. This happens when the veil of the ethical illusion, the illusion of self-righteousness is torn from his eyes. This is the stage before a higher reconciliation with himself is effected. This situation is represented in the two aspects in the war of Kurukshetra.

These two aspects are :

·        Outwardly, it is figured as the carnage and massacre of Kurukshetra, and

·        Inwardly, spiritually, it is represented by the vision of the Lord of all things as Time arising to devour and destroy the creatures whom it has made.

We have to note that this is the vision of the Lord of all existence who is the universal Creator as well as the universal Destroyer. The ancient Scriptures have stated this in a rather ruthless image as “The sages and the heroes are his food and death is the spice of his banquet.”  It is one and the same truth seen first indirectly and obscurely in the facts of life. Then it is seen directly and clearly in the soul’s vision of that which manifests itself in life. The outward aspect is that of world-existence and human existence which is full of struggle and slaughter. The inward aspect is that of the universal Being fulfilling himself in a vast creation and a vast destruction. In Kurukshetra, the battle field of massacre, Arjuna has two visions :

·        Life a battle and a field of death, and

·        God the Terrible

We have various theories of the struggle in the world and its result :

·        War as Creator

Heraclitus has said that “War is the father of all things”.  War is the king of all. Like most of the other aphorisms of the Greek thinker, it contains a profound truth. Everything in this world, if not the world itself, seems to be born from a clash of material and other forces.

·        Self Destruction of World

Some go even further and conclude that through the struggle of forces, tendencies, principles, beings the world seems to progress. It ever creates new things and at the same time ever destroys the old things. One is not sure where the world thus marches to. But one thing is sure, The final result of all this is a self-destruction of the world.

·        Vain Cycles : Some say that the final result is the unending series of vain cycles.

·        Progressive Cycles

The most optimistic opinion is that it leads to the unending series of progressive cycles and not the vain cycles. Whatever trouble and apparent confusion may be there initially, it leads through them all towards a higher and higher approximation to some divine apocalypse.

There is divergence of opinions as reflected above. However, we can have two common threads running through all the above theories.

·        There is no construction without destruction. There is no harmony except by a poise of contending forces won out of many actual and potential discords. And

·        There is no continual existence of life except by a constant self-feeding and devouring of other life.

Three Commandments

Our very bodily life is a constant dying and being reborn. The body itself is a beleaguered city attacked by assailing forces and protected by defending forces, whose business is to devour each other. All our existence is of similar nature.

It seems that we have three commandment from the very beginning of the world :

·        “Thou shalt not conquer except by battle with thy fellows, and thy surroundings;

·        Thou shalt not even live except by battle and struggle and by absorbing into thyself other life.

·        The first law of this world that I have made is creation and reservation by destruction.”

Though it seems ironical to put it this way, we can not deny the fact that it represents some aspects of the reality.

Blatant statement of Truth by Upanishads

Ancient thought accepted this starting point so far as it was observable by scrutiny of the universe. The old Upanishads saw it very clearly. They have phrased it with an uncompromising thoroughness without falling into the temptation to use any honeyed glosses or optimistic scuttlings of the truth. They said that “Hunger is Death. It is the creator and master of this world.” They figured vital existence in the image of the Horse of the sacrifice. They described Matter by a name which means ordinarily food. They said that we call it food because the creatures devour matter, and in turn Matter itself devours creatures. The Darwinians rediscovered this truth in the formula of the material world as “The eater eating is eaten”. They laid it down that the struggle for life is the law of evolutionary existence. Modern Science has only further emphasized the old truths that had already been expressed in much more forcible, wide and accurate formulas by the aphorisms of Heraclitus and the figures employed by the Upanishads.

Benefits of Nietzsche’s Theory

Nietzsche has insisted upon war as an aspect of life and the ideal man as a warrior. He has put forward the theory that the human being is the camel-man to begin with and the child-man hereafter, but he must be the lion-man in the middle if he is to attain his perfection. We may widely differ from many of the moral and practical conclusions he drew from these theories. However, we are forced to admit their undeniable justification. They recall us to a truth we like to hide out of sight. It is for our own good that we should be reminded of it.

The reasons are twofold :

·        First, because it has a tonic effect for every strong soul. It saves us from the flabbiness and relaxation encouraged by a too much pleasing sentimentalism of philosophic, religious or ethical thought.. This sentimentalism loves to look upon Nature as love and life and beauty and good, but it turns away from her grim mask of death. It adores God as Shiva (the holy) but refuses to adore him as Rudra (the terrible).

·        Secondly, unless we have the honesty and courage to look existence straight in the face, we shall never arrive at any effective solution of its discords and oppositions.

Opposite angles

We can view this from two opposite angles – both leading towards the same conclusion. These angles are :

·        First, we must see what life and the world are in reality. Afterwards, with all the good intentions we can set about finding the right way to transform them into what they should be. The repellent aspect of existence holds in itself some secret of the final harmony. If we ignore it or belittle it, we then miss that secret. All our efforts at a solution will then fail. They will fail by nothing else but the fault of our own self-indulgent ignoring of the true elements of the problem.  

·        On the other hand, we may see the discords and struggles of life as an enemy who is to be beaten down, trampled on, excised and eliminated. Even if we hold this view, still we gain nothing by underrating its power and hold upon life. We achieve nothing by refusing to see how firmly it is rooted in the effective past and the actually operative principles of existence.

Morality of War

We should note here that war and destruction are not only universal principles of our life here in its purely material aspects. They are also the principles of our mental and moral existence. It is self evident that in the actual life of intellectual, social, political and moral man we can not make any real progress without a struggle. There is always a battle between what already exists and lives on the one hand and what seeks to exist and live on the other. There is also a battle between all that stands behind either of these two sides. As the men and things are in actuality, it is impossible to observe the two principles :

·        To advance , to grow, to fulfill,

and still

·        To observe the principle of harmlessness.

This principle of harmlessness is placed before us as the highest and best law of conduct.

Soul force and destruction

Some people advocate that we will use only soul-force and never destroy by war or even will not adopt defensive employment of physical violence !  Philosophically, this sound good. The trouble is that until the soul-force is effective the Asuric force in men and nations will trample down, break, slaughter, burn and pollute the world. We see it actually happening today. Moreover, with this philosophy of non-violence, the Asuric force will operate at its ease and unhindered. This will cause as much destruction of life by our abstinence as caused by others resorting to violence. It is no solace to say that we have set up an ideal which may some day and at any rate ought to lead up to better things. Even soul-force, when it is effective, destroys. Only those people who have effectively used the soul force with full awareness will know how much more terrible and destructive it is than the sword and the cannon. Only those, who do not limit their view to the front end of the act and its immediate effects, can see the ultimate reality.

They will know :

·        how tremendous are its after-effects.

·        how much is eventually destroyed

and with that much

·        all the life that depended on it and fed upon it.

Evil can not perish without the destruction of much that lives by the evil. The fact that we are personally saved from the pain of the sensational act of violence does not reduce the severity of the destruction.

Soul force and the law of Karma

There is more to the use of soul force. Every time we use soul-force we raise a great force of Karma against our adversary. The after-movements of the force of Karma are beyond our power to control. Vasishtha uses soul-force against the military violence of Vishwamitra and armies of Huns and Shakas and Pallavas hurl themselves on the aggressor. The very quiescence and passivity of the spiritual man faced with the violence and aggression of the enemy awakens the tremendous forces of the world to a retributive action. Looking from a larger perspective, it may even be more merciful to put up a forceful resistance to the representatives of the evil than to allow them to trample on until they cause a worse destruction than we would ever think of inflicting. It is not enough that our own hands should remain clean and our souls unstained. It will not cause the law of strife and destruction to die out of the world. It is necessary that the root cause of the strife must first disappear out of humanity. The law will not be abrogated  by mere immobility and inertia which is unwilling to use or which is incapable of using any kind of resistance to evil. Indeed, Tamas (inertia)  causes much more injury than what the Rajasic principle of strife can cause. The Rajasic principle at least creates more than it destroys. Therefore, the Slayer of creatures remain unabolished by the individual’s abstention from strife and from its inevitable concomitant destruction in their more gross and physical form. It may at the most help his own moral being. This is as far as the individual’s action goes.

From the point of view of the world at large, the whole of human history bears witness to the inexorable vitality and persistent prevalence of this principle in the world.

Is there any alternative to strife ?

It is natural that we should attempt to palliate, to lay stress on other aspects. Strife and destruction are not all. There is the saving principle of association and mutual help as opposite to the force of dissociation and mutual strife. We have a power of love which is no less than the power of egoistic self-assertion. We have an impulse to sacrifice ourselves for others as opposite to the impulse to sacrifice others to ourselves. However good the above propositions may sound, we can not take them at the face value. When we see how these principles have actually worked, we shall not be tempted to gloss over or ignore the power of their opposites represented by the evil force.

We will see this one by one.

Association

We have talked about the association. But we must remember that the association has been worked not only for mutual help, but at the same time for defence and aggression. It has been used to strengthen as against all that attacks or resists in the struggle for life. Association itself has been a servant of war, egoism and the self-assertion of life against life.

Love

Love itself has been constantly a power of death. Especially it is true in the case of the love of good and the love of God as embraced by the human ego. It has been responsible for much strife, slaughter and destruction.

Self Sacrifice

Self sacrifice is great and noble. But at its highest it is an acknowledgement of the law of Life by death. It then becomes an offering on the altar of some Power that demands a victim in order that the work desired may be done. In the lower and the superior scale of animal life, we see the highest examples of self-sacrifice.

These instances are :

·        The mother bird facing the animal prey in defence of its young

·        The patriot dying for his country’s freedom

·        The religious martyr, or

·        The martyr of an idea

This is very much evident in what these animals bear witness in such circumstances.

Consequences are terrible

At the same time, if we consider the subsequent consequences, an easy optimism becomes even less possible. Take the example of the patriot dying in order that his country may be free. Now, let us observe the same country a few decades after the Lord of Karma has paid the price of the blood and the suffering that was given. You will see that the same country has become an oppressor itself. It has become an exploiter and conqueror of colonies and dependencies. It is devouring others so that it may aggressively live and succeed in life. The Christian martyrs perish in their thousands setting soul-force against empire-force so that Christ may conquer. Christianity prevail. Soul-force does triumph. Christianity does prevail. But not the Christ. The victorious religion becomes a militant and dominant Church. It is then more fanatically persecuting power than the creed and the empire which it replaced. The same religions organise themselves into powers of mutual strife. They battle fiercely against each other in order to live, to grow and to possess the world.

All these observations invariably lead us to show that there is some fundamental element of existence which makes this strife and struggle an inevitable fact of life. It may even be the initial element rooted in our existence from the very beginning of life on earth. We do not know how to conquer it. This may be because either it can not be conquered due to its very nature or it may be because we have not looked at it with a strong and impartial gaze. A gaze that will enable us to recognise it calmly and fairly and know what it is. We must have the courage and impartiality to look at the existence in the face, in the ‘eye to eye’ contact with it, if our sole aim is to arrive at a right solution, whatever that solution may be. And to look existence in the face is to look God in the face. These two can not be separated. The responsibility for the laws of the world-existence can not be shifted away from Him who created them. It can not be shifted away from That which constituted it. Even in this endeavour also we are tempted to palliate and equivocate. We erect a God of Love and Mercy. We erect a God of Good, a God who is just, righteous and virtuous. This is done according to our own moral conceptions of justice, virtue and righteousness. All that is outside the scope of the definition of our God is then termed as not being He or not being His.

We have several explanations for this :

·        We treat it as being made by some diabolical Power.

·        We theorise that our God tolerated or suffered this diabolical Power for the  purpose of working out its wicked will.

·        We may say that the material of our existence which is not God is made out by some dark Ahriman counterbalancing our gracious Ormuzd.

·        We may even surmise that it was the fault of some selfish and sinful man who has spoiled what was made originally perfect by God. This looks as if in this animal world, it was man who had created the law of death and devouring.

·        We may say that it is really the Nature who by a force of tremendous process creates and preserves. However, it is also the Nature who slays and destroys what she has created and preserved. She effects destruction in the same step and by the same inevitable action as she creates.

It is only a few religions which have had the courage say without any reserve that this enigmatic World-Power is one Deity, one Trinity. The Indian religion has this courage. It had the courage to lift up the image of the Force that acts in the world in both its aspects :

·        The beneficent Durga,

and also

·        Terrible Kali in her blood-stained dance of destruction

It says that “This too is the Mother; this also know to be God; this too, if thou hast the strength, adore”. It is significant that the Indian religion which had this unflinching honesty and tremendous courage, has succeeded in creating a profound and widespread spirituality such as no other can parallel. Truth is the foundation of real spirituality and courage is its soul. ‘Tasyai…. Satyam dyatamam’.

This does not mean that

·        all this strife and destruction are the alpha and omega of existence,

·        that harmony is not greater than war,

·        love is not greater than hate,

·        the manifest divine is not greater than death

 It also does not mean that we must not move towards the replacement

·        of physical force by soul-force,

·        of war by peace,

·        of strife by union,

·        of devouring by love,

·        of egoism by universality,

·        of death by immortal life.

We have to realize and understand the other side of the final Truth.

That is God is not only :

·        the destroyer, but the Friend of creatures,

·        not only the cosmic Trinity, but the Transcendent,

and

·        the terrible Kali is also the loving and beneficent Mother.

·        The lord of Kurukshetra is the divine comrade and charioteer, the attracter of beings, incarnate Krishna.

Through all his explanations he may be attracting us to whatever goal or godhead and irrespective of wherever and whatever he is driving at the moment through all the strife and clash and confusion, one thing is absolutely certain. He is leading us eventually to some transcendence of all these aspects upon which we have been so firmly insisting. We have now to discover as to where, how, with what kind of transcendence and under what conditions this journey takes place. The first necessary condition for this to happen is to see the world as it is. We have to rightly observe and value his action as it reveals itself at the start and now. Once we fulfill these conditions, then the way and the goal will better reveal themselves. We must first acknowledge Kurukshetra. We must first fearlessly submit to the law of Life by Death before we can find our way to the Life Immortal. We must open our eyes, with a less appalled gaze than Arjuna’s, to the vision of our Lord of Time and Death. We must cease to deny, hate or recoil from the universal Destroyer. Then only will our understanding of the final Truth be clear and precise. 

...... based on Chapter 5, Essays on the Gita by Sri Aurobindo