The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita -1.4. Swami Krishnananda

15/05/2019
Chapter 1: The Plight of the Pandavas :- 4.

The psychological rift occurs when the realities of life begin to sprout forth into minor tendrils and begin to lean towards the daylight of practical experience. The psychic components of the individual are descendents of a common ancestor, as the Pandavas and the Kauravas were descendants of Kuru, the great hero of ancient times. Yes, it is true—what we call the positive and the negative are not two forces, really speaking; they are two facets or diverse movements of freeing the bound soul. In the Upanishads we read that both the devas and the asuras were born to Prajapati, notwithstanding the fact that the devas and asuras had to fight with each other. It is something like the right hand and the left hand fighting with each other, though they belong to the same common organism or being. There is a similar parentage of the deva and the asura sampat. The devas and the asuras are the Pandavas and the Kauravas, in the language of the epic. They are the sattvic samskaras on the one side, and the rajasic and tamasic samskaras on the other side.

The embittered feelings manifest themselves into concrete forms when the child grows into an adult, and there is psychological tension. Slowly, as age advances, we become more and more unhappy in life. The jubilance and buoyancy of spirit that we had when we were small children playing in the neighbourhood or playground—that joy slowly diminishes. We become contemplatives with sunken eyes and a glaring look, and a concentrated mind into the nature of our future. We begin to exert in a particular direction, while exertion was not known when we were small babies—we were spontaneous. Spontaneity of expression gives place to particularised exertion when age advances. We become more and more marked in our individual consciousness, whereas it is diminished in the baby. There is practically a rising of the ego in the child. It sprouts up into a hardened form when age advances into youth, and even earlier. These two principles are present in the individual; they are present in human society; they are present in the cosmos.

The Puranas, particularly, embark upon an expatiation of the war that takes place between the devas and asuras, in a cosmic sense. Often people say the devas and the asuras described in the Puranas are allegories of psychological functions in individuals. These are all artificial, modernised interpretations, under the impression that that reality is confined to one section of life alone. We cannot say that there is no cosmic counterpart of the individual psyche. The Puranas are right; the psychologists also are right. It is true that there is a Ganga flowing in us in the form of the sushumna nadi, and there are the Yamuna and the Saraswati in the form of the ida and pingala. There is no gainsaying; it is perfectly true. But there is also an outward Ganga; we cannot deny it. The world outside and the world inside are two faces of the single composite structure of reality. So the battle between the devas and the asuras takes place in every realm and every phase of life. It takes place in the heavens, it takes place in the cosmos, it takes place in society, and it takes place within ourselves. The Mahabharata is not merely a depiction of a human series of events that happened some centuries back—though it is also that. It is a cosmic drama portrayed before us, at the same time coordinated with the psychological advancement that occurs in the process of individual evolution.

To be continued ..