Why did Krishna do so many unethical practices to win Kurukshetra war in favour of Pandavas? Is it not adharma? How can an Avatar practice adharma?

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Krishna was an avatar — God descending to earth in human form and his mission was to restore dharma. The dharmas expected to be followed and ensured by the kings — the kshatriyas — at that historic time was at its lowest ebb. It was so hopelessly worse that it was virtually beyond correction by any other diplomatic means.

Krishna, with his role as a Raja Tantri, had already exhausted three of the four political means – Sama-dhana-bedha in trying to avert the war and finally, only dhanda was left in the form of Kurukshetra war; it was the massive punishment and annihilation of most of the kshatriya clan that ruled the various countries in Bhartavarsha at that time.

It must also be taken into note that Krishna’s avatar was triggered by Mother Earth (Bhooma Devi)’s request to Lord Vishnu to reduce bhubhaaram – the dead weight over earth on account of excessive presence of evil doers. And Krishnavatar happened with an agenda of massive destruction.

The world is such that when practitioners of adharma happily go on doing evil acts with no qualms, no one would have the guts to question them; but if people who follow dharma were to resort to any deviations in dharma on account of a higher purpose (restoring dharma) they will be flooded with criticism.

But an Avatara Purusha is nothing but God and God is beyond dharma and adharma. By virtue of this status, Krishna was not like any other ordinary sensitive person who tries to uphold dharma by patiently bowing down to evil (like Yudhishthira) ; naturally he played his divine lila with his head held high to annihilate the adharma by bending and breaking dharma too here and there when it was so needed for the grander purpose.

We must also take due note of two more happenings.

  • Dharma won finally, alright, but it did cause great casualties to Pandavas’ side too. Krishna saved just a future offspring of pandavas — the fetus in Uttaraa’s womb (later born as Parikshit). All the 5 children born off Pandavas to Draupati got killed in the post war ambush executed by Ashwatthama. Except perhaps Bhima, the Pandavas were not really very happy lot after the war was over. It took yeoman effort to elders and wisemen to persuade the grief-stricken Yudhshthira to ascend to the throne.
  • Krishna’s own clan of kshatriyas — the Yadavas, Vrishnis and Andhakas too were not any better when it came to following dharma. Their deterioration was already happening and it took some 40 years more for Krishna to ‘wind up his show’. Time came to annihilate all his clan too and he stood in the forefront to execute one of the bloodiest mutiny in Dwaraka. Finally, the whole city of Dwaraka was consumed by a tsunami and Krishna ended his avatar by allowing a lowly hunter to hit him with an arrow at his toe. What an anticlimax to the grandest story of an avatar!

 

Had Karna supported Pandavas, would Pandavas have still needed the help of Lord Krishna in Kurukshetra war?

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Krishna was an avatar of God; the whole drama of Kurukshetra war enfolded right under his nose and he was both a witness to is as well as a mastermind behind it to ensure the victory of dharma and also a massive destruction of warriers of kshatriya clan which too was the need of those times.

Karna was just the son of the celestial God Sun. He was not an avatar. He was a very arrogant, boastful, head heavy and a skilled archer. He had a larger-than-life self image about him. He possessed powerful weapons, but on account of his outright arrogance and egotism, he could not substantially reap benefits  through his possessions. But he was indeed a powerful archer and warrior who had the guts to challenge Arjuna.

If at all Karna were to come around to support Pandavas, such a thing could have happened if he got convinced of the diplomatic luring moves made by Krishna prior to war. Kunti had already failed to convince him. Krishna smartly promised to make him the king of Hastinapur (instead of Yudhisthira) after the war, if he switched sides.

Had Karna accepted the offer, he would have got terribly demeaned by the Kauravas and other kings. Perhaps Yudhishtra might have accepted him and would have even agreed to make him the king, but it is unlikely that Arjuna or Bhima would agree to it. Their enmity to Karna was too well deep rooted, considering the insult he had meted out to Panchali. Panchali for sure would oppose any such move to make him a king and the Pandavas would never have the capacity to overrule Panchali!

Thus, perhaps Karna could at best switch sides only with a big scar on his face – as a traitor of Kauravas. Assuming that he switched sides, he could never be equated to Vibhishan of Ramayanam, since Vibhishan’s moral and ethical calibre was of the highest order.

As far Duryodhan, his friendship with Karna was based on a single selfish agenda — Karna as a potential opponent to defeat Arjuna. If Karna switched sides, it will surely whip up lots of emotions in him and he might turn to Bhishma (since Bhishma never ever had any good opinion about Karna and at every opportune moment cut him to size) to cut Karna to size. He might even extract a promise from Bhishma to personally kill the traitor Karna. In all likelihood Bhishma, considering the open dislike he always carried on Karna and his his convictions on kshatriya dharma, he would never accept Karna’s action, despite all his soft corner for Pandavas.

Thus Karna would end up in Pandava’s camp with lots of negativities and drawbacks, considerably affecting his self confidence and pride. His contribution in the war in aiding Pandavas itself would be a big question.

Hence, Krishna’s presence would be still inevitable for Pandavas and definitely Arjuna would ensure that Krishna was with him as per original plans.

Why do some people do hero-worship of Karna and Ravana? Is it the effect of Kali yuga?

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Eulogizing villainous characters like Karna and Ravana is a reflection of existence of villainous tendency or mentality in us either openly or subtly. If we find a character’s behavior, taste, looks, action, speech and so on creating a positive resonance in us, we tend to love the character.

No one is cent percent good or cent percent bad. In Karna and Ravana, the evil tendencies were very predominant. No questions about it. They also happened to have some good qualities and tendencies. The great itihas keep both the aspects open and clear. You will find that when it comes to acknowledging the great qualities of these villainous characters, there is no dilution in the narratives.

Hence, if we tend to appreciate them only for their goodness and ignore their negativeness, it is only a reflection of our own psychological status.

It is not just the effect of Kaliyuga. Even in Mahabharat period, there were people appreciating Karna. Almost for all the 100 Kauravas, Karna was a Hero! But, for the Pandavas, Karna was anything but a despicable character — a warrior who thought too much of himself without proportionate merit. Bhishma, one of the grandest personalities of Mahabharat had the least regard for Karna. He considered Karna to be boastful, shallow, arrogant, and not possessing enough capability or prowess to the extent of his self-image.

So, it is quite obvious that only people with villainous tendencies tend to worship villains as heroes.

IF Krishna was an Avatar of God (Vishnu) how come he did so much adharma in Kurukshetra war?

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Krishna was an avatar — God descending to earth in human form and his mission was to restore dharma. The dharmas expected to be followed and ensured by the kings — the kshatriyas — at that historic time was at its lowest ebb. It was so hopelessly worse that it was virtually beyond correction by any other diplomatic means.

Krishna, with his role as a Raja Tantri, had already exhausted three of the four political means – Sama-dhana-bedha in trying to avert the war and finally, only dhanda was left in the form of Kurukshetra war; it was the massive punishment and annihilation of most of the kshatriya clan that ruled the various countries in Bhartavarsha at that time.

It must also be taken into note that Krishna’s avatar was triggered by Mother Earth (Bhooma Devi)’s request to Lord Vishnu to reduce bhubhaaram – the dead weight over earth on account of excessive presence of evil doers. And Krishnavatar happened with an agenda of massive destruction.

The world is such that when practitioners of adharma happily go on doing evil acts with no qualms, no one would have the guts to question them; but if people who follow dharma were to resort to any deviations in dharma on account of a higher purpose (restoring dharma) they will be flooded with criticism.

But an Avatara Purusha is nothing but God and God is beyond dharma and adharma. By virtue of this status, Krishna was not like any other ordinary sensitive person who tries to uphold dharma by patiently bowing down to evil (like Yudhishthira) ; naturally he played his divine lila with his head held high to annihilate the adharma by bending and breaking dharma too here and there when it was so needed for the grander purpose.

Deaths, destruction and annihilation of kshatriyas – Kurukshetra war

We must also take due note of two more happenings.

  • Dharma won finally, alright, but it did cause great casualties to Pandavas’ side too. Krishna saved just a future offspring of pandavas — the fetus in Uttaraa’s womb (later born as Parikshit). All the 5 children born off Pandavas to Draupati got killed in the post war ambush executed by Ashwatthama. Except perhaps Bhima, the Pandavas were not really very happy lot after the war was over. It took yeoman effort to elders and wisemen to persuade the grief-stricken Yudhshthira to ascend to the throne.
  • Krishna’s own clan of kshatriyas — the Yadavas, Vrishnis and Andhakas too were not any better when it came to following dharma. Their deterioration was already happening and it took some 40 years more for Krishna to ‘wind up his show’. Time came to annihilate all his clan too and he stood in the forefront to execute one of the bloodiest mutiny in Dwaraka. Finally, the whole city of Dwaraka was consumed by a tsunami and Krishna ended his avatar by allowing a lowly hunter to hit him with an arrow at his toe. What an anticlimax to the grandest story of an avatar!

It is outright foolish to imagine that Gods Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma or Avatars like Rama and his ardent devotee Hanuman are similar to some independent misguided kshatriya kings who would come and fight against Lord Krishna to frustrate the “unethical games” played by Krishna!

If Lord Krishna had 14000+ wives, how did he manage to satisfy all of them?

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I have heard that in some Purana this is mentioned (I don’t know which Purana). Once Narada had the same doubt. So, he decided to visit the homes of every one of Krishna’s 16K+ wives on a whirlwind tour without giving any advance notice.

He knocked at one of the doors; there Krishna and his wife were there; Krishna was doing Sandhya Vandhanam when Narada visited. The couple received him with respect and offered refreshments. Narada then instantly traveled to another house of Krishna’s wives and there Krishna was very much there, eating breakfast! When Narada instantly traveled to the 3rd house, Krishna was there, playing with his child!

Now Narada understood. Is it a big deal for Krishna to take thousands of forms and be with each of his wives simultaneously?

Another point of view — given by Amma:

Satguru Mata Amritanandamayi in her satsang on 4/4/18 incidentally talked about the same subject and her explanation was briefly in the following lines:

  • The love Gopis had on Krishna was not a mere man-woman love. It is the attraction towards the divinity of Krishna — attraction of jivatmas to the Paramatma. Krishna was a chitta chora (stealer of the hearts) of the Gopis, through his act of stealing butter. He stole the butter to feed the poor cowherd boys and in that process, made the hearts of Gopis to long for him by always thinking about him — “Will Krishna come to my house and steal butter?” Thus he killed two birds in one stone.
  • Like Christian Kanya Sthrees (nuns) who remain unmarried in life in order to lead a spiritual life of prayer, service and sacrifice saying that they are wedded to Jesus Christ, the umpteen wives of Krishna too were in a similar mental make up of dedicating their lives to God by symbolically being the wives of Krishna.
  • Even assuming that Krishna was really wedded to thousands of wives, it only shows his divinity and greatness because ordinary people cannot even manage to live in peace with just one wife!

Why did Krishna choose Arjuna instead of any other Pandava to teach Bhagavad Gita at the war front?

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Nakula and Sahadeva were less significant characters amidst the Pandavas. They were not shown to be too aggressive nor too inquisitive; they were rather duty minded and content to do whatever Yudhishtra ordained them to do. So, we can say, Krishna perhaps discounted them.

Now, we are left with Yudhishtira, Arjuna and Bhima.

Late Swami Chibhavananda (Sri Ramakrishna Tapovanam, Thiruparaithurai) in his book on Bhagavad Gita, at the introductory chapter, gives the reason for Krishna choosing Arjuna for delivering Gita in the following way:

Swami Chitbhavananda, Sri Ramakrishna Tapovanam, Tiruparaithurai.(Disciple of Swami Shivananda who was a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa)

As regards Yudhshitira, we was already a knower of dharma. He was basically satvic, knew pretty well about what is dharma and adharma and he was spiritually quite evolved. He does not really need a sermon.

As regards Bhima, he was thirsting for the war. He was just waiting for the time to plunge headlong into the war. Animal impetuosity was still dominant in him. Such a man was not not fit for receiving the teaching of or practicing any form of yoga.

But Arjuna’s personality stood somewhat in between these two characters. He was more evolved from animal tendencies but not to the level of knowing the higher realms of spirituality and dharma. He is like a normal man where both virtue and vice are intermingled, who has nagging doubts about what is right or dharma and what is wrong or adharma. Thus Arjuna represented the normal man who is fit for receiving the evolved subject of the Yoga for his spiritual betterment.

From another point of View…

An Avatara Purusha, Mahatma or Satguru is interested in the welfare of all, but they would rather exchange pleasantries with you and take care of your needs when your purpose of going to them is just for mundane existential needs. Only when someone genuinely surrenders and seeks sincere guidance and advice from them on the matters of dharma, God or spirituality, they would opt to teach them by donning the role of a guru.

All along, Arjuna had more of a friendly relationship with Krishna; but when he saw the potential destruction the impending war was going to cause by way of annihilating his own blood relations and teachers, he got scared and jittery. It was at that point that he surrendered with humility to Krishna as his guru and sought his guidance. None of the other pandavas were in such a mental turmoil or confusion as Arjuna was. That’s how Krishna took up His Guru bhava to teach Arjuna the Bhagavad Gita.

Unlike Krishna, Rama did not show any extraordinary powers or miracles. He was more of a human being. In that case, why can’t we all possess characteristics like Rama?

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According to Valmiki Ramayana, Rama was an avatar of Vishnu and he came to earth with the prime purpose of annihilating Ravana, based on the requests of devas and sages who suffered immensely under Ravana’s mighty power.

His very birth was unnatural because he was born by divine blessing that came in the form of a sweet pudding brought by a divine messenger at the end of Putra Kameshti yaga conducted by Dasaratha. Only after drinking the pudding, Dasaratha’s wives could become pregnant and Rama was born as Vishnu’s avatar to Kousalya.

Unlike Krishnavatar of the next yuga where Krishna demonstrated His divinity at every opportune moment, Rama always underplayed his divinity and was content to show just a perfect human face. That was his greatness.

According to Yoga Vashita, Young prince Rama attained Brahma Gnyana, was gripped with extreme vairagya (dispassion) and became disinterested in leading a life of a royal prince. Sage Vashita advised him that one can remain in whatever status one is living already and a Gnyani is never affected by his external worldly activities; there was absolutely no need to relinquish royal life and Rama agreed.

Only because he was a gnyani possessing total mental equanimity, he could accept the life of a forest-dweller at the behest of Kaikeyi without batting an eyelid, despite enjoying all royal comforts. At the same time, in Ramayana, he has been portrayed as a person easily succumbing to emotional depression too (like when he found Sita abducted by Ravana).

On many occasions, Rama indirectly displayed his divinity. Being a divine, he was above dharma and adharma. He displayed this divine aspect when he killed Vali, because he could boldly face criticism of acting in adharmic way in killing Vali by hiding behind a tree.

He showed his mighty power to Samudra Raja, when his prayers to the lord of Seas was not responded initially. Only when he stood up with his Brahmastra with an intent of drying up the seas, the lord of the seas came and surrendered.

During Lanka war, when Rama fell unconscious due to the attack of Nagastra, Lord Vishnu’s vehicle – Garuda came and removed the poisonous effects of the serpant astra. This is another indication of Rama’s divinity and his status as an avatar of Vishnu.

During the final stages of battle with Ravana, Lord Indira sent his chariot along with the charioteer Madhali to assist Rama. It was Madhali who reminded Rama to use the Brahmastra to kill Ravana. Ordinary human beings don’t get such privileges!

Coming to your second part of question: Why can’t we possess similar characteristics like Rama?

The Vedanta says all of us are potentially divine. In Bhagavad Gita, lord Krishna says He is the in-dweller in all. The only problem is that we are totally unaware of our true status, as we are deluded by Maya and ego.

If only, we can get totally rid off maya and discard our ego, we too become God. That’s is precisely Self-realization or God realization.

But still, do we become equal to Rama? Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa explains that while as Brahman (God) we may all be fundamentally same, the expression of divine Shakti in each of us is quite different. An ant and an elephant are God in essence alright, but the power of an elephant is not same as an ant!

An Avatara Purusha is one where God’s power gets expressed in a massive scale. Sri Ramakrishna used to say that an Avatar is like a huge steamer that can carry lots of people to cross the sea of samsara. On the other hand, a normal Jivan Mukta (a person who attained God realization through lots of effort and sadhana) will not have so much power to save many others from samsara. He is at the best like a small boat that can fetch a couple of persons across the river.

When Rama’s avatar came to an end, he took the entire populace of Ayodhya along with him to immerse in the Sarayu river and gave Moksha to all of them. Now you know the difference!

Who was more righteous, Lord Krishna or Yudhisthira?

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Yudhishtra was a human being. He was bound by the laws of Dharma. Since he was the son of Dharma devatha, his sense of understanding of, faith in, commitment to and practice of dharma were of the highest order, when compared to contemporary kshatriayas. He was head and shoulders above any of the kings of his period in the matters of dharma. Since he was a human being, he too faltered; got confused; yielded to temptations here and there. And he suffered for it.

On the the other hand, Krishna was a divine incarnation. Unlike Rama of Treta Yuga, who opted to consider him more as a human being —’Rama, the the son of Dasaratha’, Krishna of the Dwapara yuga had no qualms in accepting and demonstrating his Godliness at every opportune time.

By virtue of being God, he had transcended dharma and adharma. It is all his divine play and being divine, it is He who sets the rules or break the rules.

Hence comparisons have no meaning.

What is the difference between Shrimad Bhagavatam and Bhagavad Gita?

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Srimad Bhagavatam

It is a grand collection of puranas and spiritual stories with lots of philosophical teachings too. It contains the stories of Bhagvan Vishnu’s 24 avatars and stories of several great devotees. Srimad Bhagavatam is considered the greatest of all the puranas because it contains all the three shades  of Hindu philosophy (Advaita, Vishitadvaita and Dvaita) in its stories, discourses, dialogs, prayers and parables. The life story of Lord Krishna occupies a prominent position in this purana. It is one Purana that can be said to bridge both Bhakti (devotion) and Jnana (Knowledge) in a wonderful way. Vyasa Maharshi was the author.

Bhagavad Gita 

Bhagavad Gita is essentially philosophical teachings of Lord Krishna, delivered as sermon to Arjuna just before Kurukshetra war and it is part of Mahabharata . Mahabharata too was a book authored by Vyasa Maharshi. But the Bhagavad Gita section is out and out a book of spiritual teachings and not a story book. It predominantly teaches Karma Yoga and also covers Bhakti and Jnana yogas. Bhagavad Gita contains the essence of the teachings of Upanishads in a simplified way.