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| Shivaji - one of the most remarkable Kshatriyas to walk the Earth. |
It is a glorious story that everyone in Maharashtra knows very well. Over 350 years ago, on the slopes of Pratapgadh, the destiny of the Marathas stood on the edge of doom. It was the meeting of Shivaji, the fledgeling king of the Maratha rebels, and the gigantic Afzal Khan, the powerful and ruthless general of Bijapur. It was supposed to be a peaceful meeting, and Afzal Khan invited Shivaji into a friendly embrace. But even as he embraced him, he tightened his grip around the Maratha's neck, choking him, and tried to stab him in the back with a dagger. To his surprise, he encountered the chainmail that Shivaji had worn under his clothes. But he had no time to attack again. Shivaji had already torn open his belly with his own concealed weapon. Afzal Khan's bodyguard, Sayyad Banda rushed to defend his master. But before his sword could reach Shivaji, his arm had been chopped off by a swift blow from Shivaji's own bodyguard, Jiva Mahal. Within just a minute, the siege of Pratapgadh had essentially ended. The young Maratha king, who was to change the destiny of a nation, had survived.
There are thousands of minutes in a day and hundreds of days in a year. And hundreds of years have rolled by since that battle on the slopes of Pratapgadh. And yet, that one minute lives on in memory. Every blow that was struck, dodged or blocked within that one minute has been chronicled. That one minute has been enacted in plays and films and sung about in songs. And we still say "होता जिवा म्हणून वाचला शिवा" ("Shiva survived because Jiva was there"). How did the people who lived that minute experience it? What was Shivaji thinking then? What went through Jiva Mahal's mind as he stopped the blow that could have ended a dream? That has not been chronicled, but we can easily guess the answers to those questions. The answer is - absolutely nothing. If either of them had taken a moment to think at that time, the story would have been entirely different. That one minute was made glorious not because of great thoughts but because of the precise flash of a blade.
Mankind has been unfortunate enough to have gone through far too many wars. And every war has had its heroes - men and women who have done extraordinary things in the face of absolute peril. And yet, as far as I know, most of them have simply said that they were just doing what was necessary at that moment. We think of a hero as being very courageous, as someone who conquers his fear and does something difficult. But the fact is that being courageous in such situations does not involve conquering one's fear. It simply requires being genuinely sensitive to the moment and doing precisely what is required. If one were to take time off to find one's courage, it would just be too late to act.
Absolute peril has that wonderful quality - it can either paralyze a man and destroy him, or it can take him into that rare state when he is aware of nothing but the present moment. For that brief while, it can bestow godliness upon him. It almost makes it worthwhile to seek danger. It is possible that some people are just built that way - to face peril is the only way they can be at their absolute peak. In his book "Krishna - the Man and his Philosophy", Osho describes Arjuna as such a being - a true Kshatriya.
He is a swordsman; in his makeup he has the sharpness and thrust of the sword. He can shine only if he has a sword in his hand. He can find his soul and its fulfillment only in the depths of courage and valor, of battle and war. He cannot be fulfilled in any other manner. That is why Krishna tells him, ”It is better to die upholding one’s true nature than to live a borrowed life, which is nothing less than a horror. You die as a warrior, rather than live as a renegade. Then you will live a dead life. And a living death is better than a dead life.”For the past few months my circumstances have been such that I have been under a constant peril of some sort. No, it has not been mortal peril, but circumstances have arisen in such ways that certain parts of my life were constantly under a genuine threat. I tried to manage this situation in different ways with limited success. One thing is, I told myself that I needed to accept the situation completely to deal with it in the best possible way. That did work at times, but not too well. Intellectual acceptance of this kind has only a limited effect. But then came those wonderful moments when the situation became genuinely unbearable. Yes, those were the wonderful moments since those were the moments when thought simply had to stop and action flowed. Something wonderful happened - a strange new life, a strange new bliss in the middle of hell. Of course, what I have been going through certainly cannot be compared to mortal peril, but for a brief moment, a little understanding dawned upon me. For a brief moment, I understood what true Kshatriyas might have been like. For a brief moment, I understood why Krishna wanted Arjuna to fight, why Arjuna needed to fight, whether he wanted to or not.
Genuine awareness can dawn upon a person in so many ways. The path of peril is a truly remarkable path for those who are able to walk upon it. People have so many theories about why Krishna allowed the Mahabharata war to happen. I think that one reason might have been that he saw the peril of war as a wonderful opportunity for so many people. It is said that Krishna himself did not strike a blow during the war. But I think that is a lie. Krishna, the man, may not have struck a single blow. But Krishna, as a spiritual possibility, was alive in the edge of every sword and on the tip of every arrow.
