"The Wretch Arjuna"

The first section sums up some sides to the Arjuna that is told of in various ancient Sanskrit works, such as the Mahabharata poem.

The next section, about "the wretch Arjuna", is from a story by Ramakrishna, and quite something to take to heart.

The rest of the page contains "miscellanous matter".

Which Arjuna?

In the great epic poem Mahabharata, Arjuna or Arjun was one of the Pandava brothers, an archer, borne by the first wife of a king called Pandu. In her maiden days, that wife had received a boon from a sage that any deity she chose to invoke, would beget a child with her. Pandu and this wife decided to make use of this boon. Arjuna was born to them as the son of the thundergod Indra in this way, and he became one of the heroes of the very extensive epos. There he is portrayed as a dear friend and brother-in-law of Krishna, who spoke the Bhagavad Gita poem to him in verse before the battle of Kurukshetra, while the two of them were standing between the opposing armies. In that situation Krishna enlightened Arjuna too, we are told.

Arjuna to Krishna: "As you have thus described yourself, Supreme Person, I wish to see your Divine Form!"

Krishna: "Behold, Arjuna, the whole universe centred in the one in this my body - including the moving and the unmoving - and whatever else you desire to see!"

Arjuna next saw the splendour as if a thousand suns blazed out at once in the sky, and so on.

Chapter 11 of the Bhagavad Gita is about that enlightenment, which is only rendered in short above.

Now is it true that the monk Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952) was the reborn Arjuna who shared the polyandrous wife Draupadi with five brothers because Yogananda on various occasions told he was Arjuna? An example, from one of his direct disciples:

Master revealed to us that he himself had been Krishna's closest friend and disciple, Arjuna ... We found it easy to believe that … [1]

The Bhagavad Gita says Arjuna was enlightened. After you have been enlightened, with hundreds of wives to satisfy all by yourself, why be reborn as a vicious, murderous desert marauder? Yogananda said he had been such a fellow too in another previous life, according to his biographer Dasgupta [Psy 112]. From enlightened to vicious, murderous and bad! And so on ...

"Alas! Give us some good clues," you may ask, "for blank claims accompanied by pondering and wonderment and sectarian drivel will not do here. And that sort of faith is what cults live on!"

Arjuna only from here: It is written in the Mahabharata poem that Arjuna had more than forty wives and hundreds of others at the same time, and the guidance of and personal attention from Krishna, who also had many wives and had abducted 18 000 apsaras (concubines) at a time.

All of Arjuna's sons were slain in the great Mahabharata war, except for one.

Arjuna slayed his way, but not alone, and killed his maternal half brother Karna among others, and the war ended the next day.

Arjuna lived to fight a lot even after that war, and fight he did till the Pandava brothers felt empty and decided toward the end of their lives, to renounce the world. They retired to the Himalayas and departed, but not without drama.

[Wikipedia, s.v. "Arjuna"]

"The Wretch Arjuna" - An Old Story

A different view at times yields valuable lessons.

PRIDE once entered into the heart of Arjuna, the friend of Sri Krishna. Arjuna thought that none equalled him in love and devotion to his Lord and friend. Sri Krishna, reading the heart of his friend, took him one day for a walk. They had not gone far when Arjuna saw a strange Brahmin eating dry grass as food, but nevertheless had a sword dangling at his side. Arjuna at once knew him to be a holy and pious devotee of Vishnu, one whose highest religious duty was to injure no being. As even grass has life, he would not eat it green but sustained his life by eating it dry and lifeless. Yet he carried a sword.

Arjuna, wondering at the incongruity, turned towards the Lord and said: "How is this? Here is a man vho has renounced all ideas of injuring any living being, down to the meanest blade of grass; yet he carries with him a sword, the symbol of death and hatred."

The Lord said, "You had better ask the man yourself".

Arjuna then went up to the Brahmin and said: "Sir, you injure no living being, and you live on dry grass. Why then do you carry this sharp sword?"

The Brahmin: "It is to punish four persons if I chance to meet them."

Arjuna: "Who are they?"

The Brahmin: The first is the wretch Narada."

Arjuna: "Why, what has he done?"

The Brahmin: "Why, look at the audacity of that fellow; he is perpetually keeping my Lord awake with his songs and music. He has no consideration whatever for the comfort of the Lord. Day and night, in and out of season, he disturbs the peace of the Lord by his prayers and praises."
      Arjuna: "Who is the second person?"

The Brahmin: "The impudent Draupadi."

Arjuna: "What is her fault?"

The Brahmin: "Look at the inconsiderate audacity of the woman. She was so rash as to call my beloved Lord just at the moment He was going to dine. He had to give up His dinner and go to the Kamyaka Vana to save the Pandavas from the curse of Durvasa. And her presumption went so far that she even caused my beloved Lord to eat the impure remnant of her own food."

Arjuna: "Who is the third?"

The Brahmin: "It is the heartless Prahlada. He was so cruel that he did not hesitate for a moment to ask my Lord to enter the boiling cauldron of oil, to be trodden under the heavy feet of the elephants and to break through an adamantine pillar."

Arjuna: "Who is the fourth?"

The Brahmin: "The wretch Arjuna."

Arjuna: "Why, what fault has he committed?"

The Brahmin: "Look at his felony. He made my beloved Lord take the mean office of a charioteer of his car in the great war of Kurukshetra."

Arjuna was amazed at the depth of the Brahmin's devotion and love, and from that moment his pride vanished, and he gave up thinking that he was the best devotee of all. [Tas, tale 77, somewhat modernised]

Word List

Arjuna:

One of five brothers that shared a wife among them (polyandry), allegedly a good archer in his time, and the one Krishna instructs in the Mahabharata epic poem's chapter (kanda) Bhagavad Gita. Most of the Mahabharata appears to be later additions. As a friend of Krishna in the story, Arjuna got Krishna's help as a chariot-driver during the great war in that hoary epic poem.

Brahmin (brahmana):

A member of one of the four Hindu castes - one of the caste traditionally assigned to the priesthood.

Narada:

Famous minstrel of God and guru model in Hinduism.

Draupadi:

The wife of the five sons of Pandu (cf. Arjuna above). One one occasion she called on Krishna to save her honour so that she would not be denuded in the court of a rather lustful king. The story refers to that incident.

Prahlada:

The son of the great monster king Hiranyakasipu, Prahlada was devoted to Vishnu, and that made his father red-hot angry to the degree that he wanted to have his son killed. Then Prahlada called on Vishnu (Krishna is one of his incarnations) to save him.

Daniel Goleman

In Judaism, the hidden teachings are called Kabbalah . . .

. . . The Kabbalist must observe the working of his ordinary mind or ego, so as to bring into awareness the unconscious forces that shape his thoughts and actions. To do this, he seeks to reach a certain level of awareness, that is, a state of clarity that is witness or "watcher" of the ordinary mind . . .

The end of the Kabbalist's path is devekut, in which the seeker's soul cleaves to God. Then "he need no longer study Torah" [Abstracts, Yy 49 ff.]

Shankara and Monism

There are pre-Shankara monistic interpreters of the scriptures. Shankara referred to one of them, Gaudapada, as the teacher of his own teacher Govinda, and complimented him for having recovered the advaita (nondualism) doctrine from the Vedas. His philosophical views show a considerable influence of Madhyamika Buddhism. [Ebu sv "Vedanta"]

Nondualistic Advaita is but one of many Vedanta schools." [Ebu sv "Vedanta"]

Shankara regards moral life as a necessary preliminary to self-knowledge. For him, the highest goal of life is to know the essential identity of his own self with Brahman.

The philosophical schools of Vaishnavism differ in their interpretation of the relationship between individual souls and God . . . You find qualified monism (exponent: Ramanuja), dualism (exponent: Madhva), dualistic monism (exponent: Nimbarka), pure monism (exponent: Vallabha), and "inconceivable duality and nonduality" (exponent: Caitanya). There are also popular expressions of devotionalism. [Cf. Ebu "Vaishnavism"]

Bites

Animals talk in fables from all over the world. Others too. We have to be candid to be true, although you can tell many things by fables and in other ways too, with sound and terse wisdom interspersed.

Telling stories to nourish the soundness of children and their intellectual growth is a way in Waldorf Education.

The Greek philosopher Epicurus ((341-270 BC) believed that pleasure is the highest good. Jesus vouches for it by saying king Solomon of "the best a man can do, is to eat, drink and be merry", was the wisest man on earth. Solomon also caused his father's dynasty break and fall asunder and lost the Lord's favours. Still Jesus calls him the wisest.

Study first and decree competently afterwards.

If we cannot prove or document a suspicion we harbour, better be discreet about it. This is better than love for great-looking words.

The neglected dire id needs from childhood or adolescence may give way to some run-down id-unfoldment's best vicarious outlet.

The sound, elementary wisdom "A stich in time saves nine". Five million kriya initiates 1500 years ago could have hindered many wars, then, according to Yogananda's descriptions of kriya effects. Perhaps nothing manages to bind and control animal instincts as much as nonsense and drivel. [Ng "Fenris or Fenrir"]