To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven; the same key opens the gates of hell.
- Buddhist proverb
It was a stormy night - rain, thunder, lightning, the sea lashing in giant waves against the embankment, the rain falling on the roof as if in a shower of rocks.
A cry suddenly tore the air: "What is Dharma?" The cry shattered Krishna's sleep and stirred his dream-world. "What is Dharma?" - reverberated all over the earth and in the heavens.
Scenes - vague, confused and shapeless - came before him. Men floated by, rishing, mingling and vanishing. Vrindavan, with its leafy trees, grinning monkeys, dancing peacocks. And he abandoned Radha, fresh like a kunda flower, whom he loved as his life, to a lonely fate. Was this Dharma?
The royal wrestling ground at Mathura. Men, women and children shouting, straining their eyes, gesticulating. He was pounding the bloody face of the tyrant, Kamsa, dragging his dead body along the ground, the people hailing him as a saviour. But he had killed his maternal uncle. Was it Dharma?
Big Brother and himself were running away from Mathura, finding safety in Gomantaka across the barren hills of Sahyadri. They were afraid of Jarasandha's destroying the Yadavas because of them. Was it cowardice? Was it Dharma?
At the foot of the Gomantaka hill Balarama was ready to smash Jarasandha's skull. He intervened and stopped Big Brother's mace in mid career, and thus saved the life of the emperor, the source of all adharma in Aryavarta - to the undoing of many righteous kings, the closing of numerous homes of learning and piety, and the ruination of thousands of families. Was that Dharma?
On the outskirts of Kundinapura. He lifted Princes Rukmini into his chariot, kidnapped her, inflicted wounds on her pursuing brother. The swayamvara became an occasion for the gnashing of teeth and wailing of women. The heart of the good-natured Bhishmaka was broken. Rukmi was driven into self-imposed exile. Was that Dharma?
Hastinapura. He threw his weight against Duryodhana struggling to right the wrong done to him. He came in the way of Karna, the unfortunate man, wronged by his mother at the moment of his birth and by men, who braved his misfortunes with noble fortitude, retrieving the gold of skill and status out of the dust by sheer ability and character. Was that Dharma?
The Palace of Kampilya. Drupada and his children opened their hearts to him. He accepted their confidence, but refused to take the risk of fighting the Kurus, planned a spectacular swayamvara which was likely to end in complete failure. Was that Dharma?
...
Again he saw men and women coming in endless processions, shouting, grimacing, praying, wailing, talking of Dharma, waiting to know what it was, himself unable to give a satisfying answer. He heard himself asking these men and women: "Do you know Dharma?"
"Yes", said one, "I know it." And he was a profit-mad skin-flint. He had the face of Satrajit, but a little twisted and much more sinister. "I buy Dharma," he said, "from the Brahmans, even from the gods. I feed my family. I worship at the shrines. For I alone know how to gather riches and to give them."
"Your Dharma is the child of greed. I know you not", Krishna heard himself saying, and let him pass by...
"I know Dharma," claimed another, marked with the emblems of sanctity, "I am pious. I have shrunk from the ways of sin, never murdered, never stolen, never cheated. My way is the only righteous way."
"Your Dharma is the child of fear. I know you not", said Krishna and let him pass by...
The third came, a dare-devil. "I know my Dharma," he said. "I have destroyed my enemies, for whoever opposes me is of the seed of sin. I perform sacrifices, give in charity and thereby proclaim my victory to the world. I feed the Brahmans and my praises are sung by them."
"Your Dharma is the child of vanity. I know you not," said Krishna and let him pass by...
Then there came before him one who was meek and resigned. "I know Dharma, no one else does," he said. "It is humility. Unresisting, I suffer wrongs cheerfully. I bear hunger, thirst, cold, even misfortune. That is the privilege of the meek in spirit. Theirs is the glory of Dharma."
"Your Dharma is the child of the slave mind which does not know the divinity within him. I know you not," said Krishna and let him pass by...
Then came another, sly like a fox, and said: "I know my Dharma. I stand away from risky action and the dens of lions, and walk the path of safety, which comes of peace and fearing the wrath of the gods."
"Your Dharma is the child of cowardice. I know you not," said Krishna and let him pass by...
Yet there came another, who said: "I know my Dharma. It is to peddle the favour of the gods to those who open their money bags to me. I offer the hope of salvation to those who have none. Drunk with it, they dance with joy."
"Your Dharma is the child of fraud. I know you not," said Krishna and let him pass by...
Still another came, who said with an air of superiority: "I know my Dharma. It is to escape the snares of life, to repress the longings of the flesh. I scorn human weakness in myself in others, and revel in stern detachment. I avoid contacts with men and live apart and superior to them."
"Your Dharma is the child of arrogance. I know you not," said Krishna and let him pass by...
And yet another came, satisfied with himself. "I know my Dharma," he said. "I lend money to the gods, by giving alms to the poor. I enter what I give in a ledger, which Chitragupta, the divine accountant, will open when I appear at my death before the throne of Dharma. I will then present my bill and collect my dues with compound interest and live in comfort thereafter."
Krishna said: "Your Dharma is the child of commerce. I know you not." and let him pass by...
And yet another came and his manner was unctuous, and he said: "I know my Dharma. I do not care what I do - I murder, steal, avenge. But I chant the glories of the Great God and turn my sin into a song. I know He will forgive me, however wicked I am. My god is merciful."
"Your Dharma is the child of deceit. I know you not," said Krishna and let him pass by...
And then came another with the mien of wisdom and the words of a saint. "My Dharma is not to resist evil. I shall suffer in silence and shall inherit the kingdom of heaven. Let the wicked see their foul destiny. They are no concern of mine. My martyrdom will win me glory."
"Your Dharma is the child of inaction. I know you not," said Krishna and let him pass by...
Then another came with his body fragrant like the lemon leaves, with smirking lips and well oiled hair. "All Dharma is illusion. I eat drink and enjoy myself as I like. My body is my only shrine. The pleasures of the flesh are my rituals of worship. Beyond them there is nothing; after me there is nothing."
"You are the child of a demon. I shall never forgive you," said Krishna, and in disgust he turned his back on him...
Suddenly the procession vanished.
Krishna awoke, his heart pounding wildly. Then he smiled to himself. His dream had told him how men looked upon Dharma. But he also had known Dharma.
He knew the Dharma of the rulers of men like Bhishma and Drupada. It was to defend their people, to feed the starving, to help the helpless, to foster learning, to uphold the ancient ways of godly living.
He also knew the Dharma of the family. It created the beautiful bond which Drupada had woven between himself and his children; it knit the Five Brothers together so that they lived for each other and for their mother; it made Rukmini and Shaibya parts of him; it led his Mother Devaki to see all in her child and her child in all.
He also knew the Dharma of the Master, who lived only to understand all who came to him with sympathy and who, by the love he bore them inspired them to be better than they were.
All this was Dharma, no doubt. But so also were the Dharmas of all others whom he had rejected. It gave each of them something noble to live by - ladders built out of weakness of the heart so that they might climb to a higher Dharma, always feeling better than before with each rung they climbed. Men were differently made, and each needed his own ladder. But for that, they would have been demons with smirking lips and a self-satisfied air, as that one in the procession was, whose body was his shrine, and whose only rituals of worship were the pleasures of the flesh.
Thunder-claps shook the halls of the mansion. Lightning rent the air. The sea-waves lashed angrily at the embankment.
Whilst the flashes illumined the room in which he lay, an inner light seemed to come to him as well. He saw clearly, distinctly - what he had been groping for so long. Life - sinful, wretched, noble, inspiring - was one and indivisible. In accepting the mission of fighting for its ennoblement, he had embraced, not a part of life, but the whole of it.
...
He dozed off, and in the twilight of a half-sleep, resumed the chain of his broken thoughts. Dharma is not merely a hope. Nor speculation. Nor rituals. Nothing which is inspired by anger, greed or fear... It is the will to shape oneself, men and situations, by rising above weaknesses.
No, that was not enough; Dharma for each one is, to weld the vision, the will and the deed - they are not three but one - so that he may strive, each in his own way, to live in All - Vaasudeva - so that All may live in him.
...
"I cannot see Dharma as the instrument of pride and hatred," said Krishna, with a far-off look. "I am trying to see it as life itself. It sweetens the cowherd's gruel and gives to the meanest beggar the dignity of a highborn king. But what does it mean?" Then he turned towards Draupadi and looked straight into her eyes. "Do you want to know what it is? It is the will of the Great God - not the God we see in the shrines, but the Great God Vaasudeva, That is in All and in Whom we all live."
...
"And what is adharma?" she asked almost mechanically.
"I cannot describe it. I feel it. It is to deny that Vaasudeva is in all of us," said Krishna.
- K. M. Munshi, Krishnavatara
