Bhakti
By Miho Kataoka2007©
One of the classical sanskrit epic of
One day, a boy called Ekalavya asked Drona to teach him archery but Drona rejected him. After that Ekalavya hermited in the forest and made Drona`s statue and worshipped it. He practiced archery alone and became a greater archer than Arjuna. Arjuna jearous at him and make remind to Drona his promise. Drona said to Ekalavya. " if you say that you are my deciple, give me your thumb." Then Ekalavya cut his finger without hesitation and gave to his guru, Drona. Ekalavya can not do archery like before. In such a crucial way, Drona carried out his promise to Arjuna.
What is this story telling?
Drona carried out his loyalty to his deciple despite his cruelty to Ekalavya. At the same time, he might admonish to Ekalavya something important by letting him to give up himself.
Ekalavya has given himself for training of archery and achieved to summit. Then he was told to give it up. Here, it is represented the Bhakti, a devotional act to reach to divine by casting your ego.
Bhagavad Gita(BC3-2 compiled) is a part of Mahabharata(chapter 6). It has a value as a highest sacred book for Hindu.
Arjuna has lost his fighting spirit when the war started between Kaurava clan and Pandava because of the same family. When Arjuna has puzzled what to do, Krishna inspired him and taught him to execute of his duty (SVADHARMA) as a ksatriya( caste of warriors and kings) which is to fight. Arjuna was afraid of his penalty to pay later by this fighting between the same clan. Then Krishna taught him that act itself should be the aim but not expect those results, that is, yoga of act. Human never stop acting, that`s why, it is required to do his own duty. This is the way to nirvana (isolation from all trouble). And taught that Atman (soul) never be vanished even your body died.
The Hindu divides the human life into 4 terms. At a boyhood, obliged to study Veda(The Hindu sacred book), at a youth, marry and have children and perform rituals as a householder and when you have a grandchildren, leave the house and live in the forest for meditation and ascetic. Then the last stage is a truth seeker by pilgrimage (Samnyasa).
The human is a creature becoming bolder and bolder with age and wear more and more, bear more burdens, but never satisfied. As long as we have a conscious of self, we never escape from suffer. If so, we would be able to be free from these suffering by transcending the self consciousness. If this is the way of Bhakti, the way of self-renunciation, Bharatanatyam is one of the means toward spiritual freedom.
