Especially for SME – 62: Examples of Selecting when – Mahabharat – contd.
19 October 2022
SME 2: Lovely method by Krishna!
Mr. Lowe: Krishna had chosen just 4 people from the 11 division strong Kaurava army who have to be taken care of specially if Pandavas have to win the war. Krishna did not stop with just choosing the vital few but he had a plan for each of them, as to how to eliminate them. This plan He did not work out during the war only, He had worked them out far earlier. Krishna had a preventive or pro-active approach for eliminating these vital few and not a postmortem approach.
Prevention is better than cure. An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. But how many of us think there is no need to act pro-actively, why do we act imagining something, let us wait until the problem really occurs. In this postmortem approach two things happen: You may not succeed in solving the problem, and even if you do succeed, the effort or resources required is many times more than that required for prevention. This is true of every aspect of life.
Let us see how Krishna employed pro-activation or prevention (which is an aspect of choosing “when” only) for these 4 chosen people. Bhishma, the greatest warrior of all was the commander-in-chief of the Kaurava forces for the first 10 days of the 18-day war. Pandavas realized it was not possible for them to win over Bhishma and were stuck as to what to do. Krishna gave them an idea: He suggested that both yudhishter the Pandava king and Arjun should go to Bhishma’s kutir (tent) during the night and pray for a strange request from him. They should request him to take back the boon that Bhishma had given them when they had gone to take the blessings of their fond grandfather, just before the war started. At that time Bhishma had blessed them with “vijayee bhava” meaning “be victorious”. Obviously Bhishma would ask why they wanted to return the boon and they would say what they felt- that Bhishma was unbeatable. Krishna knew Bhishma’s bottleneck. Bhishma would not take back the blessing or the boon he had given. The plan exactly worked. Bhishma said: “How can I take back the blessing that I had given you? I would tell you the way to eliminate me!”. He then asked Arjun to have Shikhandi, a eunuch king by his side in his chariot during the next day’s fight.
Arjun obeyed and had Shikhandi by his side. Bhishma would not shoot a single arrow at Arjun since Bhishma saw the woman in the eunuch Shikhandi and a true warrior would never shoot an arrow at a lady. Bhishma fell and in reverence to his dear grandfather Arjun erected a bed of arrows for the wounded Bhishma to rest until he chooses his moment of death. He had this rare gift of choosing his own time of death. Krishna knew the bottleneck of Bhishma and made use of it proactively instead of continuing to face the unbeatable warrior in the war.
SME 3: How did He eliminate the great Drona?
Mr. Lowe: When you touch the bottleneck of a person, the person gets motivated disproportionately and fast, (no management technique on motivation comes anywhere close to this touching the bottleneck) reacts instantly, emotionally and not logically. Krishna made Yudhishter to tell a lie that Aswathama, Drona’s only son, his bottleneck, died in the war even though he was not dead at all. That is Yudhishter told a lie!
SME 2: Oh! But that is not fair! ……………….Contd.