We now enter the era of adulthood for Lord Krishna, culminating in the epic battle of Kurukshetra, which is a war between two sets of Krishna’s cousins.

A variation of bow pose, dhanurasana

One set of cousins are the 5 Pandava brothers, the “good guys” in this story–the most famous of which is Arjuna, the great archer. It’s said that our bow pose in yoga is representative of Arjuna’s bow that he takes with him into the battle. Arjuna’s elder brother Yudishthira is a man of perfect dharma and righteousness, and he is the rightful king of Kurukshetra. So the 5 Pandava brothers, with Arjuna and Yudishthira included, represent the side of “good” in the war of Kurukshetra.

Statue of Krishna (standing) and Arjuna (the archer) in Bali

On the other side of the battle are the 100 Kaurava brothers, the leader of whom is Duryodhana, a man of great evil. Throughout their lives, the Kaurava brothers continually tried to usurp power from their cousins, the Pandavas, through cruelty and trickery. Even the story of their birth is straight out of a horror movie: their mother, Gandhari (who lived her life blind-folded in allegiance to her blind husband), had received a boon (a granted wish) from the sage Vyasa that she would give birth to 100 sons. But when she became pregnant with her first child, the pregnancy lasted two years. In a moment of frustration and grief, after two years of pregnancy, she pounded on her own belly, which induced contractions, and she “birthed” instead a huge grotesque hunk of flesh. She called on the sage Vyasa to explain why his boon had failed, and he told her to separate the flesh into 100 jars, add ghee, and wait another two years. The contents of the jars turned into black goo.

The birth of Duryodhana

After two years, the first of the jars broke open, and Duryhodana was born from it. It’s said that wolves howled and swarms of bats took to the sky and great storm clouds darkened the sun–all omens of a great evil being born into the world.

Gandhari and her 100 sons

It really can’t be overstated how cruel the Kauravas were to the 5 Pandava brothers throughout their lives. They tried everything from poisoning the Pandavas, to burning down their home, to stealing and publicly stripping their wife. By winning a wager through cheating and trickery, the Kauravas succeeded in exiling the Pandavas for 13 years, with the promise that rule of their kingdom would be restored to them upon their return.

The Pandavas are forced into exile in the forest

But the Kauravas were evil, so…

When the Pandavas returned, the Kauravas refused to give up the kingdom without a fight. The Pandavas could see the devastation and unhappiness their people had suffered from being under the reign of such evil during their exile. In fact, it was predestined that if the Kauravas were to win the war, the world would be cast into an age of unprecedented darkness.

So the Pandavas were left with no choice but to fight.

Each of the five Pandava brothers was the son of a different god, and as such, each one was blessed with great powers. Arjuna was the son of the god Indra, who was the god of lightning and king of the heavens, and so Arjuna was the greatest archer in the world, with his arrows flying like lightning through the air. The godly Pandava brothers were of the warrior caste (ksathriya), and had trained their whole lives in their particular skills, and they managed to build an army of dharmic men to help them fight this battle of good versus evil.

I mentioned that Krishna (who is the god Vishnu in avataric form) was also a cousin to both the Pandavas and Kauravas. Krishna, in this story, IS the concept of god–the universe, the divine, Source, everything. He knows that the Pandavas must win the battle, but being the cousin of both, he had to appear impartial. So he offered both the evil Duryodhana and the righteous Arjuna the same deal: you can choose between having either me, Krishna, on your side—or, my entire army.

Duryodhana, not recognizing Krishna as the power of god, gleefully chose the army, while Arjuna recognized that, with god on their side, they could never fail, and he chose Krishna. So Krishna became Arjuna’s charioteer, to drive him into battle.

Here begins the story of the Bhagavad Gita.

The Pandavas were good men, and for good men, war is never welcomed. So as the armies stood facing one another, about to charge into battle, Arjuna looked out over the sea of his evil cousins and felt disheartened.

He asked Krishna to drive him between the armies, so that he could take a closer look. The Bhagavad Gita tells the story of their ensuing conversation, in which Arjuna tells Krishna he doesn’t want to fight, and Krishna (god) explains to Arjuna the nature of life, death, and rebirth–what karma means, and what it means to do our duty, our dharma, while on earth.

Krishna drives Arjuna between the armies

It may seem surprising that a philosophy which emphasizes ahimsa, or non-harming, would have as one of its holy books a text encouraging a compassionate warrior to go to battle. Many modern commentators have speculated that the war is a metaphor for our internal battles, and the importance of standing up to all the challenges we regularly face. In the modern day, we can definitely use this story to symbolize our own struggles, but the Kurukshetra war was a very real war. And while, despite many years of continual study and reflection on this text, I would never claim to be an expert in its message, one lesson that I always take away from the Gita is the ability to zoom out and see the bigger cosmic picture.

Krishna reveals his true image (as god/the universe/everything) to Arjuna

The Gita is the text in which we learn the details of reincarnation, and what it means for us to learn our life lessons and follow our life path in each cycle. Each life in which we “do our best” brings us closer to unification with the divine, to transcend this samsaric wheel. For Arjuna, his whole life’s purpose revolved around the battle–it was what he had unwittingly trained for his whole life, it was why his father was Indra, it was why he had been forced to endure all the traumas the Kauravas dished out–and the world’s fate was in his hands. So although the prospect of fighting was terrible, it was his dharma as a warrior, and the bigger picture was all “for the best.”

In fact, in India, the lessons of the Gita are often summed up by the Gita Saar (the “essence of the Gita”), saying that:

“Whatever has happened has happened for good. Whatever is happening, is happening for good. And whatever will happen, will be for good also.”

Though it can be really  hard to see this when we’re in the midst of challenges, I always see it so clearly in retrospect. It reminds me a lot of the quote often (mis?)-attributed to John Lennon, “It will all be okay in the end, and if it’s not yet okay, then it’s not yet the end.”

It’s a reminder to keep moving forward, to keep our heads up, to have faith that the universe has got our backs.

Rising into Bow Pose (Dhanurasana)

There’s obviously a lifetime’s worth of study that can be done on the Bhagavad Gita, but for our purposes, I want to bring it back to bow pose, or dhanurasana. Dhanus means “bow,” with dhanudhara meaning “archer” in Sanskrit, so “bow pose” is a pretty direct translation of dhanurasana. I find this pose to be one of our more difficult back-bends, as it’s one of those in which we’re fighting against gravity in order to rise up, and balancing somewhat awkwardly on the belly.

In this pose, it helps me to remember Arjuna, hanging in the balance between dharma and desire, directed by Krishna to rise up and fight. We take a deep breath and rise up in this pose, just as Arjuna lifted his bow-and-arrow to begin (and ultimately win) his own battle.

Energetically, back-bends, which seek to open the chest and expand the space that the lungs have to fill, are traditionally done with the inhale, and therefore stimulate our bodies’ sympathetic nervous system (the fight or flight response). When we first wake up in the morning, we tend to naturally take a backbend to energize ourselves and wake ourselves up (think of stretching your arms overhead in bed)–this is the energetic power of our back-bends when done with an inhale, to make ourselves feel more alert and alive.

We can do this purposefully through yoga poses like bow pose, whenever we’re feeling down, disheartened, or discouraged, like Arjuna. Rising into bow prepares you to face whatever battles lie before you.