Bhgawad Gita starts off with Dhritarashtra asking Sanjay about the lay of the battlefield. How he constructs his question is very instructive.

धर्मक्षेत्रे कुरुक्षेत्रे समवेता युयुत्सवः।

मामकाः पाण्डवाश्चैव किमकुर्वत संजय॥१-१॥

(हे संजय, धर्मक्षेत्र में युद्ध की इच्छा से इकट्ठे हुये मेरे और पाण्डव के पुत्रों ने क्या किया। Sanjay, gathered in Dharma-kshetra Kurukshetra (place of Dharma, Kurukshetra), what are my and Pandava’s sons doing?)

What is most remarkable is that every action is characterized in Hinduism as “Dharma”. Even war. Kurukshetra was not just a battle-field but a place where Dharma was being given shape to.

Dharma does not equate to “Religious duty” nor does it have any relationship to Morality or ethics. All of which are man-made pegs to hold our egos on. Dharma, actually means the cosmic flow or law.

Nature and this creation has a natural flow. Every creature works as per their tendencies. The color of the tendencies (Varna) is what propels a person in a certain direction. The action (karma) of a person is decided by the interaction of one’s Varna with another’s Varna in the giant cosmic flow of Dharma and that is what moves the world.

As long as you are influenced and affected by your tendencies and perform specific actions as per your past conditioning as opposed to your Free will, you are fighting against the Dharma or the cosmic flow – and therefore “Adharmic”.

In that situation, even mind – sans any physical violence – becomes a giant battlefield. This is what J. Krishnamurti often called “Conflict from conditioning”.

In this shloka – the first one, Dhritarashtra (Dhrit means will or resolve and rashtra loosely means nation – his name meant one who would set the direction and will of the nation) in one sentence lays down the main reason for War. Any war.

“Mine” vs “Yours”.

Although he was the patriarch and a father figure to both, his and his brother’s sons, and thus should have been similar in love for them, he betrays his bias here by segregating them as मामकाः and पाण्डवः

This one separation was the cause of the war.

This separation between Me and You is the cause of all wars.

Land, Religion, God, Wealth, etc are all objects in the framework which distinguishes. The Duality that manifest as Me and Mine, ultimately leads to Me and You.

The first shloka clearly showcases the unconscious and “learned” understanding of Dhritrashtra that Kurukshetra was now a “Dharma-kshetra” and his prejudiced love for his “own” sons.

When we are embroiled in any battle, it is important that we approach it as a “Dharma-kshetra”, for that is exactly what it really is. But you cannot term something as a Dharma-kshetra, if all you have is prejudice, fanaticism, and ignorance as your weapons and shields.

If we are to enter a Dharma-kshetra, we need to equip ourselves with knowledge and understanding of things the way they are.

For example, if we have to know Akbar, let us know him directly via his own writings and see whether he was worthy of being called Great or not? So, instead of reading Romila Thapar’s fictional stories and Ram Guha’s mischievously spun histories - read Fatehnama-i-Chitor for yourself and see what is said there.

{link to the Fatehnama-i-Chittor English translation - [Proceedings of the Indian History Congress Vol. 33 (1971), pp. 350-361 (12 pages)]}

What does Akbar look like now?

From now on, promise to yourself that “opinions” and rhetorics won’t work for you. Only facts will.

When we say facts, it won’t be any stuff masquerading as “facts” in fancy books written by anointed priests and priestesses of the literary churches installed by the crafty and the powerful.

Facts will need to be seeked by our own efforts.

We will need to dig them out ourselves.

The layers of untruth and falsehoods are many. They need to be ripped apart.

Just like the spiritual seeking pushes away the layers of Untruth and reaches the Truth.

It doesn’t matter who says something - whether the messenger of god, son of god or god himself.

Belief in words should not and will not matter for us, as they never have. Only experience does.

Even in Gita, Krishna instructs Arjun to pick up arms in the very first chapter. However, Sanjaya shares with Dhritarashtra in the second chapter that Arjun has put the arms down and refused to fight point blank. In the 4th chapter, finally Arjun asks Krishna - “How do I know, what you are saying is the Truth?”

In exactly these words. How do I know what you are saying is the Truth? Has any other society posed that question to any messenger or son of god?

Not once.. not even ONCE, in the entire Bhagwad Gita conversation does Arjun ever say “I believe you.”

Not once!

Only after the experience of the Universal consciousness (Virat Roop) of Krishna, Arjun finally says “Now, I know and understand that what you said was the Truth.”

He knew. He understood. Through experience. Not spoken word. And, Krishna never insisted on belief either.

Truth needs no belief. It needs no edicts or commandments. There are no tests of loyalty.

Just like Newton’s laws need no belief. Test them and know for yourself.

Seek the Truth of this existence and know for yourself.

We are a culture that did not even believe god when he spoke. We have to experience it for ourselves.

So, how did we become so lazy and gullible that we have let others define us?

That needs changing. And it will happen from one thing - Reject Belief. No matter where it comes from. Embrace only Seeking and Experience.

Yesterday, we learned how the British plundered India in our newsletter, enslaved, tortured, maimed, killed, and starved the people. In many cases, even worse than the Nazis did the to the Jews. Yet, the British historians would suggest that “at least the British have India the railways”.

The egregious attempt at Whitesplaining the Indians after committing unimaginable crimes against humanity at a scale rarely ever seen, is how the British and their sepoy historians after independence white-washed everything.

Now, we have someone like William Dalrymple telling us Indians on what our history is and also influencing the narrative in this country via his connections in Britain.

How does he have connections? Well, his family has been connected with the British establishment for many centuries. Check out the family tree (Source).

(* William Dalrymple’s incurable colonial hangover, IndiaFacts)

As is quite obvious, his political connections in Britain are very deep and long. He has obviously used those connections to get cozy to the establishments here since long.

Now, about William Dalrymple. The guy should be known for what he is. Here are some facts:

It is obvious that he is a compulsive Christian apologist, who thinks Bible is a historical account, has a privileged family and entitled life, and bullies others when they question his rigor on history by brandishing his British college pedigree that he may have gotten access to thanks to his family profile (Source). He has been accused of being a sexual offender by some women and has used his privilege to use the British state machinery against a woman with whom he was cheating.

That guy, who has a lot of British colonial crimes to whitewash, writes Indian history for Indians.

That’s colonialism redux.

When you think Pakistan is done radicalizing. It gets worse. Now, Imran Khan has made it mandatory to teach Islam in regular schools just like it is done in the madrasas. In other words - Pakistan’s schools are now being turned into madrasas. By law!

No dissent to Gandhis in INC: The Congress leadership on Monday squashed the first whiff of dissent against the Gandhi family post the 2019 Lok Sabha loss, with the Congress Working Committee (CWC) rallying around Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi to reject the demand for change put forward by a group of 23. The CWC, in one voice, castigated the dissenters who wrote the letter complaining about organisational decline by questioning their motives and, in turn, demanded that Rahul succeed Sonia as party chief. Rather than giving any consideration to the group of 23’s call for a full-time and effective leadership the CWC said it was the Sonia-Rahul duo that had, in fact, held the BJP government to account for its various misdeeds. (Source)

Waterway on Gomti: The trial run in the Sonamura-Daudkandi inland waterways protocol route is scheduled for the first week of September, chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb informed on Monday. The Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority has given permission for the trial run of the voyage from Daundkandi (Cumilla) to Sonamura via river Gomti. The river was chosen for having sufficient water for movement of boats and small ships. (Source)

Iranian Nuke plant sabotaged: Iran on Monday confirmed that a mysterious explosion last month at one of its nuclear facilities was an “act of sabotage,” but provided few other details about who was behind the attack. (Source)

Facial Recognition for animals: Now facial recognition for animals is being attempted in China. Having mastered facial recognition for humans to an alarmingly precise degree, even picking out wanted criminals from huge crowds, Chinese tech whizzes are turning their attention to furrier faces. (Source)

The British atrocities in their colonial rules have never been brought out properly. For all the crimes they committed on the people, they turned them into a virtue! This is the story of how they created concentration camps in Kenya and they used the Kenyans for their wars. When the people started revolting they put them in concentration camps and killed them in huge numbers. But no one even talks about these concentration camps.