The Mahabharata presents fantastic tales, yet drives reflection through characters’ poetic realizations. Arjuna’s mastery of archery is one of these instances:
Now he had understood
what it means to aim, but without straining.
He had a glimpse of how one may become
a channel for the world’s natural forces
to play themselves out. How, without striving,
without attachment to the end result,
abandoning desire and memory,
an arrow can be loosed, and find its home.
An arrow in motion follows natural forces as water navigates a stream. This notion is similarly reflected in The Dao De Jing as the concept of wu-wei, effortless action, illustrated by the following quote from chapter 2:
[The Master] has without possessing,
and acts without any expectations.
When her work is done, she takes no credit.
That is why it will last forever.
“Desire” points to the future, and “memory”, the past. With past and future eliminated, to take aim without straining can only happen in a singular, swiftly-passing present moment. Only an arrow loosed within this pocket of time can so effortlessly “find its home”. This arrow, free from “striving” and “attachment”, is free of worldly illusions—it cuts through them, as does the Vajra, weapon of Indra, Arjuna’s father.
And thus, free from illusion, all action arising from non-attachment, no desire and no memory, aligns with dharma. However, judging from Arjuna’s pride, it seems that part of his journey in the epic is to bring his mind and actions into harmony.
(Written after reading “Part I: The Book of the Beginning”)