“Kill the Aggressor”? Krishna & Rama Point Inward—Destroy the Inner Enemies

Question

Sister, a strange situation comes up in society. We start by saying, “The Gita teaches us to act,” and that sounds good—action, duty. But there’s another loud section that says: “Look, Krishna raised weapons to kill the evildoers; he told Arjuna to slay them.” Then people say the same about Rama: “Our Lord Rama prioritized action—he took up arms and killed demons.”
So we begin with inner, sattvic action—but we end up turning it into physical war: “Mahabharata was a war, Krishna had multitudes killed; Rama killed countless enemies. Therefore we also have the full right to kill ‘these Muslims, Rohingyas, so-and-so… they’re irreligious, kill them.’ Our Gita and Ramayana say this, so our actions are justified.”
What would you say to this?

Answer

This happens because we treat our scriptures as mere history. When Krishna tells Arjuna, “Slay the ātatāyins (aggressors),” we imagine outward enemies. But our culture is not a culture of killing. Whether it’s the Ramayana or the Gita, the “aggressors” are not outside—they are inside us: lust, anger, greed, attachment, pride, jealousy, rancor, hatred, fault-finding, slander, ego. These are the inner assailants disturbing us. It is these we are told to destroy—not some outer Rāvaṇa or Kaṁsa.

Our difficulty is that we insist on material, literal readings and resist the inner reading. Our beliefs have made a comfort zone; we don’t want to step out. The day we’re willing to enter the (initially) uncomfortable zone of knowledge, we’ll see clearly: we are not to kill anyone outside. This universe is created by the Divine—saint and sinner alike. Did we create the wicked or the virtuous? Did we create auspiciousness or inauspiciousness? Since creation is the Lord’s, who gives us the right to declare, “Kill this one, kill that one”?

What we must kill are the inner aggressors. And when we do, something has to be experienced: for example, suppose there are two people in my house who behave badly and the whole home suffers. One option is to throw them out. Another, if I’m established in knowledge, is to ask why they are like this. They haven’t chosen to be bad in some simple way; it’s the journey of many births. The three guṇas—sattva, rajas, tamas—have played out; tamas became dominant, so today their behavior is harsh.

From that seeing, compassion arises, not anger: “How can I help them? How can I show them that this path will deepen their negative samskāras?” As the saying goes, habits die hard—samskāras don’t vanish easily. Wanting to kill the outer “aggressor” comes from our own inner cruelty. If the mind is pure and established in knowledge, cruelty cannot arise. Even toward the wrongdoer, there is compassion: “Poor soul—how might I help free them from this?” The idea to kill never appears.