“I am indeed a king, because I know how to rule myself”
– Pietro Aretino (Italian author and poet of the sixteenth century)
23rd June’ 1757
Onlookers in the rustic Palashi, a village in Bengal, thought, “this is no battle; what can a mere 3,500 men of the British army do against our Nawab with an imposing army of over 60,000!”
Yet Robert Clive marched confidently with his relatively negligible army. The historic Battle of Plassey was about to begin.
“It surely is a non-starter” thought the unintelligent.
As expected, the war got over in a few hours. But the result was reverse of what a commoner expected. For one man in Clive’s army, there were seventeen soldiers in the opposing camp of Nawab Siaj ud Daulah. Besides, the Nawab had better cannons, yet he lost the battle. Shocked and bewildered, he escaped for his life. But he was soon arrested, and killed by Clive’s men.
What went wrong?
The Nawab’s commander-in-chief Mir Jafar was bribed by Robert Clive; he was the enemy in disguise. Mir Jafar, along with the Nawab’s 50,000 infantry, betrayed their master. The British East India Company took over Bengal, and soon the whole of India would be under its subjugation.
A good army is not only well equipped with the latest weapons and strong men, it also employs intelligent spies to weaken the enemy from within. A known enemy is relatively easy to confront but the attack is more lethal when it’s from within; when the enemy is undetected, he can cause greater havoc.
Inner compass v/s the force of illusion (Maya)
As we attempt to scale the success ladder, we declare an open war against the dark forces, also known as illusion or Mito in the Mexican Toltec tradition orMaya in the Indian culture.
Maya is the energy that pulls us away from the ‘true north’ principles. Your internal compass directs you to your own unique values; these beliefs represent who you are at the deepest level. Yet we stray from our true north because of Maya.To be continued…
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