The knight in shining armor is a staple theme in fiction.
Usually appearing as the savior of a damsel in distress, the knight fights to
overpower the villain and rescue the damsel. Some fiction narratives expand the
theme beyond romance to protection of the world. When humanity faces an
imminent catastrophe, Superman saves the world and gets the girl. This theme is
so universal that even feminist fiction thrives on it, merely replacing the
knight with a knightess.
The enduring appeal of this theme stems from the deepest
recesses of the human heart – to its longing for undying love and the undying
soul that is the seat of this longing. As souls, we are meant to delight in
spiritual love for the supreme hero Krishna. He is supremely strong, supremely
intelligent and supremely loving – he is the ultimate knight in shining armor.
The enduring appeal of this theme of the knight in shining
armor stems from the deepest recesses of the human heart
Gita wisdom expands our understanding of distress beyond the
misfortunes that occasionally threaten us. The foundation of all our distresses
is the distressful incompatibility at the heart of our present existence – we
are indestructible souls trapped in destructible bodies. Irrespective of our
physical gender, we are all akin to damsels in distress needing to be rescued
from material existence.
The ultimate hero strives therefore not just to set things
right in a place where they will inevitably go wrong again, but to set us right
on the path to go beyond this world. The Bhagavad-gita (04.08) delineates this
purpose of the divine descent – to establish dharma by empowering the
proponents of dharma and disempowering its opponents. The next verse (04.09)
stresses the ultimate purpose of the descent – to perform spellbinding pastimes
involving stupendous feats that attract our hearts to him. Such redirection of
love catapults us to an eternal ecstatic reunion with him in his indestructible
abode.
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