DHARMA According to Mahabharata

There is a story in the Mahabharata

Paramahamsa Satyananda

During the last phase of the war, Arjuna and his unknown step-brother, Karna, who was born to Arjuna's mother, Kunti, before her marriage, were fighting on the battlefield, each one for a different army. Suddenly, Karna's chariot would not move because something was wrong with the wheels.

So, when he got down to repair it, Arjuna stopped shooting. That is the dharma; when a man has no weapons, no defences, one should not kill him. At that moment, however,
Krishna asked Arjuna, "What are you doing?"
Arjuna replied, "He has no weapon, so I cannot kill him now."
Krishna said, "What do you mean? Now is the time. Finish him." Arjuna had to obey.

Karna said, "This is not dharma. You know I have no weapon."

Then Krishna laughed and said, "Yes, now you remember dharma, when the calamity falls on your head, but when the queen was being stripped naked in a public place, at that time did you remember the dharma?
When all of you conspired to burn the five brothers in the wax house, did you remember the dharma? And now when the calamity falls on your head, you remember the dharma!" 

Karna did not know what to do. He could not repair his chariot. He got up, fought and was killed. 

Krishna said, "Practise dharma with those who practise dharma. There is no use in practising virtue with a person who does not want to practise it."

So, these are the functions of the lower mind and the higher mind.
One should know when to use the forces of the higher mind and when to use the forces of the lower mind.
When the higher mind does not know how to function, it is always taken over by the lower mind.

If the higher mind wants to exist in its own higher spheres and does not want to become subservient to the lower mind, it has to act in a certain manner.
How it has to act is a very difficult thing to understand and many people do not know this.
They are always carried away by their emotions, and the higher mind loses ground when it is under the sway of those dominant emotions.

So, with a saint you should behave like a saint; with your mother you must behave like a daughter or son; with your wife or husband you must behave like a husband or wife. When a man is coming to your house with a definite purpose to do you some harm, then you must behave with him accordingly, and protect yourself. This is the dharma.

But if a man comes to your house intending to do you some wrong, and you do not stop him, if he gives you a slap on the right cheek and you show him your left cheek also, that is not dharma.
That has never been done.

~ Sri Paramahamsa Swami Satyananda Saraswati