“The truth is that a crisis and its remedy are born together, both for the person and for all creation.”
On the strength of dreams and forebodings we imagine the joys and sorrows of the future, and to remove the cause of some future sorrow we lay our plans today. But whether uprooting a coming crisis today brings us benefit or harm — this we never stop to ask. The truth is that a crisis and its remedy are born together, both for the person and for all creation.
Chapter 3 of 35 — 4 parts, 6 min in total.
Every faction in the Mahabharata plans meticulously. Shakuni plans for decades. Duryodhana plans the house of lac. The Pandavas plan their exile, their return, their alliances. Almost none of it survives contact with events.
Krishna's position is not fatalism. He plans constantly himself — the embassy to Hastinapur, the strategy at Kurukshetra. The distinction he draws is between acting with full care and then holding the result loosely, versus needing the plan to succeed in order to be at peace.