Hari Aum.
I was reflecting recently upon the great epic of ancient India, the well-known Mahabharata. This lengthy book contains many stories woven into a fascinating tapestry that reflects much of life. It is a story of human nature in all its greatness and glory, as well as its baseness and wickedness. It is a tale of joy and sorrow, of nobility and vulgarity, of the greatest sacrifices and the greatest selfishness. It is believed to have been composed by the self-realised sage and avatar of Narayana, known as Vyasa. It contains the great teaching of Lord Krishna known as the Bhagavad Gita.
There is a well-known saying in Sanskrit at the start of the Mahabharata that goes as follows:
Yadihasti tad anyatra
yannehasti na tat kvachit"
This means:
"What exists here, exists everywhere.
What does not exist here, exists nowhere".
In other words, the Mahabharata is declared to encapsulate all aspects of human life and human experience. Many of us grow up hearing stories from this epic but we often realise the significance of these only when we become adults and have seen something of the world.
The Mahabharata contains many inter-related stories. But there is a central key portion-- the story of one family. This family is a royal family, known as the Kurus. The story opens with a tragedy. A noble king dies, leaving behind two wives and five children. The second wife then gives up her life leaving behind one mother with five children.
The mother and her children are taken into the care of her brother-in-law (who is the brother of the deceased king). Now in a healthy family, this lady and her children, who were small and vulnerable, would have been taken well care of and all would be well.
But sadly, this was not to be. Why? Well, due to the dark side of human nature of course, the source of all trouble. The brother-in-law happened to be a jealous man. He had disliked his brother while his brother was alive. Now that his brother was dead and out of the way, this man gained power and position, and ascended the royal throne.
Now, all human beings have a mixture of good and bad-- that is what makes us human after all. None of us is perfect. However, self-awareness is the key. Cultivating self-awareness of our own nature, developing a willingness and an ability to look within at the workings of our minds, is what differentiates people.
Those who attempt to be self-aware, will strive to conquer their lower nature, and develop the good side of their nature. This produces good results in accordance with the law of karma.
In contrast, those who choose to avoid being self-aware, who refuse to look at themselves honestly, find that their lower nature gains the upper hand over time, while their good qualities are gradually eroded. This produces unfortunate results.
As I mentioned in my previous post, 'Dharma protects one who protects Dharma'. The Mahabharata is all about dharma-- about those who choose to follow it and those who choose to disregard it.
Coming back to the story of the family, what happens in a nutshell, is that the jealous brother-in-law pampers and spoils his own blood children, while he is unkind and unfair to the children of his dead brother.
The pampered children of the brother-in-law grow up into wilful and stubborn individuals, with little self-awareness. They cultivate unhealthy emotions such as pride, jealousy and anger and express these without restraint. They revel in pleasure and power and dislike anything to do with self-control and self-development. They pursue wealth and power as they regard these to be the most important things in life. They dislike others who they feel have more than they do, and constantly try to compete with them, and take away what does not belong to them. What do you think will be the result? Not good, according to the law of karma.
In the meantime, the children of the dead brother grow up in difficult circumstances (they are treated unfairly by their uncle and cousins; their cousins even try to kill them). The oldest among them happens to be the heir to the throne of his father; so he is especially disliked by his uncle and his uncle's children, his cousins.
What he lacks in wealth, he more than makes up for in virtue. This boy has self-awareness in plenty and uses it well to cultivate virtue. He understands the law of dharma and the law of karma. He knows that joy follows virtue, and suffering follows vice. Knowing this, he adheres to the path of dharma at all costs. His brothers too, under his firm yet kind guidance, follow the path of dharma.
The children of the two brothers grow up into adults. Now, the dead brother's oldest son, having cultivated noble qualities such as self-awareness, humility, kindness and endurance, is the best candidate to become the next king. The people love the young man with a kind heart and good character-- they want him to be their king.
However, the jealous uncle will have none of it. He decides to act in his own selfish interests, not in the interests of his people. He crowns his own oldest son as king. Now the oldest son of the jealous uncle is a true chip off the old block as they say. His father's qualities are reflected and magnified in him. He is ten times, may be a hundred times, more proud, selfish and vicious than his father, and lacking in self-awareness or any sense.
This ignoble son commits crime after crime, while his father turns a blind eye. (The father is actually blind in the story; this is meant to symbolise his spiritual blindness which was even more severe than his physical impairment).
Some dramatic events unfold, and finally the jealous uncle is forced to give a portion of his kingdom to his nephews to rule. He gives them an unattractive and uninhabitable part of the kingdom to rule; but to his dismay, they transform this into a charming little kingdom and live there happily.
The ignoble son, despite ruling over the best part of his father's kingdom, is filled with jealousy at seeing his cousins living happily. He decides to destroy their happiness and take away what belongs to them.
Filled with the lowest of human emotions, he performs ignoble acts, completely disregarding dharma. Not satisfied with all this, he finally declares a war against his cousins, determined to destroy them and take everything.
Now, there is a saying that 'man proposes and God disposes'. Human beings have desires, but we are not allowed to get away with everything that we please, specifically desires motivated by selfishness, greed and other negative qualities.
The law of dharma and karma very much applies to each one of us, whether we like it or not, whether we believe in it or not (much like the law of gravity does--jumping off a cliff while denying the existence of gravity will not save us from the consequences!).
So, after all this drama has occurred, God Himself intervenes on behalf of the noble cousins. Why? Because Dharmo rakshatih rakshitah (as I discussed in my previous post). The noble cousins did not swerve from the path of dharma even in the most testing of circumstances (We may not be quite like them, but they can certainly be our inspiration). So God, the embodiment of Dharma, Himself protected them.
And, as for the ignoble cousins, the law of karma began to bear its terrible fruit. Wicked, selfish actions produce terrible results in the end. There is nothing to gain ultimately by behaving in this manner. If one commits sins, whether by mistake or deliberately, sincere regret and taking steps to amend the situation is the only way. And there is no better start on this journey than the worship of God, especially by reciting His names and mantras-- as this practice is said to destroy countless sins and their associated negative karmas.
Sadly for the ignoble cousins, they had neither regret, nor repentance, nor any desire to make amends for their awful actions. They neither truly believed in dharma or God, and certainly did not believe in reciting His names. Thus they had landed themselves in a very deep hole and refused to look for a way out.
The consequences of their actions then came upon them. And what a terrible consequence it was. The war that they started went dreadfully wrong. People who were supposed to be invincible, died. People who were supposed to die, did not. They found that nothing went in their favour. Ultimately, their own negative karma destroyed them. They lost their lives in the battle that they themselves started against the advice of their friends and wellwishers.
After the ignoble cousins perished as a result of their own actions, the noble cousins were made by God to rule the kingdom, which they did justly and well. In the end, upon leaving the Earth, they ascended to heaven. I need not tell you the destination of the ignoble cousins in the afterlife--let's just say it was not a happy place.
I have deliberately told the story in brief using the ordinary language of families so far (father, mother, cousins etc), and avoided using the Sanskrit names of the people involved-- this was to allow us to relate better to them. (At the end of this blog entry, I have mentioned some of the names of the key players, please see below.)
I was not attempting to tell you the story of the entire Mahabharata (it is very very long!). My point was to highlight the main message-- the battle between dharma and the opposite, adharma, and to highlight that dharma always prevails in accordance with the will of God.
Small-minded people with vicious natures abound on this planet now as they did in the past, but despite what they think, the world is not their oyster. They will face the results of their own karmas. And the only solution to improve their situation is to take to the name of God. Why? Because the name of God will give them what they need, i.e. self-awareness, the ability to be honest with themselves and others, and various virtues.
The name of God transforms all that is ignoble into all that is noble, that is the emphatic declaration of the sages and the experience of many spiritual seekers. Many who walk the spiritual path feel they are making slow but steady progress on the path of dharma due to the grace of God, and specifically because of the recitation of the holy names and mantras of God.
The six main vices-- desire, anger, greed, jealousy, pride and delusion-- that the majority of us are swayed by, are checked and eradicated by the recitation of the name of God.
Towards the end of the Mahabharata, there is a section where the power of names of God is praised greatly. This takes the form of the famous prayer known as the Vishnu Sahasranama (the 1000 names of Vishnu or Narayana). The prayer concludes with the declaration that one who sincerely worships God and recites His names, will attain joy in life and ultimately become free of all suffering. Nobody can escape disease, old age and death-- this is a part of human life-- but the experience becomes more bearable by reciting the names of God and acquiring His grace.
As the great saint Chaitanya said, "Harer nameva nameva nameva mama jivanam. Kalau nasthyeva nasthyeva nasthyeva gathir anyatha". This means: the Name (repeated thrice for emphasis) of God is my life; in Kali yuga (the present age of quarrels), there is no other refuge (again repeated thrice for emphasis).
So, let us repeat the names of God and adhere to Dharma as best as we can. His names will guide and protect us, we can be sure of this.
Om Namo Narayanaya.
Hari Aum Tat Sat
P.S.
In the Mahabharata, the name of the noble king who died is Pandu. His jealous brother is Dritharashtra.
The oldest son of Pandu, the noble young man, the embodiment of dharma, is called Yudhishthira.
His counterpart, the oldest ignoble cousin, son of Dritharashtra, the embodiment of vice, is called Duryodhana.
The noble cousins, the sons of Pandu, were collectively called the Pandavas.
The ignoble cousins, the sons of Dritharashtra, were collectively called the Kauravas.
The name of God in this story is Krishna. The Bhagavad Gita teaching is given by Krishna to Arjuna (the great archer, and younger brother of Yudhishthira), just before the war begins.
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