Why didn’t the Pandavas think that the Kauravas were simply instruments of their own past karma?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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Hare Krishna. If someone cheats us, then we are told that maybe it is because of our own past karma and that we should just tolerate it. We should not blame the other person.
But when the Kauravas cheat the Pandavas, then the Pandavas fight against the Kauravas and punish them. So why don’t the Pandavas think that maybe it is their own past bad karma because of which they were cheated like this. Maybe they had cheated the Kauravas in a much bigger way in their past life and that is why they are getting the reaction now.
But instead of thinking like that, the Pandavas actually are not blamed. Kauravas are blamed. So is this expression of karma biased for the Pandavas, towards the Pandavas and against us? Answer.
There is the word karma which means action and the word karma also means reaction. So karma as reaction means the karmic reaction, the thing that happened to us. Now, the whole Mahabharata’s focus is not on who has done what karma is in the past.
The focus is in what is our dharma now. Like what is our dharma now means what is the right course of action to follow now. Now, if we all start ascribing everything to past karma, then where will be the question of dharma? Where will be the question of responsibility? If a thief robs a person, citizen and the citizen goes to the king and complains and the king tells the citizen that, oh you are robbed by your past karma.
Then where is the king doing the duty? So the king should not be thinking what is the past karma of the person. The king should be thinking what is my dharma. The king’s dharma is to protect the citizens and protecting the citizens means protecting them from things like robbers.
The king has to do, use the appropriate state’s resources to try to get back the lost property of the citizen, stolen property. Now, if despite the king’s best efforts the property is not found, then they can understand it is because of my past karma that this is stolen and it is not coming back. But the important thing is that the actions are always to be taken based on what is our dharma right now.
And sometimes if we are tempted to give up our dharma in certain circumstances, then we are reminded that even if you give up dharma, actually you will not get more than what is ordained by your past karma. The focus is on sticking to dharma. It is not on giving up, it is not on talking about past karma and becoming irresponsible.
So, for example, say if a baby is crying, now should the mother think this baby is crying because of her past karma, because of the baby’s past karma? That would be terribly hard-hearted. The mother should think, oh my baby is crying, I have to take care of her. I have to nourish her, I have to fondle her, I have to make sure that she is well, she doesn’t cry.
That is the dharma of the mother. The mother should not be thinking of what is the past karma of the child. Now, sometimes some children may be born with some disease because of which they cry a lot and despite the mother’s best efforts if the child keeps crying, the child is in pain, then the mother has to accept, I have done my part and still the child is crying, then it is ascribed to past karma.
So, we always have the capacity to do some things in a situation and doing our part is our dharma. So, now in the case of the Pandavas, yes, there is a role, we could ascribe, they are of course eternal associates of the Lord, but for the purpose of karma, of karmic analysis, we could take it from this perspective. We could say that yes, because of some bad karma, they were born in a family where there was an envious cousin like Duryodhana, who was always plotting against them.
Now, when the Pandavas decided to eventually, after Draupadi was dishonored, after all these things happened, they were dispossessed, after that when the Pandavas decided to actually fight the war, now they did not fight the war for revenge. They did not fight the war for property, for greed. If that, if greed or revenge had been their motive, then they would never have agreed to Krishna’s peace proposal.
We will be satisfied with just five villages. For those who were the rulers of the whole world, that’s what our Yudhishthir had been when the Rajasuya had been performed. For them to be the owners of just five villages, it was an unbearable humiliation actually.
It’s like somebody who is the owner of hundreds of companies all over the world, that person is now the owner of a small small pan shop. And they were ready to accept even that. So, they were definitely not motivated by greed.
And if their goal was to take revenge against the Pandavas, against the Kauravas, then they would not even have considered a peace proposal. So, the reason they agreed to fight or they chose to fight was because of dharma. They saw that Duryodhana was hell-bent on being adharmic.
He was such an impious person, such a vicious person that he shamelessly, brazenly dishonored a respectable lady in public. If such a person had got untrammeled power, he would have wreaked havoc in society. Now, while the Pandavas were in exile, Duryodhana curbed his lower side while he was ruling the kingdom.
He did not do any atrocities against the citizens because he knew that his hold on the kingdom was not secure. The Pandavas might come and threaten and he wanted to be popular till then at least. But if the Pandavas were no longer a threat, then his ugly side would have come out and he would have committed atrocities against the citizens.
So, the Pandavas fought because it was their dharma. So, now, the reasoning about past karma is never used to be used to make us irresponsible. So, if somebody has hurt us, now some people just keep carrying grudges in their mind.
Why did this person do this to me? Why did this person do this to me? Why did this person do this to me? Now, the heaviest thing to hold is a grudge. It just burdens us. This doesn’t allow us freedom and energy to go on with our life and do positive things.
So, if somebody has hurt us, the chapter of our life is over. Let’s move on now. It’s over.
It’s happened. It happened because of my past karma. Now, my dharma is to do this, this, this.
I will do this. And we move on with our life. So, basically, when we talk about something bad happening to us because of past karma, the primary thing is to not be resentful, to not be hateful, to not be lamentful, but to just move on in our dharma now.
Now, in some situations, we may feel inspired or the circumstances may impel us that my dharma is to fight. So, if somebody has hurt us, somebody has cheated us, somebody has betrayed us, we may decide that I want to bring this person to justice and we may take the appropriate measures to discipline that person. But even that, we will not do with hatred, with revengefulness.
We’ll do it as a dharmic duty. This person, they have hurt me and if they are allowed to go scot-free, they will hurt others also and we don’t want that to happen. And to protect others, to prevent them from being hurt as we have been hurt and to ultimately protect that person also because they will be doing bad karma and they will be getting the karmic results of what they are doing.
So, for that also, they should be checked up. So, we will do it but not out of animosity. Krishna does not fight but do not have animosity towards anyone.
11.55 says in the Bhagavad Gita. So, when we do our duty, when we are to make our actions, decide what we have to do, we have to do this based on the focus of what is our dharma not who is, what is whose past karma, whether mine or others. We should focus on what is my dharma and if somehow we are tempted to go away from the path of dharma and act adharmically at that time, to resist the temptation for that adharmic action, we can say that, okay, this has happened because of past karma.
Let me not react in a knee-jerk way. Let me understand what is my dharma and act appropriately. Thank you.