Shakuni Character Analysis 2 – Evaluate whether our relationships bring out our best or our worst

[Seminar at ISKCON, Brisbane, Australia]

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So thank you very much. So today we continue our discussion on Shakuni’s character and the lessons we can learn from him.
Yesterday, I talked about how Shakuni, he exploited the fissures between the Kauravas and the Pandavas to fulfil his own agenda of getting back at Bhishma. And he created an imaginary Gandhari, who he thought felt wronged by Bhishma. And he thought, I’ll get justice for her.
And he, we discussed about the difference between attachment and affection. How attachment is centred on the other person’s pleasure, even if they’re at the cost of their welfare. His affection means he’s concerned about their pleasure, but he’s also concerned, first and foremost, for their welfare.
And discuss how our consciousness gets deadened when we keep repeatedly doing wrong. It’s like a customisable security setting. When a person keeps coming through the door, the setting switches off.
So like that, when you keep doing an activity again and again, you become habituated to it. And then we don’t feel it wrong, even when it is wrong. So I stopped yesterday at the point where Shakuni manipulated Duryodhana and Duryodhana manipulated Dhritarashtra so that they could send the Pandavas to Varnavat, where a house of lakh had been constructed and where the conspiracy was to have them burnt alive.
Vidura was the younger brother of both Pandu and Dhritarashtra and he was also shrewd. The word shrewd can be used in a positive sense or it can be used in a negative sense. So Shakuni was shrewd in the sense of being cunning, whereas Vidura was shrewd in the sense that he was savvy, he was aware.
He, so he sensed that some conspiracy was hatching and he had his spies around and the spies alerted him to the plan and in a coded way he informed Yudhishthira that when you go there, he said that the animals that are burnt when there is a forest fire perish in it. But he said, first he said there are weapons which kill without cutting or wounding. He said further that the snakes that go underground survive when a forest fire destroys the forest.
So basically Yudhishthira understood. He spoke this in a, not in Sanskrit, he spoke this in a local language, that other local dialect which Yudhishthira knew and he knew, but even the charioteers and others did not know over there. So basically he indicated to him that you will be attacked by, not by swords, but by some other weapons and that such snakes that go underground survive forest fires like that.
You should go underground, there will be a tunnel over there and he had planned it out. So anyway, without going into the details of the story, the Pandavas escaped. By coincidence, it happened that the night when the forest, the house was set on fire, there was some local tribal woman who had five children.
She, there was a festival in which people got drunk and she also got, she and her children got drunk and they were given shelter by the court’s members, by the court, by the palace staff in the palace, outer house. So when the house was set on fire, they all were burnt and they were burnt beyond recognition. The Pandavas escaped because they were alert.
However, seeing that the bodies of five men and one elderly woman, everybody thought the Pandavas had been killed. And although externally the Kauravas lamented, internally they were delighted. And it is Krishna’s inconceivable arrangement that whenever a devotee faces adversity, the devotee actually emerges stronger through that adversity.
So here the Pandavas had to suffer, no doubt. They had to live incognito in the forest for a good amount of time. But eventually they emerged to go to Draupadi’s swayamvar.
And when they reached Draupadi’s swayamvar, there Arjuna won the hand of Draupadi. And eventually their identity as Pandavas was restored, was discovered. So now Draupada was a king almost as powerful as the Kurus.
And he was actually so powerful that the Pandavas knew that we cannot, the Kauravas knew that we cannot antagonise him. And when they came to know that now the Pandavas have formed an alliance with Draupada, now they have become his son-in-law, then he realised that we cannot antagonise him. So Bhishma at the request of Vidura came and he told Dhritarashtra to call back the Pandavas and he says give them at least half of the kingdom.
He said ever since the Vanavad palace was burnt and it is suspected the Pandavas were killed there, now people are saying openly that we conspired to kill Pandu’s sons. And he says hearing this I feel so ashamed and I don’t feel like facing people in public. He says okay the glorious name of our dynasty has been sullied by this terrible act.
But now you got an opportunity to redeem yourself. So Shakuni and Duryodhana they were hearing this. Duryodhana was furious.
By this time Duryodhana had got Karna by his side and he felt I can fight with them. But Shakuni told him this is not going to work. He said this is not a time to fight.
You will be seen in very bad light and the Pandavas coupled with Draupada’s strength will be difficult to overcome. He said let them come back. And Shakuni again conspired with Duryodhana and Dhritarashtra when the Pandavas came back, Dhritarashtra acted externally very happy.
Oh I’m so happy to know that you survived and that you’ve come back and now you’ve got Panchali’s hand also. He said that I’ll give you half the kingdom and live peacefully there. He gave half the kingdom but that was a barren forested area called Khanda.
It’s like say if there’s a patriarch in a family who has two companies and one company is flourishing and other company is on the verge of bankruptcy. And when the patriarch is supposed to give to succession and he has two sons. So he gives the flourishing company to one son and he gives the bankrupt company to another son.
I give both of you one company. At the level of giving one company it might appear equal but that of the actual financial assets it was, it is outrageously partial. So that’s what Shakuni was a person who always tried to avoid head-on confrontation and he tried to somehow deviously fulfil his purposes.
Why was that? Because he himself was not a very good warrior. He was a Kshatriya but he was not a particularly strong warrior and because he was not a strong warrior he thought that I will use my cunning to fulfil my purposes. But again what Shakuni did not understand was that Krishna is the cheater among cheaters.
Bhagavad Gita Krishna says that I am the best in every category. So he is the strongest of the strong, he’s the wisest of the wise and he’s the most cunning among all cunning people. So each time Shakuni tried to use his shenanigans, his tricks to get the better of the Pandavas, actually Krishna guided the Pandavas in various ways by which the Pandavas got better of it.
So what did the Pandavas do? They made Khandav into Khandavprastha. By Krishna’s mercy they transformed with the aid of the gods that forested area into a flourishing metropolis. And so much so that many of the traders, priests and influential citizens of Hastinapur emigrated to Khandav.
This infuriated Duryodhana. Every time that he thought that he had won, he found and he was congratulating himself, yeah I won now. But he found that eventually it is the Pandavas who emerged better.
So one of the each every epic or every book has a driving question. The driving question for example of the Bhagavatam is what is the duty of a person about to die? The driving question of the Ramayana is what are the characteristics of an ideal person? The driving question of the Mahabharata is the same as the driving question which Arjuna raised to Krishna. What is dharma? What is the right course of action? And everybody is trying to find out what is the best way I should act.
But what different people consider as best varies from person to person. One of the arguments for the existence of God is called as the moral argument. The moral argument means we human beings have a moral sense.
We know what is right and what is wrong. So if we were just biological creatures who are driven by survival instinct as Darwin proposed survival of the fittest. Now Prabhupada had a simple one sentence response to the idea of survival of the fittest.
Prabhupada said even the fittest don’t survive. Nobody survives ultimately in material existence. But beyond that we see in human life the most ennobling and inspiring actions are not where the fittest fight and survive themselves.
The most ennobling and inspiring actions are where the fittest sacrifice themselves for the unfit. When the twin towers were collapsing, the firefighters went into that structure which they knew would collapse at any moment and still they went in and rescued. That is considered heroic.
When a child is drowning, somebody who knows the risk, this is stormy water, I can drown, still they jump in and they rescue the child who is drowning. That’s considered heroic. Now here it’s not just the fittest trying to survive.
Then they will say, oh this child is unfit, let the child die. But the fit sacrifice for the unfit. So our moral sense actually goes against the survival instinct on many occasions.
If we say we risk our life to do right things. Now not everyone does this but still some people do it. So where does our moral sense come from? It doesn’t come from our bodily drives because the bodily drives will simply drive us to survive.
And sometimes we do it not just for ourselves or our immediate genetically related people but we do it sometimes for unknown people also. And more fundamentally, we all have a sense of right and wrong which is not necessarily related with survival. For example, you may tell someone, you know, you shouldn’t have spoken like that.
If somebody has spoken harshly, you should, oh I’m sorry, you know, I was very upset because of this, this, this. So now the specifics may vary but we all have this conception of right and wrong. Now what different people consider right and wrong, that may vary.
But all people all over the world have some conception of some things which are right and some things which are wrong. Now where do the sense of right and wrong come from? So that is actually not coming from our body. It comes ultimately from our soul.
When the soul is pure, our sense of right and wrong harmonises with what Krishna as the super soul guides us. And depending on how much we are covered by the modes, our sense of right and wrong can go at variance with what Krishna’s guidance is. It’s like if we have say white light, the light coming from a cube may be pure white.
But then if it is covered by a yellow film, the light that will come out will be yellow. If it’s covered by a red film, then the light will become red. If it’s covered by a black film, then very little light will come out.
And that will, whatever comes out will be having a dark state, blackish state. So similarly, the soul is pure, but the soul is covered over. And when the soul is covered over, at that time, depending on which mode covers the soul, goodness, passion or ignorance, according to the soul’s conceptions of what is right and wrong gets shivra.
So what Shakuni thought was his dharma differed from what Yudhishthira thought was his dharma. So all the characters in the Mahabharata, they try to justify their actions. And Shakuni is thinking that I’m doing right because I’m protecting the right of my sister.
I’m undoing the wrong that was done to her. So then I was thinking, I’m doing right, because this kingdom was my right, but it was taken away from me. The Kauravas, the Pandavas are threatening to take it away from me.
Therefore, I will do what it takes. Now the darkest moment of the epic comes in the Asat Sabha, where Shakuni plays the gambling match. Now right from the beginning, that gambling match is rigged.
Yudhishthira doesn’t want to play that gambling match. He says that if we gamble, we will fight. Yudhishthira has just been enthroned as the world emperor.
He has performed the Rajasuya Yagya. And Duryodhana sees how much prosperity Yudhishthira has got, and he burns in envy, unbearable envy. So at that time, Shakuni tells him, why are you lamenting like a fool? He says, you are lamenting that he has got so much wealth, and you have no wealth, you have less wealth than him, but I have a scheme by which you can get all his wealth.
So what is this? When we are attached, we don’t see the faults in the person who we are attached. So now, although time and time again, Shakuni’s scheme had been baffled. Shakuni tried to have the Pandavas burned alive, but they survived and they got Draupadi and another alliance with Rupada.
He tried to have them sent to a barren part of the forest, but they made it flourishing and they became the world emperors. So big plans of Shakuni had been foiled, but still Duryodhana, he somehow had that naive faith in Shakuni. There is no one in this world who is faithless.
Even atheists, they sometimes call themselves non-believers, but actually nobody is a non-believer, because nobody can prove the non-existence of God. So atheism is the religion of faith in faithlessness. Atheists have faith in the non-existence of God.
They can’t prove his non-existence. Nobody can. So the point is that everyone has faith in something or the other.
Some people say, don’t accept any guru. They say this, what are they essentially saying? You accept me as your guru and follow me when I say don’t accept any guru. So actually, Duryodhana, he was not a very religious person in terms of, he did not have any faith in Krishna, but he had faith in Shakuni.
And when Shakuni proposed some scheme, he went along with it. So Shakuni said, let’s invite the cover of Pandavas for a gambling match. He said, I will gamble on your behalf.
Now Shakuni, as I said, he was not a very good warrior and he didn’t have a very strong physique, nor did he have very good actually skills or any other warrior skills. So he had used his time to become expert in gambling. And of course, he would use gambling to entertain, to gamble, to get some money by that.
But at this point, he felt, he was so proud, he said, my dice will get for you what no weapon can get for you. Just call Yudhishthira. I called Yudhishthira.
Yudhishthira was not interested in gambling, but he saw that Dhritarashtra is like my father figure. He’s in the position of my father. And if he tells me to gamble, then how can I say no? And then the gambling match started.
Now, when the gambling match was to start, Dhritarashtra said that I will place the money and Shakuni will gamble on my part, on my behalf. Yudhishthira immediately raised his eyebrows. He says, that is against the principles of gambling.
He said that whoever takes the money, that person should play. It’s like, say, if two kids decide to have a wrestling match. And there are just two kids in the neighbourhood.
And when the time of the wrestling match comes, both of them come together. And one of the kids has got the national wrestling champion over there. And he says, he will play on my behalf.
That’s not fair. That’s completely rigged. So then Yudhishthira pointed it out.
And the whole assembly remained silent. And Shakuni and Duryodhana, they goaded Yudhishthira. They said, okay, if you are afraid to gamble, there’s no need to gamble.
Because I am not afraid, he said. But this is not fair. And as they started gambling, one by one by one, Yudhishthira started losing everything.
And this was all the time. Duryodhana was openly gloating. Shakuni was a little more cunning.
So he was delighted at winning, but he kept his joy under control. But in his own subtle way, he was instigating. And then, as Yudhishthira lost all his possessions, then it came to, he had nothing to give.
So he staked his brothers. He staked Nakula and Sahadev. And then at that point, Shakuni spoke very insidiously.
He said, okay, it seems that you love Kunti’s sons much more than Madhuri’s sons. That is why you have gambled your stepbrothers, but not your brothers. Yudhishthira was infuriated.
He’s a fool. He said, we five Pandavas are like the five fingers of a hand. We’re always united together.
There is no discrimination between us. So when he saw him getting angry like this, he realised that by this anger, he had incited Yudhishthira. Sometimes in sports, especially in cricket, Australians are infamous for sledging.
So they sledge their opponents, speak foul words, deride them, mock them. And by that, what they want to do is they want to make the opposing team lose their cool. And when they lose their cool, they will do something rashly.
And by doing something rashly, they will get out or they will not bowl properly, they will not bat properly, and then they can win. So Shakuni was playing dirty. So Yudhishthira, he then gambled Arjuna.
Then he gambled Bhima. He gambled himself. Eventually he gambled Draupadi.
He lost everything. And Shakuni, this was, he thought his moment of glory. He could see the great pain that the Pandavas were in.
He could see the great pain Bhishma was in. Although Bhishma was silent, he was in mortal agony. And he felt, my mission is accomplished.
And the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says, in 18.38, he says, that which tastes like nectar in the beginning, will taste like poison in the end. So here, Shakuni was delighting in tasting the nectar. I have achieved it.
I have achieved everything. But after that the poison was going to come. The Pandavas were exiled.
And then the Pandavas tried. Arjuna was very resourceful. Arjuna did severe austerities, got many celestial weapons.
Bhima also practised vigorously. And although Krishna himself came to petition peace, but Duryodhana was arrogant. He was insolvent.
He thought that now I have got the whole royal might with me. What have the Pandavas got? And he probed them for war. In fact, Shakuni had a son, Uluka.
And just before the day when the war was going to take place, at that time, Duryodhana sent Uluka to the Pandavas’ camp. And this is, of course, Shakuni’s brain was also there involved in it. And he said, he told him that I have a message for all the Pandava warriors.
And Uluka, he has a very provocative message. So first he went there. He said, O Yudhishthir, I would like to remind you first, that whenever a messenger comes, whatever the message the messenger gives, the messenger should not be punished.
Because the messenger is simply the deliverer. Yudhishthir said, don’t worry. Feel reassured and speak what you want.
And then he repeated Duryodhana’s message, which was basically insulting all the Pandavas. He said, Bhima, you think you are so powerful? You know, I reduced you to the level of a maid servant in the kitchen. You are cooking in the palace of, in the kitchen, which is in the palace of Uttarakhand.
And he said, Yudhishthir, you think you are so virtuous, but I made you live in poverty. You are the emperor of the world. You had to live on forest fair.
He said, Arjuna, you think you are so virtuous, but by my scheme, I made you impotent and you had to live like a eunuch. And like that, he started insulting every one of them. And as you could see, they were all furious.
He just finished his message and he said, this is the message I have given. It is not my, I am not speaking this, it is Duryodhana speaking this. Yudhishthir was furious.
All the Pandavas were furious. They gave their reply. Now, by this time, Duryodhana had become overconfident that I am going to win this war.
And he felt that he has got Bhishma on his side, Drona on his side. He had got 11 Akshahunis, far more, almost double the forces of the Pandavas. He said, I am going to win.
So, he wanted to think, he wanted that, that I will defeat the Pandavas, I will kill the Pandavas, but before I kill them, let the memory of how I have insulted them stay in their hearts. So, eventually when the war took place, on the 17th day, Karna fell. And then, for the first 10 days, Bhishma was the commander.
He fell on the 10th day. For the next 5 days, Duryodhana was the commander. Then he fell.
For the next 2 days, Karna was the commander. And on the 18th day, Sahadev confronted Shakuni. And Shakuni used all the weapons that he had, but he was no match.
And finally, when he was overpowered, he just turned and fled. But Sahadev had taken a vow and he said, the dice which you have cast on us, that will come back as our arrows. And finally, challenging him for a fight, as he was fleeing, Sahadev overpowered him.
And Shakuni met his end. Soon after that, the devastated Duryodhana, who had lost everything, who had begun the battle thinking that I am going to be the emperor of the world, ended up also destroyed. Dhritarashtra was left with nothing.
Actually, Dhritarashtra had to lose everything before he lost his blindness. He had to lose everything before he lost his blindness. He was so attached.
That attachment caused him to go blind. And only when he realised he had nothing left, all his sons were dead, then when Vidura came in good instruction, he realised and he reformed himself. So, I’ll go back a little bit.
I’ll talk about two points. Duryodhana, as I said, if you consider on a scale of evil, Dhritarashtra was somewhat evil. Duryodhana was much more evil.
And Shakuni was the most evil. So now, Shakuni and Duryodhana, they were in this, sorry, Shakuni and Dhritarashtra were in the same generation. Duryodhana was one generation younger.
Bhishma was one generation above. Vidura was also in the same generation as Dhritarashtra. So, for all of us, we are inevitably influenced by the people around us.
But we can choose whom to be influenced by. If Duryodhana had chosen to be more influenced by Dhritarashtra than by Shakuni, then his wicked nature would have been there, but it would not have come out so much. If he had chosen to be influenced by Bhishma, he could have also become virtuous.
But he chose to be influenced by Shakuni. Why did this happen? Many reasons. Somehow, although Dhritarashtra pampered him very much, sometimes the way things work is, in this material world, it’s called the reverse effect principle.
Brahmaji talks about it in one of his prayers. He says that whatever we think gives us pleasure will cause us pain. In fact, they said that the search for happiness is often the greatest cause of unhappiness.
When alcoholics think that I’m going to drink, they think I’m going to drink to be happy. But the search for happiness often becomes the cause of the greatest unhappiness. Similarly, when we are attached to someone, at that time, we try to do things to please that person.
And the more we act to please that person, and the more we compromise our own principles, we put aside our own principles to please that person, the more that person thinks that we are manipulative. And the more we try to please that person, the more we actually lose the respect of that person. So Dhritarashtra, he pandered to almost every whim of Duryodhana.
And the result of that was Duryodhana had very little, if any, respect for Dhritarashtra. He never turned to Dhritarashtra for guidance. Rather, so he treated Dhritarashtra simply as a person to be manipulated.
And he, whenever he needed any guidance, he turned towards Shakuni. So Shakuni, he became more of a father figure for Duryodhana than Dhritarashtra. And he he tried to fulfil his own agenda through Duryodhana.
So whenever we interact with others, we have to see that every relationship that we have, that relationship should either inspire us to rise towards dharma, to rise towards Krishna, should inspire the other person to rise towards Krishna, or best, it inspires both of us to rise towards Krishna. There are some people in our life whose association brings out the best within us. Our spiritual master, our spiritual guides, they by their instruction, by their example, by their inspiration, their association brings out the best within us.
There are some people whose association brings out the worst within us. Sometimes it’s just because when the two people are incompatible and we get angry with the other person, that person becomes angry with us. That’s okay.
That’s because we all are different people and sometimes in a close relationship, sometimes we just get angry with someone. We don’t get angry with other people, we just get angry with that person. But there are some people, but this is that other person is not intentionally trying to bring out our worst side.
It’s just the incompatibility that brings out our lower side. But there are some people who gain strength, who want to gain control over us by bringing out our lower side. And if we come too close to them, if we become submissive to them, then we will be destroyed.
So in every relationship, we have to see what is the effect of this relationship on me and what is the effect of this relationship on the other person. And if a relationship is bringing out our lower side, now in every relationship, we do have to compromise. And sometimes we will be having some principles, the other person may be having no principles or some different principles.
So there will be some adjustment that needs to be done. But that adjustment has to be done on a foundation of mutual respect. And respect is expressed through reciprocation.
I do something for you, you do something for me. But if a person’s effect on us is consistently that they bring out our lower side, then we end up ruining ourselves if we subject ourselves to their influence. Many times, when students go to college, they may have been brought up in a cultured family, and they may not drink, they may not smoke.
And there are other students who try to incite them. And they have their own ways to incite them. Come on, become a man.
Are you still a baby who is suckling your brother’s breast milk? Come on, you need to drink, you need to smoke, you become a man. There’s no correlation logically between smoking and drinking and becoming a man. But at that time, the manipulation is made in such a way that people get incited.
So Shakuni had his own agenda to fulfil. And Duryodhana thought that Shakuni is fulfilling my agenda. Shakuni is so clever idea that he will guide me, what I should do.
But it was not like that. Shakuni was systematically bringing out the lower side of Duryodhana, making him do more and more terrible things. And ultimately, both Shakuni and Duryodhana were destroyed.
So if we find that in a particular relationship, that interaction is bringing out our lower side, then we need to create some fences in that relationship. Fences means that we have to have some boundaries for ourselves. Without those boundaries, we will be dragged down to levels which we would earlier have not even thought about.
We cannot avoid many times in our life, people who bring out our lower side. But more important than whether we can avoid those people or not, is that whether we have in our life people who bring out our higher side. Unfortunately, Duryodhana had no one like that.
In fact, those who were present in his life, he thought they were his enemies. He always suspected Bhishma, Drona, Vidura of being partial to the Pandavas. And thus he defended himself to their counsel.
So when we associate with devotees, even among devotees, it’s not just devotee association that is important. It is that devotee association which actually brings out our best. We need that association.
That inspiration will help us to grow. I’ll conclude with one last point that devotion is not, association is not just a matter of physical proximity. It is not even a matter of emotional affinity.
Yes, emotional affinity is important. But, the essence of association is the transfer of desires. That when we associate with someone, how do we know we are associating with someone? If their desires are transferred to us, that is the essence of association.
When Krishna spoke to Arjuna, Arjuna associated with Krishna, what is the result of that? Arjuna at the end didn’t say to Krishna, Krishna, good lecture. Arjuna told Krishna, I will do your will. That means Krishna’s desire became Arjuna’s desire.
So we are living in the world that we live today, where majority of the people are materialistic. A large part of the culture is not just materialistic, but aggressively materialistic. Living in such a situation, we can’t avoid the association of people who may be materialistic.
But we can ensure that that association doesn’t transfer their desires to us. How do we do that? By keeping, firstly, our intelligence sharp to know which desires are really good for us and which desires are not so good for us. And more importantly, by having spiritual association that triggers our spiritual desires.
When our higher desires are strongly activated, then the lower desires will not have place to be activated. That’s why the more we can get devotee association, and not just again physical proximity, but it’s more in terms of that association which inspires us to serve Krishna. That is what will transform us.
Sri Prabhupada’s greatest asset was his burning desire to glorify Krishna. He, normally the spiritual master, gives a legacy to the disciple. Bhakti Sastra Thakur had a glorious mission.
He had 64 temples and lots of property, lots of assets. Prabhupada did not get any of that when he started his preaching. But what Prabhupada got from his spiritual master was the desire to glorify Krishna.
It was not that Bhakti Sastra Thakur gave the instruction to preach in the western world only to Bhakti Siddhashila Prabhupada. He gave it to many of his disciples. In fact, he sponsored some of his disciples to go to Europe and England.
And not only that, when his disciples had gone to Europe and England, primarily they went to England, from there they went to Germany. The Gaudiya Mutt from India was every month sponsoring their stay there, their travel there, all their expenses there. So Bhakti Sastra Thakur gave that instruction to many people, but Prabhupada took up that instruction.
So actually, the legacy that Sri Prabhupada got from Bhakti Sastra Thakur was the desire to glorify Krishna, the desire to inspire others to serve Krishna. And from that desire, so many temples manifested, so many books manifested, so many devotees manifested. Prabhupada at one time said that, I inherited the legacy of my spiritual master.
That legacy was the mission to share Krishna’s message. When Prabhupada was asked on multiple occasions, who will be your successor? Prabhupada gave different answers. At one point he told the answer, whoever wants to be.
What does that mean? He didn’t consider successor in terms of the officially appointed legislative body. Yes, that is required for practical purpose for organisation. But the real succession was, whoever took up the mission of sharing Krishna’s message, of relishing Krishna’s message first and sharing that, they will become his successors.
So for us, we need the association of Sri Prabhupada and those who are the faithful followers of Sri Prabhupada. By their association, our heart becomes inspired with the desire to ourselves learn to love Krishna and to share that love for Krishna with others. When we have this desire, this desire becomes our driving desire.
We may do various activities in life. We may associate with different kinds of people. But this desire will protect us.
The process of bhakti is not so much about giving up desires. It is about taking up desires. Not so much of giving up desire.
I will not do this. I will not do this. I will not do this.
It is more of taking up the desire. I want to serve Krishna. I form my service to Krishna.
I’ll try to do this. I’ll try to do that. I’ll try to do that.
Whatever be our particular position, whatever be our particular disposition, we serve Krishna accordingly. But our driving desire is the desire that we get from Krishna, from Krishna’s representatives. If we associate thus, then in trying to serve Krishna, we become purified and our higher side comes out.
We become inspired and empowered to battle against our lower side and reject that. So that influence which Duryodhana could have had, he could have got that from Bhishma, who was a pure devotee. But unfortunately, he chose not to get that.
By getting influenced by Shakuni, he let himself rush down the path to his own destruction and the destruction of the Kuru dynasty. Today, in today’s world, there are many Shakunis. There are many Shakuni-like people who want to bring out our lower side.
At one level, we could say much of the advertising industry is based on triggering people’s lower desires, especially advertisements which are obscene. It’s triggering people’s lower desires so that they can make money out of by controlling us by making us attached. So we have to guard ourselves from whoever Shakunis are there in our life.
And we need to become influenced by those who bring out our best. So I’ll summarise. I spoke today about how Shakuni continued his schemes to… he tried to have the Pandavas burnt alive.
But the result of it all was by Krishna’s mercy, every adversity that the Pandavas went through, they emerged stronger. And eventually, Shakuni thought that his greatest moment came when he used the gambling, his expertise in gambling, to strip the Pandavas of everything and get it all for his nephew. But he was only seeing the initial nectar.
After that came the poison and the catastrophic war and the dice that he had cast on the Pandavas came back to destroy him and to destroy all those who had let themselves come under his malevolent influence. And lastly, I concluded by how we have to be vigilant in our relationship to see whether this relationship is bringing out our best or our worst. And sometimes incompatibility may bring out our lower side.
But it’s much more worse if somebody intentionally is trying to manipulate us. So sometimes we may think I’m doing this to please the other person. But just as Dhritarashtra by giving up his principles to please Duryodhana lost all respect of Duryodhana.
So similarly, if we just compromise without any limitation, we will lose others respect and then we will also get manipulated. When we focus on guarding ourselves from the Shakunis and more importantly, on inspiring ourselves with those who have positive influences. So then we can bring out our best side.
The essence of association is not physical proximity and not even emotional affinity. The essence of association is the transfer of desires. Prabhupada’s speciality was that he got a burning desire to glorify Krishna from his spiritual master and he shared it with his followers.
So through those devotees through whom we can get the desire to glorify Krishna, we need to cherish that association and using that desire we ward off our lower desires and we bring out our best. And by so doing we all can contribute towards our own eternal well-being and towards others eternal well-being. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. So are there any questions or comments? In most of the scriptures it says that people are very cautious when selecting their name. Very? When selecting the name.
And in Mahabharata we see Pandavas have all these beautiful names. Rudraksha, Arjuna, Bhrim, Nakula, Samudaya. Whereas Kauravas have all Duryodhana, Dushyasana, Krishyanta.
All these names are negative. So is there any kind of psychological reason there? Okay, okay. Why do the Kauravas have negative names like Duryodhana, Dushyasana? Yeah, first of all it’s not necessary that these names are negative.
See Dhritarashtra, let’s consider that name first. Dhritarashtra can mean one who is very attached to the kingdom. But it can also mean Dhrita is to maintain the Rashtra, one who strongly maintains the kingdom.
He is a powerful king who is the maintainer of the kingdom and he sustains the kingdom. Duryodhana can mean one who is evil in fighting. It can also mean one who is difficult to defeat in fighting.
Dushyasana, it can mean one whose administration is very evil or it can also mean one whose administration is difficult to overcome. The Dhu prefix can be positive also like Durlabha. Labha that is to be obtained, it is difficult to be obtained.
So that’s one thing. It is not necessarily that these names have to be negative. They can be seen negatively but that’s not necessarily the meaning.
Secondly, many of the characters at that time would have their names given according to astrology. So astrology could to some extent predict the nature of people and it would, when the names are suggested by astrologers, there is a general mapping or general overlapping we could say or matching of the name with the character of the person. That’s also another reason why the names can be similar.
Another level we see is that there is also prescience. These are the eternal pastimes of the lord and the lord arranges for the characters within those pastimes to be named in particular ways so that their names reflect their particular natures or dispositions. Psychological message, it depends on what we mean by that.
Some people say that this whole scripture is just a poetic construction. There’s no history to it and because it is poetic that’s why the characters are being given names like this. That is not what the tradition says very clearly.
It is Itihas. It draws from history. These incidents are based on history.
So if you want to say psychological meaning in terms of some deeper significance of those names, yes, as I said that Krishna teaches various lessons through these pastimes. And yes, so we can say that the names reflect their characters. But if we are saying psychological in terms of only that there is no objective reality to their existence, then that’s not true.
Yes, sir? I’m just wondering sometimes this explanation or if you might misunderstand that in some way because it can seem like there’s this commonness, a big bad world out there, which is the Gagan and Shastrakam. And we have a certain paranoia about reaching out. Sometimes we overstress that we should not associate with non-devotees.
This may lead to people devotees feeling that VR is gone and there’s a big bad world out there. We don’t connect with people. Now, there is a possibility to misunderstand anything.
See, the nature of the human mind is that when one thing is stressed, the mind tends to make that thing the all important thing. So if you say, okay, now be careful about bad association. Yeah, we have to be careful about bad association.
But that doesn’t mean that we have to demonise people. That doesn’t mean that we have to give up basic cultured behaviour when we interact with people. So we have to function as responsible, cultured human beings.
When Prabhupada was asked, how can we know your followers? He said they are perfect gentlemen, perfect ladies and perfect gentlemen. That’s not a devotional quality. He could have said that they chant Hare Krishna 16 rounds, they follow Hare Krishna.
He didn’t say that. I have actually a whole, thank you for raising this question. I have a whole seminar on this.
Broadly speaking, if we see in our life as devotees, there is Siddhanta, that is our philosophical understanding. There is Sadhana, which is our personal spiritual practise. Then there is Seva, the services we do in the temple and for Krishna.
And there is Sadachara, this is the way we behave. Now from the world’s perspective, the world doesn’t care what our Sadhana is. The world doesn’t care that I wake up early in the morning and chant 16 rounds.
Okay, that’s what you’re doing. The world doesn’t care what our Siddhanta is. Even if I know all the 700 verses of the Gita, so what? The world doesn’t care what Seva I do.
The world is going to see what is my Sadachara. So if people are to appreciate Krishna Bhakti, then they have to see that we are well-behaved people. So that means, not that we try to do the things which they want us to do.
It’s not that we have to smoke and drink and things like that. But we need to be in the mood of goodness. See, even people who are in the mood of passion, ignorance, they appreciate it.
Somebody is calm, cultured, respectful, sensitive. They may initially just neglect such people, but overall they say, this is a cultured person, they respect that. So we need to, while interacting with people, be in the mood of goodness.
So that non-association with non-devotees, that is sometimes we say that the principle of bhakti is associated with devotees and non-association with non-devotees. That simply means that we don’t take in their desires. But that doesn’t mean that we have to be judgemental with them or we have to demonise them.
It just means that we have to protect ourselves. So what does that mean? That means say, if I am associating with someone, if I go to a hospital and I have got a friend who has got an infectious disease, I will take appropriate proportion so that I don’t get the infection. But that doesn’t mean that just because that person got an infection, I cut off my friendship with that person.
But at the same time, just because I have a friendship, that doesn’t mean I just go and hug that person and get infected by the disease. So we have to use our intelligence so that we can maintain a human connection with people. At the same time, the human connection does not cost us our spiritual connection with Krishna.
We don’t want to be infected by material desires. At the same time, we don’t want to alienate people in the name of following our principles. So that balance is something which we need to learn.
Sometimes we talk about non-devotees as they are like one monolithic unit. We are against impersonalism philosophically, but practically often we are very impersonal in our categorising people also. It’s not that all materialistic people are the same.
Even among non-devotees, because there are people who are in goodness, people who are in passion, there are people who are in ignorance. And at the very least, people who are in the mode of goodness, they are often quite cultured people. So we need to discern.
Sometimes we may not have good association, but then we can discern which association will be the least damaging for us. And often the mode of goodness association can be the least damaging. So we associate with them and sometimes we can also learn some things about the mode of goodness from them and they learn some things about transcendence from us.
So we don’t need to be gentlemanly, cultured in our interaction with others. Non-association with non-devotees isn’t meant to be interpreted as a condemnation of non-devotees or being judgemental and rejecting or demonising them. It just means being protective of our devotion while interacting with them.
Does that answer your question? Q. How are we able to compromise or understand that quality about being a devotee and at the same time being in the world? One of the things that attracted me to Krishna Consciousness was the way Prabhupada was able to describe how Western society in some ways is not that much different from what is being described in the Vedas because you have Brahmins, Shastras, Vaishyas and Shudras in every society. It does open up sometimes this us and them and Shudras and Shudras and that kind of thing. I believe personally that is fine in some ways to look inward and also meet the world in a way that is a bit more abhorrent and a bit more inclusive.
Sometimes we have this mentality of us and them and we tend to demonise the rest of the world but we can also learn from the world. I would say there are three levels of this or rather this is a much bigger question. We as devotees can interact with the culture in various ways.
One is we just stay oblivious of the culture. We live in our own world and we think we will go back to Krishna. We don’t care for the world.
Then we become very insular. We cannot stay a missionary moment. The other is that we can slam the culture.
They are all demons, all demons, all demons. This is often a favourite pastime of some devotees. The third is that we can learn to survive in that culture.
Then fourth is that we can use the culture to share Krishna. The fifth is that we actually present our culture and explain without being judgemental how the bhakti culture fulfils the human heart’s deepest aspirations. So without getting into the technical categorisation, the point which I am making is that some devotees may have that approach that we are the devotees and we are good and all of them are bad.
Now when our movement was largely temple based, at that time where being a devotee means moving into temple, that kind of insular approach may have worked and we have to see Prabhupada’s statements in context. Sometimes Prabhupada’s statements are fools, rascals. We tend to use them to justify this kind of attitude.
But Prabhupada himself was very measured and mature. When Prabhupada organised a scientific conference, the devotees organised a scientific conference and they invited scientists. Bhaktiswara Damodara Maharaj, he told me once when I met him that he said that Prabhupada told us we should be very cultural with them.
We should be very courteous. We should be very gentlemanly with them. It’s not that we call scientists for a conference and then tell them all kinds of things.
We have to be respectful to them properly. So Prabhupada’s statements, some of which we may use to demonise the world, we have to see them in context. When a child is small, the mother may tell the child, don’t go out alone on the street or there may be people who may kidnap you.
The child gets annoyed, oh this is a nice person, they may kidnap you, don’t go there. Now if the child takes that statement and absolutises it, all people in the world are kidnappers. That’s not right.
We have to see the intent and then see the context and understand the purpose. So initially when devotees are new, Prabhupada wanted to protect their faith and he made certain statements. But he was also very astute in dealing with people himself.
So for us as sadhakas who are living in the world, we need to see how best we can serve Krishna. And it’s curious, let’s say some devotees, if we want to translate Prabhupada’s books into French, then some devotees may have already learned French and they may use that knowledge for serving Krishna. So why not? Now is it that that knowledge was acceptable, that learning French from a non-devotee was acceptable before we became a devotee? But if somebody now wants to serve in French, preach in France, now if somebody learns French from a non-devotee, does it suddenly become bad? Knowledge is knowledge.
So if our intent is to serve Krishna, then we can learn different forms of knowledge from different people. We can learn some language, we can learn some skills. Ideally speaking, in the long run our devotee community should become so big that most of the skills that devotees need to learn, they can get that within the devotee community itself.
But the mentality of demonising is something which will erode our compassion, should decrease our capacity for connection. And as we will become what is it? We will become we will live in self-congratulatory isolation. We are patting I am so good, we are patting ourselves on our back, you know, all of them are so bad.
Nobody is coming to a temple, that’s because they’re so bad. So, Prabhupada certainly didn’t want that. Prabhupada wanted people to become devotees.
And he was very resourceful. If Prabhupada had simply been judgemental and condemnatory, he would never have been able to stay in America. So he would have never been able to stay in America because he was, the hippies at that time were so degraded from the Vedic perspective.
Or to speak of Vedic perspective, even from the American perspective, hippies were considered degraded. So the hippies were considered degraded by those who were considered degraded by the Vedic culture. And Prabhupada lived with them.
So that compassion was there and that compassion was what enabled him to establish a connection. So we need to establish human connections with people so that we can develop a spiritual connection and then we can elevate them. The first thing they told us was, just pat yourself, don’t worry about anyone, encourage yourself.
People are frustrated and all these things, think of those things as monkeys and it’s part of the catharsis. The first thing is, don’t worry about it, just focus on yourself and encourage yourself. You are the best.
I win the world. That’s where they start. That’s interesting.
Yes. Yes, Prabhu? I don’t understand. If your sister was good, why did you put no coffee in the… Okay, yeah.
So if your sister was a virtuous king, he was good, why did he gamble properly? Yeah, it’s a… I’ll answer this. I’ll answer this at three different levels. First is that he felt compelled to do that.
He himself did not want to even start the gambling match. He repeatedly opposed when the first proposal came, he said, if we gamble, we’ll fight. Why should we gamble? He repeatedly resisted the gambling match.
But he was goaded, he was challenged, he was instructed, and he felt he couldn’t refuse his elders. And once the gambling match started, as he started losing things, no, he himself he felt more and more morally culpable. You know, I am the eldest brother, I am meant to be like a father, I am meant to protect everyone.
And I have lost everything for that. So I thought, let me just gamble one thing, and let me get it. If I just gamble this, now, maybe I’ll get everything else back.
If I gamble this, I’ll get everything else back. In fact, before the gambling match started, he said, he said that, Durjana, why do you want to take from me the wealth with which I want to serve the Brahmanas? He did not see the wealth as simply his wealth. He saw the wealth as a means by which to perform Dharma.
So, as he kept losing one thing after another, he started gambling not just from things, he started gambling his brothers. And eventually he gambled himself. So, sometimes his gambling Draupadi is considered outrageous.
And it was outrageous at one level. But here we see that he gambled her after he had gambled himself. That means that he considered her not like a possession.
If it had been a possession, then he had already gambled all his possessions. He gambled himself and after that he gambled her. So, that was all he was thinking.
Somehow, I have to get back what I have lost so that I can serve Krishna. His mood was he wanted to serve Krishna and he wanted resources for serving Krishna. He hoped that somehow I’ll get everything back.
So, that’s, he was compelled first by the instruction of the elders then by the force of the way the situation was turning out. That’s one level of understanding. The other level of understanding is that Yudhishthira himself tells later when they are in the forest he tells that I got carried away by the frenzy of gambling.
So, some people try to argue that if Yudhishthira gambled if he is such a good person, if he gambled then why shouldn’t we gamble? But the Mahabharata demonstrates the opposite lesson actually. He says that under the influence of gambling, the fever can become so much that even a king like Yudhishthira can do terrible things. Then if we get caught in the fever of gambling what can we do? So, Yudhishthira demonstrates through Yudhishthira’s example he demonstrates how maddening the fever of gambling can be.
I was at one place in America and there was one devotee boy who has now become a devotee he got an inheritance of something like 10 million dollars from his grandmother. And his grandmother she didn’t get along with her daughter she gave directly to his grandson. And he was just getting into he is in his teens and he got into gambling.
And his 10 million dollars he lost in 10 months. Everything. Everything he lost.
It was terrible. So the thing is that gambling can devastate. That’s what the Mahabharata demonstrates through Yudhishthira’s example.
At a higher level we understand that this, everything that happened there was Krishna’s plan. Yudhishthira being a virtuous king could not have done anything like this gambling his own wife away. But Krishna wanted to demonstrate that in this world even if we have many protectors ultimately we have only one protector.
Rudrapati had five virtuous powerful husbands but still circumstances came in such a way that none of them could protect her. And at that time she didn’t get frustrated she was naturally upset, she was naturally infuriated with the fact that her husbands couldn’t protect her. But she didn’t stay stuck in that.
Why are you not protecting me? She said if you can’t protect I will take shelter of Krishna. So when she took shelter of Krishna Krishna protected her. So this whole pastime is ultimately the arrangement of Krishna to demonstrate to the world that ultimately we have only one protector, Krishna.
So, any other questions? Yeah, isn’t it true that when Kshatriyas were called to gamble they couldn’t say no and to fight? Yes, they couldn’t say no. That’s true. I’d say that Kshatriyas could also gamble or fight, but till how much they fight, they could have chosen that.
So I would say that is important, that’s one explanation. But I would say that is the only explanation. Yudhishthira himself regrets that I should have gambled so much.
So, yeah. Any other questions? Good question. Maybe, even if he had lost all his possessions he still had his brothers, he still had his weapons, they could have got everything back.
Generally, it’s not safe to say that this character did wrong. It’s more that what lesson can we draw from it. So rather than saying that he should have done like this or he should have done like that, we can say that, okay, in such situation, I can have acted like this or I could have acted like that.
That’s a more safer position to keep. Yes, Puneet? You talked about the dharmic in a different way. Karna represents a different aspect in terms of relationship with Yudhishthira.
He also talks about the properties and he tries to say to him that I can win this by like at the time when he wants to go and like at the end of the 13th year, he wants to try and make him go back or the 14th year to make them go back for another 14 years or one month and he tries to go to Duryodhana and he says I can fight them and win them and do it, but even though Duryodhana seems to have a very good relationship with Karna and Karna seems to reciprocate that relationship and it’s described that even like they were the very best of friends. Why doesn’t that dynamic or why doesn’t Duryodhana or what is that people learn from that that where Karna who wants to like he’s on the wrong side, I’m not trying to work on Karna here, but I’m just trying to understand that Duryodhana and Karna Okay. So Karna seems to be a more virtuous person in the Mahabharata.
So what is the dynamic in his relationship with Duryodhana? Karna is a good example of a good person becoming bad by bad association. Duryodhana was bad who became worse, but Karna, he at least he had enough conscience he regretted later. And after Draupadi’s dishonouring in the assembly which he suggested let’s drag her in and let’s get her and she’s your maidservant now.
He suggested dishonouring but later he regrets it and he expresses that regret to Bhishma and to Krishna also. I just did that to please Duryodhana. They triangled at him.
But the point here is that Karna initially says that let’s fight and let’s win by honesty. But eventually his desire to fight and win and please Duryodhana that is what his starting desire is. But eventually the desire to please Karna becomes so much that he also loses his moral bearings because of that.
Karna suffers from insecurity. Karna suffers from insecurity because he is not considered to be a Kshatriya. And that’s why when we are insecure internally then we are emotionally vulnerable.
And if anybody gives us security at that time if we are not accepted in a group which we want to belong to and then somebody grants us acceptance in that group then we feel extremely obliged to that person. So because of that what Karna did was he felt so obliged to Duryodhana that you have accepted me as a Kshatriya. That in order to gain further acceptance or to seal his belonging to that group of Kshatriyas he did whatever it took to please Duryodhana.
And thus again he lost his moral bearing. For him his gratitude towards Duryodhana for having given him the kingdom is fine. But you know gratitude cannot be seen as an unconditional indenture.
I am grateful to someone does not mean that I should do whatever they tell me to do for the rest of my life. So when Karna wanted to fight for Duryodhana and win for Duryodhana but when Duryodhana started adopting devious tactics ghasti tactics, at that time Karna could have stopped. But he did not.
So he represents a person who by the desire to please bad association gets overwhelmed by that. Last question. So I am just wondering in that Mahabharata there are two Mahadevas, Vibhishana and Siddhartha Krishna.
And then here Duryodhana is influenced by Shakuni. Okay. Okay.
Okay. Okay. So did Vidura and Bhishma who were pure devotees, Mahajanas try to influence Duryodhana? And did they give up at a particular point? And similarly should we try to influence those who are being influenced by Shakuni? Actually Vidura and Bhishma repeatedly they try to give good advice to Duryodhana.
Again and again at one particular time Bhishma says that I have cried myself hoarse trying to help you to see sense. But somehow he never sees. So basically there is before any message can be accepted by people, there has to be some basic level of trust.
Now people before we can actually benefit anyone they have to feel that we are their well-wishers. If people feel that we are there with some agenda then that’s they filter everything through that. And that getting that so although Bhishma and Vidura were the well-wishers of Duryodhana because Duryodhana was so blinded by his own desires that he just didn’t accept it.
He saw that you know they are not my well-wishers. They are on the other side of the compound of us. So we can try to give good advice and counsel to others but if some people are not ready to accept then that’s their choice.
We have limited influence over others. Ultimately the door to personal change can be open only from inside. Nobody can force anyone to change.
We can inspire but ultimately it’s up to them to change. So we can only provide people with three things. We can share the knowledge of what is what are the consequences of the various different courses of action.
We can share knowledge. We can create facilities so that this is good for you. This is how you can do it in your situation.
And third is we can set an example. So knowledge facility examples are three main ways in which you can influence others. But apart from that you can’t do anything.
So if somebody is influenced by wrong path then sometimes it’s just they have to learn their lessons. We try to give them advice but if they are not ready to take it then we just offer our prayers for them from a distance and we don’t shut down that relationship. So eventually if they become more receptive.
Life is like a school of hard knocks. When they get the consequences of what they are doing at that time after that they become more open and they may learn. Duryodhana was incorrigible.
He was irredeemable. But Vidura was not like that. Sorry Dhritarashtra was not like that.
And that’s why Vidura did not go over to the side of the Pandavas and fight from the Pandavas side. He just renounced the world. Because if Vidura had been a part of the team of the people who killed Dhritarashtra’s sons.
And Dhritarashtra would not have been able to hear from that person. Vidura just went to the forest and when Vidura came back at that time eventually he gave instructions to Dhritarashtra. And Dhritarashtra was ready at that time.
Then he had to give strong instructions. But Dhritarashtra couldn’t. Those instructions registered with him at that time.
So it’s not just if we are not able to influence others. It’s not Bhishma’s or Vidura’s deficiency that they couldn’t influence Dhritarashtra. Dhritarashtra was just blinded at that time.
So we shouldn’t see it as a personal failure if we can’t influence others positively. But if they are not ready to be influenced that doesn’t mean that we break the relationship with them. We have to make our stand cleared.
But after that we can keep the door open. Maybe sometime when their higher sense awakens they may connect with us. So thank you very much.
Shri Prabhupada Ki Gaur Bhaktivinda Ki Gaur Premande Nithyamol So today is Prabhu’s last class. Tomorrow probably not. Tomorrow morning Prabhu’s leaving.
Tomorrow evening Prabhu’s going to be in Gokul. morning class morning class