Comparing Ramayana and Mahabharata 1 – What caused the exiles
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Grateful to be here amongst all of you today they love to speak of their lordships and I'll speak in three parts today tomorrow morning and tomorrow evening on comparing Ramlila comparing broadly the Ramayana and the Mahabharata and we will discuss various themes within it the main theme I'll focus on is we'll compare the period of exile so what caused it how it developed and ultimately how it concluded one of the most universal and one of the most unsettling questions that human beings have had throughout history is why do bad things happen to good people at one level there are different philosophical explanations that can be given but many times truths are much better caught than taught that means that if you try to do this, don't do this that is teaching and that leads to some learning but if we see somebody living those truths then truth is much better caught by observing somebody doing something so the sacred texts of the dharmic traditions which is the Ramayana, the Mahabharata the Bhagavatam they address this question not so much by focussing on the philosophy philosophy is there but they focus on not so much on why do bad things happen to good people but what do good people do when bad things happen to them what do good people do when bad things happen to them and within this am I audible to everyone behind ok so the way they address this is by demonstrating how even great characters go through difficulties, go through bad times and generally when we think of bad times what does it mean basically we all have certain things which bring some comfort and some security and some strength to our lives and if those things are somehow taken away from us often that is what we consider as a bad time the most fundamental resources that we need for any comfort, security strength is health if our health is taken away this is a terrible time I am going through similarly if our wealth is taken away from us that's also a terrible time if the things that are important for us are taken away from us then that comprises a bad time basically if you look at the world, we are here the world is here now we could say there is some kind of balance between our position and the world's position say for example right now all of you are seated for hearing this talk so there is a certain amount of balance and comfort that you are seated in a particular reasonably comfortable position and although you do not specifically know what I am going to speak but there is a broad understanding that okay I will be speaking something spiritual, scriptural and maybe it will add some value to your life, that's why you are here so when things are in an orderly way that's when we can function normally but sometimes this balance is disturbed the balance between us and the rest of reality now that balance can be disturbed broadly in three ways and that is what is in the tradition called as the three glaciers which are the three glaciers? Adi Bhautik Adi Adhyatmik and Adi Dayavikya, thank you so now if you consider we are here, the rest of reality is here, now within the rest of reality there are conscious agents there are people and there are forces which to us can seem unconscious, say for example we don't see the consciousness directly at least, say for example if the weather becomes extremely cold and we are very sensitive to cold weather then again the comfort is disturbed so if we think in these two terms, these terms that the three glaciers, we are here, the rest of reality is here then the order of the balance between us and the rest of reality can this be fixed? I can hold it ok ok so this balance can be disturbed broadly in three ways one is some conscious agents do something which hurts us, that means some person does something that troubles us, that torments us sometimes they may do it intentionally this way it is going down like this I am not sure or otherwise can you just lower this however it might stay let it lower further and so on till then I will hold it you take this time when you are ready you are going to sure so when this balance I am talking about we are here and the rest of reality is here now this balance can be disturbed by some people around us, conscious agents that will be you could say which cliche? Adi Bhautik cliche then this balance can also be disturbed by forces which we don't see the consciousness, like say we might have particular plan to do something but somebody obstructs our plan that's Adi Bhautik but if the weather goes completely incriminated that is which cliche then? Adi Bhautik so the way we are interacting with the world, the way we are existing in the world, that can be disturbed in various ways and the third could be that Atmic when we say normally we talk about it as problems caused by the body and the mind it was like this should stay now we have been too long this is fine so now Atmic cliche we may talk about as by our own our own, sometimes we fall sick, sometimes our mind gets disturbed, but we could also talk about Adi Atmic cliche in terms of we ourselves sometimes do foolish things so things are going on well in our life but we make a terrible decision and then again the order can get disturbed so we are having a good relationship with someone and somehow we speak some words because of a slip of tongue or some momentary anger and they feel terribly hurt and then things become destabilised so basically whenever this sudden destabilisation of things happens at that time that's what we often call as a bad thing so if we look at the Mahabharata and the Ramayana I will talk about Krishna Leela you see in the Mahabharata Krishna's presence is there but he is not the prominent presence we will talk about that also in due course so there is order Ram is living in the kingdom the Pandavas are living in their kingdom there is an order Ram is about to be coronated with respect to Yudhishthir he is already coronated that is he has already done the Rajasuya Yagya and he is established not only as the ruler of his own world of his own kingdom he is not just a king he is like an emperor kings from various parts of the world have come and offered him tribute this is Rajasuya Yagya and then suddenly both of them are exiled so if we look at the cause of the exile it's an unbearably bad thing to happen relatively speaking say if we are supposed to get a good job and then somehow something happens and we lose that job that's painful but suppose we got a job in a big company at a big position and then suddenly we lose it so actually it's more painful we are anticipating to get something and we lose it it's painful but once we get something often we get more invested in it and losing it is even more difficult of course ultimately it's very difficult to compare grief because grief is something which is very personally felt and some event might seem from analytical perspective that this is more painful than this but from a personal, emotional, experiential perspective the pain in that sense when we have some back pain or when we have some chronic pain so what happens is pain is always new for the experiencer but it soon becomes old for the observer so if I have back pain and I feel like it's terrible it's intensity, it's pain, although we may have experienced the sensation before but still when it comes it's unbearable it's extremely painful, it can be excruciating, but if we tell somebody, oh I have back pain they may not say it you have it everyday, what's new so pain in that sense can't be quantified and that's why it's very difficult to compare pain but the point is that in this case, Yudhishthira was already established Ram was about to be established and then when the whole at one level both Ramayana and Mahabharata are intense family dramas most of the action happens within the family, of course whether you can call the Pandavas and Kauravas as one family the kind of animosity the Kauravas had towards the Pandavas, that's open to question but we'll come to that so now when the conspiracy happens the mind is such a tricky thing sometimes when something bad happens to us at that time if we have not done anything wrong and still that bad thing happens then the resentment becomes unbearable why did this have to happen to me and in Ram's case, there was absolutely no fault on his part his father desired and he was the eldest son so it was a natural proclamation that he would become the king and that he accepted he did not seek it he did not plot for it he did not pressurise his father for it, his father himself desired it but somehow that action was seen by Kaikeyi as a threat to her position and because of that especially she saw that as a threat because of Mantra every action that we do, right now I am speaking so all of you are hearing but based on your background based on your current experiences based on your knowledge each of you will take some different points from me so we may do one action but different people are affected differently by that action it said two eyes may share the same may see the same view but two minds take a different view the view physically is the same but the perception is very different and because of that Kaikeyi conspired and she just decided that I have to take things in my hands and she had Ram exiled to the forest for 14 years and she insisted that Bharat become the king now in contrast so this was of course traumatic but at the very least we could say all this the special you could say the betrayal that didn't happen in public that Kaikeyi told to Dashrath and Ram was called and actually Dashrath couldn't even speak those words that you have to go to the forest so then Kaikeyi only spoke those words and then of course the news came out but for the Pandavas it was even more traumatic because everything happened in public it's the betrayal in which first they were pressured into a gambling match and then one by one by one everything started being stolen away from them it was lost but the match itself was regular that's why it's called like stealing and eventually when Draupadi was attempted to be dishonoured that was like a final straw and then eventually they were exiled to the forest so Ram went to the forest and the Pandavas went to the forest now were the terms of the two exiles same or different the terms what are the terms in the Ramayana 14 years and in the Mahabharata any of the kids 13 years something more something special in that kids kids that's it so yeah anything more about 13 years yeah as I said one year incognito now why like this why the difference it's all based on context so Bharat the idea of Kaikeyi now Kaikeyi personally had nothing against Ram she did not hate Ram she had her own version of how she loved Bharat and she felt that Ram is coming in the way so Mantara told Kaikeyi that if Ram is in the kingdom she said she also anticipated she said if you want Bharat to become the king fine I accept that but don't send Ram only how has he hurt what harm has he ever done to you and how can he is my son I have as much duty to take care of him as Bharat how can I send him away so Mantara had manipulated Kaikeyi told her that if Ram is in the kingdom Bharat will never accept the kingdom and even if Bharat accepts the citizens of the courtiers will not accept so you have to send Ram and by 14 years Bharat will prove his competence and when he will win over the trust of the citizens of the courtiers then if Ram comes back he will not be a threat generally in the world whenever controversies break up they are breaking news we say so whenever controversies come up they are sensational and everybody starts talking about the controversies and especially people like to gossip what is gossip or when does gossip begin gossip begins when we hear something we like about someone we don't like we hear something we like about someone we don't like oh really ok everybody thinks person is such a good person now I know something now I will tell everyone about it so generally controversies start and these are getting broadcasted especially now with the internet available one rumour if somebody has it can just go across the world even before the person speaking the rumour has completed it also it can be a very dangerous age but still generally every controversy lasts till the next controversy comes up everybody is talking about something now but the world is something new comes up and once the gossip mills get something new to churn on they forget the old thing so all the injustice Vantara's feeling was that ok if Bharat establishes himself as the king then even if Ram comes back that will not be a threat so in a sense Kaikai had no agenda to cause pain to Ram per se she just wanted to get Ram out of the way so that her agenda of Bharat becoming the king could be fulfilled so in war this is called as collateral damage that means say army wants to bomb a particular weapon centre but then the civilians around them get wounded so in a sense Kaikai had nothing against Ram it was collateral damage that Ram had to go to the forest but in the case of the Pandavas and the Kauravas the Kauravas wanted to cause pain to the Pandavas the Kauravas very much especially Duryodhana wanted to humiliate and denigrate the Pandavas and the terms 12 plus 1 was arranged in a very cunning way the plan was that 12 years they will be in exile and that will be painful for them but one year incognito for celebrities like the Pandavas would be almost impossible and Duryodhana's plan was he was constantly having spies follow the Pandavas wherever they would go and especially in the 12th year he had spies constantly and he said within they will just not be able to disappear and if they are found during the incognito year what will happen again 12 plus 1 years he could have said that they will lose the kingdom forever but the point here is that actually they were if somebody is in constant misery they learn to accept it and live with it but there is misery and then there is hope of relief from misery and then again there is misery and then their hope is frustrated just like if somebody has a disease which is declared incurable then okay you just learn to live with the limitation caused by the disease but then somebody says that oh it can be cured and then you try to cure it oh no it doesn't work again you lose hope and again you are living with that and again somebody says it can be cured and again you lose hope so what happens by this is that it's much more painful at one level to be settled in misery is easier than to have hope of relief and then lose that hope so Duryodhana had a very sadistic plan sadism is a psychological perversion where somebody delights in causing pain to others say we are walking on a crowded road and we are running to do some urgent work and our footsteps on someone now that as soon as they realise it, oh I am sorry that's just incident but when somebody is sadistic, let's say they put a step on someone they deliberately raise their foot and bang it down to cause pain to that person so Duryodhana wanted to cause maximum pain to the Pandavas and that's why the system was 12 plus 1 and the first 13th day they will be detected and sent back and his plan was for the rest of their life he will do like that now when they went to the forest, it was that at one level both of them were victims, the Pandavas were victims, Rama was also a victim but in the case as I said sometimes if we are not to blame at all then we can feel very resentful to whoever caused that problem to us but our mind is so tricky that sometimes if we have played a role, if we have somehow contributed to our downfall then our mind can start beating us beating us, beating us, beating us so in the case of the Pandavas we could say at one level Yudhishthir committed a mistake it's complex the word mistake indicates it is like a multiple choice question which option is right and the other options are wrong in real life the choices are not that simple what is right and what is wrong, it's not that easy to decide but broadly speaking, this will be an undercurrent of my talks over the next three days do the characters themselves evolve that means when we go through life, we all are shaped we experience certain events and that causes certain changes in us so we all have a certain value system based on which we operate now whether that value system reflects real value or not, that is open to question in somebody's value system, money may be supreme value and for the sake of money they may betray their loved ones they may betray anyone so we all have values, but not just values we have a value system say for example, somebody okay, my bhakti is the top force in my value system, my family is second, my job is third, my other relatives are fourth, we may not have consciously articulated the value system like this, but we all have certain value systems and for people like Duryodhana, his value system was that he was a I specialist not I specialist I specialist I first, I only so he was concerned only about himself and his pleasure and was very self centred so we all have certain value systems to have values is important, but life is so complex that our values alone can't guide us we also need a system that is a hierarchy of values hierarchy of values means that okay say for example for me, my health may be important, but then my service is also important should I do my service at the cost of my health, or should I take care of my health and do my service later so here when we are talking about a value system, both things are important but which is more important so now in the case of Ram and the case of Yudhishthira, see their characters are in many ways similar Ram is very virtuous Yudhishthira is also very virtuous and both of them are Dharmic so broadly speaking there are two conceptions of ethics that there is there are categorical ethics and there are contextual ethics categorical ethics means that this is a category of wrong this is the category of right or in terms of earlier value systems this value is higher this value is lower and that is how it is final now contextual ethics is that yes there is a category of right and there is a category of wrong but it is not that black and white sometimes context will determine what is right and what is wrong suppose suppose now speaking truth or speaking lies now in the category speaking truth and speaking lies which one is right and which one is wrong it is obvious, speaking truth is right that is in the right category but suppose maybe there are some violent rioters racist or other biassed bigoted people they are chasing a friend of ours and friend comes and knocks on the door and we hide them in our basement somewhere those rioters come and knock on the door, is he here now what should we do with it should we speak the truth what do you think no see here what has happened speaking truth is a value protecting life is also a value so now what has happened over here there is a conflict between values then we need the right hierarchy of values the right hierarchy is protecting life is more important than speaking the truth that is how we will be able to save the person so if somebody operates in a categorical ethics their idea is that whatever happens I will speak the truth that is categorical ethics so we will see that the Pandavas and the Kauravas especially Ram and Vishnu both operate initially based on categorical ethics what is the categorical ethics that we should always obey our elders our elders are to be unquestionably obeyed all the time so when Ram comes to know that Dashrath wishes that I should go to the forest unquestioningly Lakshman opposes that Lakshman is so angry at the injustice and he says that the king he is so angry he doesn't even refer to Dashrath as his father or his respected one the king is blinded by desire for his for his youngest wife and that is why he is sending you away when a king is blinded by desire like this he doesn't deserve to be obeyed he has lost sense of his principles so Ram says no I was there and my father did not get the slightest pleasure in doing this he is doing this not because of infatuation but because of obligation what obligation he had given this word to Kaikeyi that I will honour two bones of yours and he says we have never heard of this where did this come about this is a story made by Kaikeyi no if my father is saying this it must be true she says you don't have to obey him he is blinded by desire so Ram says it is because of my father's desire that I was going to ascend the throne now if my father desires that I leave the kingdom I will do that so he had Ram had this for him the value is obedience to the word of the elders at all costs for Yudhishthir also it was the same value when Yudhishthir when the proposal for gambling came at that time Yudhishthir's first thought was if we gamble we will also fight so why do you want to gamble but Dhritarashtra had sent the Guru and now Yudhishthir honoured Dhritarashtra like a father figure and he treated him just like a father so he said I cannot disobey him and then again when he came there first thing he told Dhritarashtra why do you want to take away from me the wealth with which I am serving the Brahmans so Dhritarashtra just said I am not going to take any wealth we are just playing a game but they all knew where it was going to go so in this case in the case of Ram it was just his father told him to leave and he left but in the case of Dhritarashtra or in the case of Yudhishthir Dhritarashtra in a sense constrained him to do something which was disastrous so generally what happens is if we are just told to do something and we do it then the idea is that general idea would be that those who tell us to do something they take the responsibility for it so instruction is given by someone and then they are meant to take the responsibility if things go wrong but if they tell us to do something and then that is wrong and we do something wrong and then terrible things happen and then they blame us for that or they take the responsibility for that we get trapped by it so overall the level of complexity in the Mahabharata is much more one of the characteristics of Kalyuga is Upadrutaha Upadrutaha is the minds are disturbed and one reason the minds are disturbed is life is so complex so in the Ramayana times relatively speaking life is simple by the time of Mahabharata the ages are going further further down now we see that Krishna says sakalene namahata yogo nishtha parantapa by the power of time the dharma is lost now Krishna is telling about his times that means when he is talking about the Mahabharata Krishna is not saying the time of Mahabharata is the ideal dharmic time this is the time when dharma is lost and that is why I have come to restore the knowledge of dharma the point is that as complexity increases the potential for the mind to get agitated increases so generally the way we manage our lives is by having some structure in our life structure means what? ok morning you do this afternoon you do this, evening you do this when we have structure then for the mind the complexity goes down but if there is no structure then there is so much complexity it becomes overwhelming its suppose we have to send some message on our phone and then each time we have to send now our primary thing is just type the message and send it but each time when we have to send the message the phone starts asking ok what font do you want to use what font size do you want to use ok do you want to have it underlined or highlighted or do you want to have this now if you actually go to the font settings in a computer or a phone, there are so many settings now if we had to choose all of that at each time it would become crazy, we would not be able to do anything so what happens there is a structure, ok this is a template this is a font, this is a site, just send the message so for the mind to function there has to be some structure the lesser the structure the more becomes the complexity and the more the complexity, the more the mind can go wild the lesser the structure in our life, the greater the rupture the mind can cause in our life it's like if I wake up in the morning and whole day I have nothing planned to do then the mind will say ok let's just surf the internet a little bit let's look at facebook, let's look at love watch some video and then if we have nothing to do, we might spend 10 hours just doing that what did I do why did I waste so much time so what happens complexity means the structures become lesser and lesser or we have to navigate through so many structures that it becomes difficult so in the Mahabharata the complexity is much more so what happens over here both Ram and Yudhishthira have the same value system and we should always obey our elders but in this case Yudhishthira gets implicated into a wrong action and that wrong action snowballs up so eventually no one blames Ram for what happened to him there is some amount of satisfaction for the ego in playing victim oh you know life is so terrible this happened to me, that happened to me that happened to me so one person life is so terrible and other person comes life is so terrible so both of them are indulging in self pity and they together have a pity party but no one blamed Ram but in the case of Yudhishthira what happened even the Pandavas at one time Bhima got so angry in the gambling match itself Bhima told Arjuna these are the hands with which Yudhishthira gambled these are the hands with which he gambled Draupadi and because of which Draupadi is being humiliated Bhima said oh Arjuna bring fire I will burn these hands of Yudhishthira at that time Arjuna had to catch Bhima told him now he couldn't give any instruction to Bhima generally you have to present things in a way that makes sense to people so some people their idea is ok this is the right thing I tell you to do the right thing, do the right thing it doesn't work like that so what Arjuna does also he expresses Bhima is furious with Yudhishthira now if Arjuna gives the updesh, he is our elder brother we should obey him, we should respect him Bhima is not going to listen so what Arjuna does is oh brother now do not speak words that will increase the joy of Duryodhana and now Duryodhana is already decided to see the Pandavas misery and now if he sees the Pandavas are infighting among each other that will increase his joy and Bhima looks at Duryodhana and he somehow controls him the point here is that Yudhishthira got blamed for it now Yudhishthira might say that actually I was, how long you were obeying my orders but when we are responsible or when we are culpable for something some calamity coming upon us then our mind can attack us it can just devour us start beating us you fool why did you do that why did you do that so the mind is extremely dangerous what the mind does is first it makes us do wrong and after making us do wrong then it beats us up for doing wrong you fool why did you do that so at that time I started by talking about these three kleshas so Adhyatmik klesha means sometimes our mind starts beating us up you fool why did you do that why did you speak like that now it's important to take responsibility for our actions but to constantly feel guilty to start beating oneself up that is not of no use because ultimately we are our only resource we are our only resource if we have to rise it is we who have to raise ourselves others can help us but it is we who have to raise ourselves so the difference between taking responsibility and blaming ourselves whether it is telling others or ourselves taking responsibility means ok this was a situation and I did something wrong and it is terrible I should not have done it but I did it that's taking responsibility but blaming ourselves is a constantly beating ourselves why did I do that why did I do that so taking responsibility can be empowering ok I did it wrong now I will do the right thing but blaming ourselves can be disempowering because we just keep beating ourselves up so in the forest actually Yudhishthira at one time Draupadi was so angry with Yudhishthira all the Pandavas are terribly hurt incredibly angered because of the way they have been treated in exile but among them Draupadi and Bhima feel the pain the most Draupadi because she was humiliated or at least she attempted to be humiliated and Bhima because he felt Bhima was so powerful and especially when somebody powerful is put in a situation of powerlessness it's extremely painful for them say in India almost everyone loves cricket so if Indian cricket team starts losing then everybody feels very bad but suppose India has a star cricketer and he just before a very important match gets injured and because he is not playing the team is losing so he can play but he can't play then he will feel that pain much more than everyone else so similarly for Bhima everything is happening and he has the strength to pound Duryodhana to death he has the strength to pound Dushyasan to death and he is left in a powerless condition it's extremely painful so at one time Draupadi just lashes out against against Yudhishthir so the Ramayana is much more hierarchical like I said earlier almost uncritical obedience to elders in the Mahabharata also hierarchy is there but the hierarchies are challenged they are not rejected but they are challenged so Sita almost never questions Ram about anything and she said never she never explores against Ram but Draupadi is a different character she she gets angry and when she gets angry she says how could your camp be like this and there is an entire chapter in the Mahabharata where actually Yudhishthir gives moral instructions what right does he have to give moral instructions he is himself the cause of all the distress but then Yudhishthir explains he says that I was I was obeying my elders and then he admits that actually once we started gambling I got carried away and I got caught in the frenzy of the gambling and actually during the gambling Arjuna signalled to Yudhishthir stop now but Yudhishthir just dazed Yudhishthir was thinking that I have lost everything how will I take care of my brothers how will I take care of my wives I will play one more and I will regain things so he said I got caught so he does not blame Dhritarashtra it was Dhritarashtra's instruction to gamble but Dhritarashtra was not that you gamble everything but when the gambling frenzy took over he just went everything everything they lost everything so in terms of sometimes problems can come upon us because somebody else is out to hurt us sometimes problems come upon us that somebody is out to hurt us and we also do things which hurt us further or we do things which make it easy for them to hurt us and then at that time it can be extremely painful what do I do so while this is happening while such a thing is happening it is important that now how can Yudhishthir maintain his composure now how can Yudhishthir he he didn't give instructions actually if you see that he says that and then he says he gives moral philosophical instruction and he says that actually things happen by destiny and ultimately we are just puppets in the hands of destiny he gives a lot of instructions I won't go into all the instructions but the point is although Draupadi is angry with Yudhishthir Draupadi doesn't condemn Yudhishthir to be an immoral person or an irresponsible person why is that because she knows his heart I'll conclude with one difference which I'll explore in tomorrow's class further as we discuss the incidents in the Mahabharata but the point is that I talked about this categorical ethics and there is contextual ethics so categorical this is right and that is wrong contextual is yes this is right and this is wrong but sometimes in context things may be changed going back to the earlier example of always speak the truth now imagine if somebody takes this absolutely literally if the Pandavas take it literally now the Pandavas have to stay in incognito exile and if in the incognito exile somebody asks them who are you and they say I am Yudhishthir that will just not work so there although speaking truth is important but the very term of the exile is such that you can't speak truth so if you live with categorical ethics you just can't function when we have the idea of categorical ethics that doesn't mean I am not saying that there are no categories there are definitely categories of right and wrong and it's important to respect these categories but those who live with categorical ethics they think that more or less that life is like a living life successfully is like cracking a computer code once you get this code just run according to code the whole machine will work perfectly but life is too complex and so categories first it's very important to understand right and wrong this is the category of right and this is the category of wrong if you don't understand that at all then you will stay in perpetual confusion but after understanding right and wrong then you have to understand that it's not just so simple sometimes what is right may not be wrong in particular context and what is wrong may be right so what happens is that by the time the Mahabharata war time comes up Yudhisthira evolves from categorical ethics to contextual ethics and I will talk about this evolution in a future class but when this evolution is happening from categorical ethics this is right this is wrong let's look at consequences let's look at context then we will decide what is right and wrong so there is this differentiation which needs to be carefully understood and the ethics basically are guide books for how to act but they are not just guide books that do this, don't do this that sort of guide book may be useful for working with machines but for working with conscious beings it's not so much a rule book as a compass that we need a rule book is do this, don't do this a compass is ok this is the direction in which you are meant to go now in this situation what is the best way to go in this direction? like when we are going in traffic this is the path I have to go this path normally would take you 25 minutes but today we travel it will take you 45 minutes so another path takes you 35 minutes it normally would avoid but today it might be lesser so if you have a compass then we can choose the path so what we need to learn from scripture is more of developing this compass and in the Ramayana Ram is exiled and he goes to the forest and he is stoic about it he doesn't complain about it, in fact those who are complaining Lakshman is complaining Ram calms him down when the Pandavas go to the forest everyone of them is furious everyone of them is swinging their weapons in anger and they are waiting for 13 years to be over and they are all angry with the Kauravas to come and to hit them back for the humiliation that they have caused when Ram goes to the forest there is agony but there is not that much anger when the Pandavas go to the forest there is not just agony there is anger because in this case as I said in the case of Ram Kaikeyi intentionally wanted to cause harm to him but in this case the Kauravas deliberately wanted to cause harm to him and sometimes injustice happens in the world but sometimes the injustice is incidental and sometimes the injustice is intentional Injustice is incidental means say some people have some homes at a particular place and say the road has to expand or the railway has to expand then those people's homes are taken up and maybe they don't get any compensation it's bad but it's not that the government is out to destroy those people it's incidental that happens but suppose the government is say racist or religiously fanatical or whatever and they deliberately want to disrupt and destroy a community and then they attack and then they destroy that is injustice but it is intentional injustice not incidental the Pandavas are subjected to intentional injustice and that causes far greater resentment and anger and in tomorrow's morning session we will discuss how Ram and the Pandavas process this exile while they are in the forest we won't go so much into all the dramatic actions the fights and all that that may be part of it but the most important thing will be how they internally process it and how we can also learn from that how we process the difficulties in our own lives so I will summarise what I spoke today I spoke on this theme of how we compare the exiles in the Ramayana and in the Mahabharata and within that I talked about both the epics they focus not so much on the question of why bad things happen to good people but what do good people do when bad things happen to them life truths life lessons are better caught than taught and in the case of Ramayana Ram was about to be enthroned as the Prince Regent and the King whereas Yudhishthira was already enthroned not just as a King but as the Emperor of the world so we could say comparatively there is a far greater pain after having achieved something to lose it rather than to lose it before you achieve it but then pain is not quantifiable so it's painful for whoever goes through it and let me elaborately talk about that when some bad thing happens to us broadly speaking we are here the rest of reality is here and there is some balance and bad thing happens means the balance is disturbed whatever things we need for living with comfort, with safety, with strength they are suddenly disrupted so that can happen either through conscious agents in the outside world that's Adi Daivik Klesh through agents whose consciousness we can't see like natural disturbances, that's Adi Daivik Klesh and through our own mistakes then it's Adi Atmik Klesh so Adi Daivik, we just understand you're helpless, it's relatively easier to accept Adi Bhautik causes resentment, why is this person doing this to me? but Adi Atmik when it's because of our own mistakes then it's not just anger against others, it's anger against oneself it can be the most difficult to process so in the case of Ram, the sentence of exile was straightforward, 14 years and Ram being sent to the forest was more like collateral damage neither Mantaran or KK wanted to harm Ram per se, they just wanted him to get out of the way but in the case of the Kauravas they wanted to cause as much pain to the Pandavas as possible and that's why the idea of 12 plus 1 and the 1 year of incognito exile will surely be found and then again they would have to go so not just constant misery but misery with hope of relief and again misery again hope of relief, again misery that way the misery can be maximised so now we all act according to certain values which we may or may not have articulated so the values we talked about is with respect to values there can be categorical ethics where this is right and this is wrong or there can be contextual ethics yes this is right and wrong but let's look at the context so with respect to Ramayana and Mahabharata, one value which they all follow is submission to elders and that's why Ram uncritically accepts going to the forest and Yudhishthir also agrees to play the gambling match but while he is doing this Ram is just like he is sent to the forest, it's not that he does anything wrong so nobody blames him whereas Yudhishthir, he is made to do something which then snowballs into something where he ends up getting blamed so we all need to take responsibility for our actions but there is not much use in blaming ourselves taking responsibility is empowering I did wrong, I won't repeat it blaming ourselves is constantly bidding us, why did I do that and that is disempowering ultimately even if we have committed any mistakes we are our only resource to correct the mistakes also and if we beat ourselves up, we won't be able to continue so Yudhishthir although it's a grievous mistake and he admits that I got carried away by gambling but he regains his composure and he is able to give instructions to even Draupadi by which he calms down I talked about how in the Mahabharata the complexity is much more and complexity often can cause agitation to the mind complexity means there is no clear navigable structure and the lesser the structure in our life, the greater the rupture the mind can cause so because of the Mahabharata's complexity what is right and wrong can become much more difficult to discern but both of them go to the forest Ram goes everybody is in agony but Ram goes peacefully the Pandavas go furiously and how they process the time of exile, we'll discuss in tomorrow's session are there any questions or comments was Yudhishthir also as angry as the rest of the Pandavas or was Yudhishthir also as angry as the rest of the Pandavas you said like there was a lot of agony as well yes definitely Yudhishthir was also it's natural to feel anger but it was not as vehement Bhima's anger was very very obvious he was Yudhishthir's anger was more restrained we all have natures and we all express our anger also according to our natures so there is definitely anger in the in the Mahabharata there is a description of how Vidura tells Dhritarashtra that all the Pandavas are going building their weapons and Dhritarashtra gets agitated what is going to happen to my sons so at that time he is describing Yudhishthir is angry but his anger is not as explicit as Bhima's any other questions yes please someone is talking about complexity sometimes it seems like working in a corporate environment working in a corporate environment too much structure leads to complexity how do we understand the necessary structure ok it's a good question sometimes too much structure can also lead to complexity yeah it's like if say you have to do one thing you have to get sanctioned from 10 different people then it just becomes too messy this is a important question we all need some kind of structure in life this is a whole big subject I'll just try to make it as simple as possible to understand you know in politics we use the word right wing and left wing or right and left so basically the idea is that the right are conservative the left are liberal and the idea within the right is that there are structures in society and these structures have evolved and developed after centuries and centuries of thought and we need to be careful to preserve the structures whereas the left feels these structures are oppressive and just bring down the structures so that everybody can have equality so now who is right again it depends on context at one level structures is necessary because not everybody is equal in their competence say suppose after this programme we had to cook food now if we say let everybody have equal right to cooking the food well equality is fine but if somebody is better at cooking than others then let them take the lead if we form a hierarchy within the team if that hierarchy is based on competence then that hierarchy benefits everyone if somebody knows what they are doing and they direct everyone else everybody will get good food so structure for doing anything significant anything worthwhile structures are helpful but the structure needs to be based on competence just like traditionally varanashram was based on competence the brahmanas were at the top because society was overall structured for spiritual growth and the brahmanas were more serious about spiritual growth they were spiritually advanced and they were serious about personal spiritual advancement so it was based on competence but then the brahmanas forgot about spiritual advancement and they started claiming material privilege because of their high worth then what happened the same structure which was supposed to be based on competence became based on oppression and then that structure needs to be needs to be modified or replaced so basically structure brings order to life but sometimes the structure becomes distorted and every hierarchy tends to tyranny that's just the nature of human psychology when you get power it's easy to abuse power so every hierarchy tends towards tyranny so the right always is emphasising the importance of structures and the left always emphasises the plight of the underprivileged the plight of those who are oppressed by the structure so for example any feminist movement has become very strong oh men were exploiting women for so long and now women are going to assert their rights yes it has happened that there were women who were abused by some abusive men maybe many but still the point is that it is not that throughout history men were abusing women life is tough and man and woman were cooperating in the best possible way to deal with the tough difficulties that life brings on them the difficulties that life brings on them but if we just reject the structure then what happens? society becomes destabilised now one of the biggest problems is that now we have single parent families or people just don't have children and lot of problems come up when you just reject structure so to make a long answer short now we know that structures are important but sometimes the structures can become overbearing if they are based not on competence but simply on domination so if that is happening then the structures do need to be modified what is required is modification of the structure not rejection of the structure so similarly for us also to do things in life structures can sometimes give a pathway this is how we should do things but sometimes the structure can just obstruct the path and then things need to be changed accordingly does that answer your question? any other questions? yes so when we are going to the pain not because of your own mistake but because of the situation how do we process that? do we think that because of our karma or how do we ok yeah I was going to answer this question tomorrow but I will answer it briefly are there any other questions? is it ok I will answer it tomorrow then yes so in this lecture as a grafta what should I apply in my life ok as a grafta what should I apply for today's class so how do we apply the principles in day to day life today yeah it's broadly as I said it's more a developing of a compass rather than getting a set of rules so like we might have I talked about categorical ethics we might have this is what I have to do this is how things are but sometimes our experience might tell us that categorical ethics do not work I may have to look at context so basically for some of us for many of us complexity has definitely increased life is life was much simpler when apple was just a fruit laughing laughing laughing so now we are dealing with so many complex situations but broadly if you understand that there is first there are no easy answers we have to develop our compass and then study scripture this is the scripture and the philosophy and this is our reality so we need to understand scripture carefully we need to understand our reality carefully and then we have to see how best to apply so as I said that how good people respond that's what we focus on so the Pandavas neither Pandavas nor Ram became violent immediately the Pandavas they suffered a lot but they tried their best although they were angry they tried their best to resolve things in an amicable way I would say the most important lesson that we can learn is that we are not alone in our suffering distress is democratic laughing laughing distress is democratic it comes upon everyone even people who are far more virtuous than us even they have to suffer so that itself recognising that everybody is going through difficulties that to make sure that our mind doesn't compound our misery the way the mind works is the mind gets us alone and then gets us so it makes us think nobody is suffering like the way you are suffering and for nobody life is unfair the way it is for you nobody has been victimised the way you have been victimised okay it may feel like that but there are so many people far greater people than us that's why people avoid that self pity and self resentment that comes because of that and then we can try to our whole purpose of this talk is to understand how do good people respond so one thing we can say is that even if they have not done anything wrong or even if they have done a small thing wrong a terrible wrong I think happens because of that they don't become violent they don't become they don't become vindictive they don't collapse under self loathing they are able to be resilient this is what resilience is a very strong very important virtue in life see we can't always be consistent but we can always be resilient consistency means the way we are functioning that's the way we always function but it's very difficult life has its torrents so consistency means steadiness at the same level but resilience means even if you are knocked down we bounce back so for Yudhishthir there was a lapse a grievous lapse it was a lapse of judgement which had serious and devastating consequences but we see Yudhishthir's resilience by which he bounces back and he again comes back to his dharmic nature said resilience is also something we can learn broadly speaking how we can further develop that compass that we will discuss in future sessions thank you yes Ram you mentioned that during the time of Ramayana because Dharma was stronger so Rama could afford to be following more of categorical practises as opposed to let's say during Mahabharata when Dharma was taken Yudhishthir ideally would have been more contextual rather than being too categorical and now as the other Prabhu Vasa mentioned today's time life is getting more complex, there is no Dharma in general so is it fair to say as the Dharma in general or let's say the complexity increases we should follow more contextual value system rather than categorical ok so as life becomes more complex, Dharma goes down do we need to follow more contextual value system than categorical yes and no yes in the sense that or no no in the sense that the categories still remain and we need education in the categories some people even say that actually there is no such thing as right or wrong there is what is called as ethical moral relativism moral relativism is the idea that what you feel is right is right for you, what I feel is right is right for you so I was speaking at Intel in I think in Bay Area so after this somebody asked this question ultimately it's all relative right and wrong so then I asked them that are is there anything in the world right now that is being done by someone that you feel is wrong of course there are terrorists who are killing innocent people, there are sexual predators who are abusing children and so many things do those people think they are doing wrong jihadis they believe that they are actually doing the will of god when we practise whatever we practise in the name of our faith that is we are meant to become spiritual fruits but some people become religious nuts laughing so now they actually believe that it is right thing so now what is wrong, they are killing innocent people but they don't think so that means that irrespective of somebody's thinking there are things which are right and there are things which are wrong so we can, today's idea is that we go so much toward moral relativism that all moral categories are just constructed by some people but it is not like that there are moral absolutes also now specifically what is a moral absolute and what is not a moral absolute that is something which we may discuss but it is important to recognise the categories we can't just casually dismiss the categories recognise the categories and we also recognise the context we also recognise the context that means that we have to see this person is here what is a step forward for them in their context so Prabhupada Prabhupada was with Ambarish Prabhu Alfred Ford he said Prabhupada asked him are you preaching to your people in your social circle he said yes so how was it he said Prabhupada when I tell them about the four regulatory principles they don't like it then don't tell them about it I said what do you mean don't tell them about it basically if that is going to take them away from Krishna then we have to tell them something which will attract in any area of area where we are sharing something suppose Apple comes up with a new phone what is it Apple 11 or what is it now 11 pro so Apple 11 pro comes up now imagine if there is any promotion will that promotion begin with the price no it will say oh this fast this much memory this feature this feature this feature and after you see all the features finally what happens seeing the features creates the desire and then after that ok the price maybe it's worth it so in any time if we want somebody to buy we don't tell them the price we tell them the features so similarly with respect to us we have to be contextual in the sense that if this person is here what is the way that they can come closer to Krishna all that we have to see we can't just think of sharing anything with anyone or acting in our lives without considering context we don't undermine categorical categories, moral categories at the same time we also give due role to the due importance to the context so thank you very much prabhupada ki daura bhakta vrindaki daura vrindaki thank you very much for coming today.