Mahabharata wisdom 1 How life was unfair to everyone Pandavas Kauravas Karna Chaitanya Charan

This is an AI-generated transcript and it might not be fully accurate:

Hare Krishna. So I’m grateful to be here with all of you today after several years. I have very fond memories of last time when I had come to Mahari I had spoken on the mind in Aya Gita. I done a series of talks. So here I’m going to speak on the Mahabharat and broadly there’s one theme I’ll be discussing over the various sessions. that we will be having and that is the theme of dharma. Every book has its own driving question. Generally if you have come attend a class they want to know what is the topic of the class. And some speakers are very organized they stick to the topic. Some speakers they start with the topic then they go in different directions. Similarly if a book is well structured it sticks to the topic. So if we consider the Bhagwat Shrimit Bhagwatam what is its driving question what is what is the purpose of human life? Yes that is one of the question that is answered there but specifically from the context what is the urgent question that starts the Bhagwatam sha the is spoken between whom and whom? Parish Maharaj and Shugde Gow Swami. And what is the challenge Parish Maharaj is facing? He’s about to die. Yeah. And then the question over there is what should a person who is what is the duty of a person about to die? And then it says that become absorbed in hearing about the Lord with one one-pointed mind. become absorbed in hearing remembering. So we can say that there is dharma at death. Now at one level we can say that we are all near death. No one knows when we are going to die. At the same time we also have to prepare for life. You know every day is a One devotey asked me this question. He he heard a class where it said that every day we should think that today is going to be my last day of my life and that will make us serious in our bakti and this that is true what he said a if I think today is the last day of my life I’ll think why should I go for my office let me stay in the temple only or let me go to reindavan let me constantly chant what will motivate me to do anything else now the thing is we have to normally we prepare for one contingency that okay I’ll live for 10 years years I I will 20 years 50 years when I grow old who will take care of me will I have enough funds will I have enough for my children so in many ways we prepare for life h we don’t prepare so much for death so the bhagatam’s focus is prepare for death that dharma of a person about to die now the if you consider the journey of life you say this is if this is birth and this is death then if somebody is here what is the dharma at that time that is the focus of the bhagwatam now this doesn’t mean that it’s not important for us because we don’t know whether we are near that but the nahabharat its focus is that when somebody has to face life at that time while going through life what is dharma so yudishtar is going to become a king and while trying to become a king or while trying to protect his own life he faces many dangers. So dharma here at at one level simply it means the right thing to do. The whole mahabharat is a search for what is the right thing to do and we face many of life’s challenges you know we have our families we have careers we live in particular countries we have social challenges and at one level We learn how to practice bacti, how to remember Krishna, how to uh come do sadhana. That’s important. At the same time, our shastras also give us wisdom about how to face life’s challenges. One is how to turn towards Krishna while going through life. The other is having turned toward Krishna, how to go through life. So both of these are important. So we will draw principles from the Bhagwatam also while we are discussing But we’ll focus on this theme of how can scriptural wisdom help us to face life’s challenges. And I’ll be explaining whatever we discuss it’ll be you know any person’s life story can be conveyed through four C’s and this can apply to us. So this is a framework I’ll keep coming back to and we’ll apply this to the characters in the Mahabharat. What are those four C’s? The first is that we are constantly making choices and the choices have consequences. Mhm. So if we consider any say you know cricket is very popular among Indians. So if we consider in the cricket match a batsman may make a choice tries to hit a big shot and that shot comes out successfully. Everybody praises that shot comes out unsuccessfully and that’s one gets clean bold. Why did you have to be the short right now? Why were you so shortsighted? Why were you so foolish? So the choice has a consequence. So if we consider some choices are very important because they have big consequences. Some choices have small consequence. In our own lives we can say that maybe we decided to take this job and not that job. Maybe we decided to move from this country to that country. Stay at this place or that place. is each of each choice has a consequence. So at one level any person’s life if you want to understand we can look at what choices they made and what were the consequences they faced. However this does not describe the story completely because choices happen under some conditions. Nobody is completely free. to make choices. We are all constrained, limited by certain conditions. So say if somebody is staying close to devotees and they get a job which is far away from devotey association and they take that job that’s a choice. The consequence would be that maybe their bacti becomes much more difficult. They can’t get association of devotees. Now why did they take the choice? Maybe you know they had some urgent financial require retirement and that job offered them much better money. So that was a condition. So choices happen under certain conditions. So conditions are external. But choices happen also because of conditionings and conditionings are internal. So basically when we make a particular choice there There’s a external pressure that is created by the conditions and there’s a internal push that is created by conditionings and within these four factors you know our entire life story goes on within certain conditions and having certain conditionings we make certain choices and those lead to certain consequences so we will look at I’m not going to do a full overview of the story of the Mahabharat I am going to focus on some key choice points h some key choice points and how the characters acted in those choice points and what were the consequences and what are the conditions and the conditionings. So by that we will try to learn some life lessons for us. Now we may not exactly face the same choices. We may not have the same conditions and the same conditionings but broadly life brings us to similar choices. And in one sense this framework it makes scripture relatable. So for example in the Mahabharat in the Rama and in the Bhagam we often hear of characters who may have some extraordinary abilities that say now Bhimma was so powerful that he could actually pick up elephants and throw them away. Arjuna was so such a great archer that even in the dark just Just by hearing sound he could shoot arrows. In today’s world even people who are very good at shooting with guns called snipers when for them also to shoot based on sound is not so easy. So so some people they may have some extraordinary abilities. Some people may have mystical powers like say Hanuman had the capacity to fly leap and almost like fly. Raan had 10 heads. So there are some characters who may have some extraordinary powers also. But the fact is no matter how much power someone has, they still have conditions and conditionings. So if we focus only on how they are different, oh they have so many abilities, they have so many resources, they have so many gifts, blessings, then we may feel less this is so different. So if we consider we are right now in 2025 almost 2026 and say the Mahabharat happened around 3,000 ABC approximately. So at that time the culture was somewhat different, the technology was different, the world view was also different. But these four principles, these four C’s hold true there and they hold true here also. Right? We make choices and there are consequences and our choices happen under certain conditions and certain conditionings. So with this Let’s begin with the beginning. Beginning means we’ll look at this first session. We’ll talk about the childhood. Childhood of the pandas, childhood of the kowavas and we also talk about the childhood of karna briefly. So basically we will be having these three character charts. We’ll be discussing the pandavas. In the pandawas we’ll focus primarily on yudisht but along with that bhim and arjuno will be also discussing. Now the kowavas We’ll focus on duryodhan primarily and we’ll also discuss a little bit about dutarashtra and others and then we’ll be discussing about kara. So the first point that when we begin our life journey this is birth this is death. So when we begin our life journey one of the first truths that come to to us that registers to us right from the very beginning itself is that life is unfair. Unfair means that at one level it’s unequal. Some people are born wealthier families than others. Some people just have very high IQs. Some people just they look so attractive. Some people have such a gifted voice. So everybody has some things which are better than others and everybody has some things which are worse than others. So life is unfair and now we can go into philosophy and we will discuss about philosophy but the point is life is unfair for everyone and how we deal with life’s unfair fairness that is the single biggest choice that we will all have to make in our life. H so when we face that the fact that life is unfair now we can either go upward from there or we can go downwards. So what is going upward and what is going downward mean? So and going upward means that first is tolerance except that yes it is unfair and we need to come to terms with it. Tolerance does not mean passivity. We’ll discuss what tolerance means. Now instead of tolerance somebody can go towards I’ll use some words a little different but these are difficult but these are words that rhyme over here that’s why I’m using vengeance. Vengeance means badalina. Why is life unfair like this? And I’ll fight against it. I’ll destroy the whole system now. Now from tolerance as I tolerance is not passivity. From there we can go to transcendence. Transcendence means we rise above those situations. We some of the most inspiring stories in human society or human history at large are stories of people who came from very difficult circumstances. Maybe they born very poor family or there’s no educational support available for them and still they rose and made something worthwhile even wonderful from their lives. So I’m using transcend in that sense we rise beyond our situations. Now vengeance is where whoever we think we have they have hurt us we want to hurt and destroy those people. Now from now vengeance is more specific now this person did this to me therefore I’ll do this to this person. But from there some people can go towards the word is malvolence. Malvolence means you just become hateful. towards everyone hate life in general. Oh, the whole world is a rotten place. The whole world should be destroyed. So this becomes very generic. I generally spend almost 6 to 8 months a year outside India traveling. So I spent about 3 months 3 to four months in America. Once I was doing a college program and at that time I didn’t have this uh tablet facility. So there was a whiteboard And I was writing on that and I wrote something. While I was writing I heard some bell kind of some some sound. I I neglected continued writing and I turned around and the whole session class was empty and what happened? Where did people go? So I wondered was the class so scary that people left like that. And then I I heard some whispering sounds and I noticed that and the organizer would be sitting on the right side. He had ducked under the desk. The classrooms are their desks and I looked at everyone and he saw everybody had gone under the desk and then he whispered to me. He said that that sound that sound is a alarm that there is a gunman inside the premises. He said that you also duck under the table. I said really? Okay. So somehow I got under the table and I was I was wondering how long should I wait and then I was waiting and then suddenly we heard a knock on the door and I thought what a polite gunman and then a person in security uniform poked his head and said relax guys that was just a practice drill. So now what happens is that this is a unfortunately a significant fear that sometimes people with guns just come in and they just go random while shooting. So now there are many reasons why people may do this but one reason is that many of these children they come from broken families and this feeling that life has been unfair to me. No I didn’t have a father or I didn’t have a parent this I didn’t have good opport education opportunities this went wrong that went wrong that that resentment that hate that gets filled so much they just destroy everyone. So that way we can go down a very dark track. So now if we look broadly speaking we’ll see how the pandas went upwards and the kowavas went downwards and we’ll see where karna went and how we went in that direction. If you look at the unfairness of life now duryodhan could said that life is unfair. Why? Why did my father have to be blind? My father was the elder brother and if he had not been blind, he could have been the king and if he had been the king, I would have been the king. Isn’t it? Now he could have blamed further. It is said that when uh the thrashtra’s mother when she was uniting, she was scared by seeing Gasadv and she closed her eyes. And that’s one reason not the only reason that because of because she closed her eyes at that time. Uh that’s why the thrashtra turned out to be blind. He says why did she have to do that? So now he was born in royalty and he expected that he should be the king and he was not. So the fact that he his father was blind and that’s why he did not have an undisputed claim to the kingdom he could say that’s that’s life is unfair. Now for karana also life was unfair. The unfairness of if we consider the starting point the unfairness of life the starting point we can say it’s maximum to minimum if you consider the range it’s most visible for karna how was life unfair to karna his mother abandoned him count because he was born before her wedding so she couldn’t keep him and then he was born again a chhatria but he grew up as a suta. So he did not get the privilege the honor the facility of being a chhatria and that his the unfairness for him is very evident at one level. Now it was unfair for him we discussed how it is unfair for duryodan also. Now if we consider for the pandas how was life unfair to them? At one level Pandu had already become the king and when Pandu was alive there’s not much mention that Dutarashtra was very aggressively envious of him. No Pandu was very respectful to his elder brother and overall they lived in harmony. But when Pandu decided to retire from the world his mind moved towards spiritual pursuits and he went then his wives also went with him and there they had children. So now when Pandu went to the forest that’s the time Darashtra got the opportunity to sit on the throne. Now he was not doing much of the work. Bishma was taking care of the military expeditions and Vidura was taking care of the administrative part. So he did not have much work to do but still he got the opportunity to sit on the throne and slowly he started getting used to it. H See if we keep getting something even if we don’t deserve it, even if you not earned it, then slowly we get attached to it. So now Pandu went to the forest. If Pandu had not gone to the forest then again the succession would have been very clear. Pandu was the king and then his son would become the next king. But Pandu went to the forest and because of a curse it was uh it was presumed that he might not be able to have any children at all. And that’s how when Duryodhan grew up know they knew that Pandu had had a son but Pandua had no plan of coming back from the forest. So whether his sons would come back from the forest whether they would claim the kingdom none of that was known. So what happened? Duryodhan grew up thinking that I will become the next king. On one side he knew that the his claim was not clear but at least he was there right? The pandawas were not there in the kingdom. So now you the He could have the pandos could have said that Yudisha and other pandos why did our our father have to renounce the kingdom at all and then life was unfair to them in the sense that their father passed away. Now you could have blamed his father also. You knew there was a curse and still you played with fire. Couldn’t you resist the temptation? Couldn’t you have been careful? You left us as orphans. So there’s no No evidence that no mention anywhere that he was resentful towards his father. It is a tragic thing that happened. But the point was now both of them. So Yudishtir had no father and Duryodhan had a blind father. So neither of them is an ideal situation to be in. So at one level life was unfair to both of them. Now generally in royal households or any any household but in the especially royal households especially there’s a lot of concern for the king and the queen that who will be the successor and that’s why they want to have what is called an heir. So heir is the the child who will gain who will take up the responsibility take up the uh king kingship thereafter. Now if the parent if the king and queen have no child then they are very worried that they should have an heir. Now once they have an heir If that’s the only child, they are still worried. What if something happens to this child? Therefore, after they have a air, then they want a spare. Now, the spare situation is not a very pleasant situation. Normally, no sibling will want anything bad to happen to their sibling. But the spare is not going to become the king unless something happens to the air. So what happened was Duryod then in some ways grew up thinking that I am the heir. Now actually he was never undisputed air. The bandishra was older to him but because he was not there so he grew up everybody was paying respects to him and he was the center of attention and then the pandas came back. They came came back amid tragedy but they came back and then what happened was when Yudishi so Duryodhan was here and then when Yudishir came back multiple things happened that see in any family if it could be joined family extended family whatever if if some new child comes then there is that curiosity just out of the newness you want to pay more attention oh who is this child how does the child behave what is the nature of the child want to know more and more. So, so previously when you when Duryodhan would come into a room everybody pay attention to him but now if Duryodan Yudish came to the room the attention would go to Yudishtra and he started feeling pee what’s going on over here so there was that curiosity factor out of newness but there was not just the curiosity factor there was also the factor of culture culture in the sense that culture or conduct we can can say that Duryodhan had grown up with a bit of an entitlement mentality. He had lived in the palace. So there were always servants at his beck and call. The bandas had lived in a forest. There were no servants over there. To the contrary, there were sages and the idea is we should respect and serve the sages. So the pandas were and especially Hudisha among them was especially very polite, respectful well behaved. So you know in general if there’s a new child in a family or a there there’s curiosity about that but then on top of that if child is sweet and well behaved then it’s so much more isn’t it and beyond that what happened was there’s also some confusion confusion is who is the successor because Yudhishtar was older than Duryodan although Durashtra had been older than Pando. So now Therefore many people they started feeling okay in the past we had given so much attention to duryodhan let’s give attention to yudishtra maybe it was conscious is unconscious but duryodhan here started feeling what’s happening over here and duryodhan had also been a bit of a bully he had been the strongest among all his brothers and whenever he would wrestle he would beat all of them up and when Bhima came you know They were wrestling and Bimma just picked Duryod and threw him into the water. Uh Bhima had no bad intention. It was just that he had his power and he was playing. But nobody had dared do anything like this to Duryodhan. And it is one thing that Udish was stealing the attention. But the very thing that Duryodhan was proud of his strength that just couldn’t bear it. How can somebody be stronger than me? So at one level for everyone in life there is a time when we will feel insecurity. So I was talking about this downward journey. So from insecurity can come envy and from envy it can go down to enmity. It doesn’t have to So now to whatever extent if you observe Duryodhan’s feeling of insecurity is understandable. Anybody in that situation would feel insecure in any any home also. If there’s one child and then the next child is born naturally parents attention shift to the second child and the first child may feel you know have a parents pay attention to me at all or not be a little insecurity. Now the way in a normal family this is addressed is by encouraging the older child to also take responsibility for the younger child not that we are neglecting you that you are grown up you are an adult you’re growing up you’re at least older than he or her and you help in taking care so the feeling of insecurity is natural but what happens is see for all of us life will bring us to situations of insecurity say if we are in a community and we are good kaners and we sing nicely and we do that is our service and they is also appreciators for doing nice kithans and then some other devotey comes into the community and that person is a great singer and what happens that that person is invited all the time come on now you lead the ka you lead the ka and now at this stage it may not be envy but it’s just that insecurity is do I have a place over here will I have a place over here right will I have any role any significance over here so insecurity is is an entirely understandable emotion and life will make us feel insecure sooner or later but from there insecurity is more about do I have any value place or significance but when it goes to envy it’s more about negativity toward the other person it is why is this person so good Why is this person being respected so much? What is so special about this person? There’s nothing special. Why are people thinking there’s so much special over here? So envy becomes more of the attitude of pulling down the other person. So while insecurity is understandable, envy is undesirable. So envy means what? That I it’s like insecurities. Am I good enough? Envy is why are you so good? Why do people think you are so good? And that is more directed with negativity toward the other person. And now envy is also while it is uh not a healthy emotion but it’s understandable. We all feel envy. So the difference between the divine and the demoniac nature as described by Krishna in the 16th chapter of the Bhagat Gita is not that the demons have horns coming out of their head or they have teeth coming out. in their mouth. What Krishna describes is that the key difference is in terms of boundaries that simma or marada see everybody gets angry that’s just natural life is difficult and when life doesn’t go our way we will feel angry so anger is not pleasant but it’s understandable but when people get angry how Where do they go when they get angry? Some people may just refuse to talk. Give other person silent treatment. So when anger is there, so one boundary would be I won’t talk with you. Another could be you know people raise their voice sometimes people don’t just raise their voice they will start raising their fists. Sometimes people may go and look for some knife. Somebody will look for a gun. Then somebody will look for a bomb. Now say the president of America or the president of Russia they get angry they can use a nuclear bomb and nuke entire country isn’t it? So now anger is natural and even those who are of a divine nature those are of a godly dispersion they will also get angry but they will keep their anger within boundaries. But those who are of a demoniac nature for their anger does not know any boundaries. H so greed wanting money is there in everyone uh but what are we ready to do for greed how far are we ready to go see in office typically there’s always it’s not just based on performance that somebody succeeds there also office politics is there and politics means that one person may form a group with some other people and try to curry favor with this person maybe speak something negative about that person and try to elevate themselves. That’s understandable, not not desirable, but it’s it’s just a fact of life. But even in say normal office politics, people have a sense of boundaries. You know, I may spread some negative rumor about you, but I’m not going to spread a negative rumor about your wife or your daughter or something like that. Now, that is going too far. So, the idea is that there are boundaries. So, duryodhan feeling envious is understandable. H not desirable but it’s understandable. But then from envy what happened to him? He went straight to envy. Some people say in India there are lots of leftist uh writers and they try to say that actually you know the koas are not such bad people. Raan are not such a bad person just a misunderstood person. So one such thread of thought is actually do Oo then was not such a bad person. It was Shakuni who made him bad. Well yes and no. See when Bhimma was poisoned that was the first terrible thing that he did at that time Shakuni was not much involved over there. So it was not that Duryodhana was good and Shakuni made him bad. It was Duryodan was bad and Shakuni made him worse. So now the normal rivalry is there but what happened it’s just understandable but when he decided to poison beha this is a horrendous thing to do and that’s where what is happening is okay why are why are people more attracted to that that person why does that person why is that bema stronger than me okay then you could try to become stronger but instead of that let me destroy him so the choices if you consider we talking about choices and consequences. So what are the choice he made? I explained the condition and the conditioning the condition was at one level if you consider Duryodhu’s choice over here. Duryodhu’s choice what was his choice? Choice was he tried to poison Beimma H. And what was the condition over here? At one level, the condition was there was uncertainty externally, uncertainty about who is going to become the king. And he could say that the uncertainty is unfair. And then the conditioning was that he had a certain level of insecurity. He had that insecurity and with that insecurity he acted. Now every choice leads to a consequence. So what happened in the consequence over here? At one level there was a negative consequence at another level there was a positive consequence. So for him initially he made that scheme And Bimma apparently died for more than a week. Bimma had disappeared. And the panda was frantic with anxiety. What happened? Where is he? And then Ba came back stronger. Bhimma went into the celest was taken to the celestial domain where he was saved. Although he was given the poison, the way fate worked, way destiny worked was that there were some snakes in that lake whose poison acted as the antidote and then he was taken deep down and there were the devotas over there they told him what has happened that be you are poisoned Obama and they gave him nectar now with this nectar he became even more powerful when he came back he was enraged and she said I’m going you know teach him up now when he met Yudishtra I told Yudishra what had happenedish became pensive thoughtful he said better let us not do anything rash right now he says we are new in the family here and you don’t have any evidence it’ll simply be your word against his word to accuse somebody of having poisoned is a very serious accusation this may rip our family apart And we don’t know who will support us, who will not support us. And he said maybe Duryodhan is just insecure. Just let’s be careful with him. Let’s uh let’s not provoke him any further. And that way uh we will uh hope that this matter ends. Now Bhimma did not like that idea but he accepted. Yudish was older and he accepted it. Now as future events will tell we can we will evaluate whether this decision was the right decision or not the right decision and there also later when we’ll talk about dharma we’ll talk about what is the how do we know what is the right decision or wrong decision but the thing is here what happened that at one level he did not get any consequence now of course one consequence was that Bimma survived and Bimma became stronger and Bimma could not resist just wanting to have some fun at Duryoan’s expense. So he he called he called Duryodhan and said Duryodhan last time we had that picnic and Duryo became tense is he going to accuse me he said you had given me that delicacy become even more dense he says that was delicious can you make more of that for me thought oh wow I got another opportunity but what had happened because he had the Bimma had taken that celestial nectar now he had become immune to that poison And Duryodhan offered him that same poisoned cakes and he ate them and nothing happened to him and Duryan became even more bewildered and indri what is happening over here. But the thing is that sometimes a person may do something bad and not get any bad results and that can be really bad because what happens is that if somebody does something bad and gets bad results then at least they learn from it. But in this case he did not get any bad results. And now why did this happen? I’ll talk about the principle of karma uh in the little later. So the negative consequence and the positive consequence. The positive consequence was that he got away with it. Now was it a positive consequence or was a negative consequence? At least for him it was positive that I made a scheme. Although it did not work but I can make these schemes and a future scheme will work. Krishna talks about this in the 16th chapter of the Bhagat Gita where he says that you know he says it’s about thinking about how I I’ll use the scheme to make money and I’ll make money that way and I’ll make money that way. Actually if you read the 16th chapter of the Bhagat Gita in the light of the Mahabharat then it’s very clear that actually when Krishna is describing these verses he’s referring to Duryodhan that sometimes you know uh in a public discussion two people are talking and they don’t mention the name of that person but everybody who knows the situation they know who is being talked about so like that Krishna is talking and he says oh I’ll make I’ll have this scheme and that scheme and then he goes goes further. This is normal normal craving for money. But from there he goes and this enemy I have killed and that enemy also I’ll kill. That’s the point of going too far. Going beyond boundaries. So when we go beyond boundaries that’s where things start going wrong. So for him that is what happened in life. So now if we move forward let’s talk about karna and his childhood now I said for karna life was unfair in the sense that he was not b he didn’t have royal privilege or royal facilities. Having said that if we consider say karna’s life as his who was his main rival of Karana? Arjuna. Now Arjuna was born in royalty. But if you see Karna there was no comfort, no royal comfort, no privilege. But as far as we know there was no one attempting to kill Karna in his childhood. There was no one attempting to destroy his family. His parents loved him. His parents cared for him. So he had safety. Now Arjuna had comfort but he had no safety. You know the first two attempts to assassinate that were done. First was through poison in the food and the second was burning in the burning the entire house. Now if you consider from a contemporary psychological perspective, you know, these can cause terrible, terrible scars cuz you see eating and say relaxing at home, these are the two of the most comforting activities we do in life. So we might had a hard day and then we we meet with friends and we eat food together. Now if while eating food itself somebody is poisoned, it’s like every meal you take you’re worried poison In this you know there’s accident we might have suffered from accidental food poisoning but intentional poisoning it can cause trauma and then our home is the place where we are the safest at least and then there are many ways somebody can die but among all the ways people die dying by burning is the worst cuz somebody’s stabbed somebody’s shot the wound is at one point it’s painful but it’s at one point but when we are burn burnt then the whole skin burns. I have a friend in California who’s a firefighter and he told me that when there are these some big buildings they has fire have fires then when the fire has become unbearable people often jump out and end their lives. Why? Because it’s the the flame it’ll burn you everywhere. Just fall once and one moment you will die. So often they put security nets all around so that people can jump out. So the Pandawas were attempted to be burned. And if we compare this to Karana’s life, you know, there was not having any danger to his life. That is a big big positive. So yes, he is his mother Kunti abandoned him. That’s true. You could say, “Oh, he was so unfortunate. Life is so unfair.” But when he was abandoned, he was actually found and accepted by a very good family. who actually cared for him. And in that way, life is a mix broadly for everyone. Life is a mix of being fair and unfair. And now to his credit, Karna did not immediately become bitter or resentful. He saw what was good with him. He had archery ability and he developed that archery ability. He could not get into academy. So he went to Puram and he learned from Persuam. So basically the point I was making now is each one of us in life for everyone there will be some aspect of life which is fair and some aspect of life which is unfair. So life feels unfair and that is true but that is not the complete reality. So many of you know that I need crutches for walking. Mhm. When I was about one, at that time I was staying in a small town in Maharashtra and my mother took me to a nearby clinic to get the polio vaccine. Now among all the vaccines, polio is one of the most reliable ones and as such polio is more or less eliminated from the world. But because it was a small town, there used to be power supply outages in there and the previous night in that particular clinic because the power supply had gone off the fridge in which the vaccines had been kept and got heated up and because of that the germs in the vaccine had multiplied. Now neither the attendant nor the physician noticed that and when I was given that vaccine instead of preventing polio it ended up causing polio. Now I don’t remember any of this. I was told that I was just learning to walk and I fell down and I could never walk normally thereafter. Now my first memory of this is when I was about 2 and a half or three. At that time a distant relative had come to our home and she was consoling my mother saying it’s so sad your son got polio. And I remember my mother’s voice very calm clear confident. She said whatever he lacks physically God will provide him intellectually. Now I don’t know why she said that whether I had shown some ability it was based on observation or whether it was her hope it was her prayer it was her blessing whatever it was that stayed with me and then as I grew up I noticed that I did have some intellectual ability. I could remember facts and figures quite easily. I could articulate them well. I could analyze things. I could uh overall that intellectual became my strength and I did I always did fairly well in studies. Now in our neighborhood there was one boy who was athletically a genius at every sports he was great and because athletically I was zero so he would often make fun of me use words like cripple langa and things like that now I was more annoyed than hurt by that because I didn’t identify with my physical side so much so But anyway, so we didn’t have the best of relationships. And one day my mother told me that his mother had approached her and said that you know he was struggling in maths and I was quite good at maths. So she wanted she requested that I should help him. Now even before my mother concluded I started shaking my head no I don’t want to help him. And then my mother said no they are our neighbors and he’s your friend. I shook my head. even more he’s not my friend. So I didn’t want to help him at all but my mother said no you know you should help him. So I reluctantly agreed uh out of respect and then when I was trying to help him with maths I spent about 15 20 minutes half an hour explaining things to him and soon I realized that there was nothing in between his ears. Uh his height seemed to be more than his IQ. Now, this not in an insulting sense. It’s just objective. He he just couldn’t understand. Although I was trying to explain, he just couldn’t get it. And one part of me wanted to laugh at him and make fun of him. But something stopped me. And maybe many years later, I specifically articulated it this way. But overall, what struck me is that, you know, I have a physical limitation and that is quite visible. But he has an intellectual limitation. It may not be easily visible but it is there. And if I he laughed at me and makes fun of me because of physical limitation and if I laugh at him and make fun of him for his intellectual limitation then how am I really different? So basically you know the truth is life is unfair to everyone. I could have said that why do I have this physical disability? What did I do to deserve this? It’s unfair. And yes, from this life’s perspective, it is true. But then I could turn that question around and ask know why do I have this intellectual ability? What did I do to deserve this? So yes, life is unfair. But in the big picture, life is fairly unfair. Fairly unfair means in some areas We get more than what we deserve in some areas. We get less than what we deserve. In some areas life is better than uh others for us. In some areas life is worse than others for us. So the single most important choice that we will ever make in our life is what do we focus on? If you focus on how life is fair for us, our life will go upwards. If we focus focus on how life is unfair to us, our life will go downwards. So if you can keep it here, thank you. So focus on our life is unfair, we will become resourceful. Resourceful means whatever resources we have, we will start using them well. If you focus on how life is unfair, we will become resentful and this will take us on a darker track. So broadly we could say that both the Pandavas as well as Karna they chose this path. They were resourceful. Duryodhan chose to be resentful and he started going down a darker track. Now he did not get the results immediately and we’ll talk about karma later. But the point is that life will be unfair to everyone. We all can think about maybe we were in a family where us we had a sibling who was always praised by our parents or we were in a class where some other kid always got the credit or know we are in a workplace and you know we do the work but somebody else steals all the limelight. In many ways life will be unfair. You know in our family we do a lot of work for everyone but then We are never appreciated, somebody else’s praise always. So life will be unfair. And I don’t want to sound simplistic that it is 50% fair, 50% unfair. No, sometimes it may be so brutal that it can be 90% can be unfair, 95% can be unfair, 5% 10% can be fair. So but still the always remains for us. What is it that we are going to focus on? I was just one month ago I was in Scotland and there I met some devotees who had come from Ukraine and I was talking with this devotey and he was a doctor in Ukraine and now in Scotland he’s a Uber driver. His medical degree is not recognized and they required to do some exams and other things which is quite expensive. He doesn’t have the money and And it is a terrible situation for him. But I was when I was talking with him, I was so amazed. He was actually grateful. He said there are so many of others who had to couldn’t get away from there and they killed in the war or the other places. He said at least I’m in a place where I got a job. I got a home for my family. My children are going to school. So now most of us will probably never experience a disruption like that. Suddenly there’s a war and we have to leave with nothing. And Okay, I can’t take my wealth with me. I can’t take my house with me. But at least my degree, you can’t even take your degree with you. In one sense, I worked for it. I earned it. So now life can be terribly unfair. But yes, you could say that you could have gone to a country where you had no facility at all. You could be starving and dying. So look for how life is fair with us. Look for what is good in life. And that is the beginning for us in our spiritual life. When Prahupad came to America. He composed a song called Marin Bhagat Dharma. And the first line of that song is remarkable. perspective what is the mercy sh prahupal is at the age of 70 he has been trying to share Krishna bakti for 30 40 years and he doesn’t even have a single assistant with him now he doesn’t he has practically no money with him he has no contacts whom he knows who are going to support him over there there’s no organizational backing for him the only resource he had was his body and that suffered two heart attacks He could have asked what is the mercy over here. I’m trying to serve you and so many things have gone wrong. But what was prahuad focusing on? He was focusing on the fact that at least he had got to America and that now he had the opportunity to carry out the instruction of a spiritual master. So for prahuad if If you look at facility, he had zero facility. When his god brothers had gone to UK for preaching at that time their whole mission had been funded by baktasan sutakur. So everything had been taken care of for them. As contrasted prabupas had come all alone. So He had no facility but he was just grateful that I have the opportunity. So prahuad focused on that opportunity and he’s saying Krishna you have been so merciful to me that so many things could have gone wrong but at last at least at last I have I’m here in America I have an opportunity to carry carry forward the instruction of my spiritual master. So prahuad was also resourceful rather than resentful. So that is we talk about choices and consequences. The first and the the choice which we have to make not just first in the sense that at the start of our life but the first choice we need to make in all situations that we may face is what am I going to focus on? What is wrong in my life or what is right in my life? That what is what how life is unfair or how life is fair. And the pandas show us how to make that right choice. What happens thereafter we will discuss in our next session tomorrow. I’ll summarize what I discussed today. I talk our topic today in Mahabharat life lessons was life’s unfairness and how to deal with that. So I talked about three main points today. First was the framework that we are going to use. We’re going to study the scripture using four C’s. What are the C’s? Anyone remembers choices? They lead to consequences and those con choices happen under certain conditions and conditionings. So we discussed about how three characters we are going to discuss the pandas, the kowavas and karana. So So we discussed how all of them in terms of childhood we discussed for all of them life was unfair in different ways from the unfairness of life. We could say for Karna it was the most in terms of visibility. Visibly what happened for him was his parents abandoned him or his mother abandoned him. But still we discussed that that for Duryodhan for Yudishtar and the it was they became orphans. H so he is he was abandoned for he was he became orphan because his father passed away and forodhan what happened was it was uncertain for him his father was blind and because of that he just didn’t have he didn’t know what to do he there no clear claim to the kingdom so here we discuss that how Insecurity is natural but from insecurity what comes down is envy. Insecurity is am I good enough? Envy is why is this person so good? And then from envy it goes down to enmity. So we discussed that duryodhan went down this dark track. The difference between the divine and the demoniac is not in terms of the desires. It is more in terms of the boundaries. What differenti them is when they have desires you know what are they never ready to do just to fulfill those desires so Duryodhan crossed a terrible line when he went down and tried to kill Vimma so then we discussed about life’s unfairnesses life is unfair that is true but life is fairly unfair that for karana we discussed he had safety h For Dur that was a positive which he had. For Arjuna you could say that Arjuna and the Pandavas in general know he had comfort to some extent but then there was a lot of in a lot of danger constantly for Duryodo. Then you know he was born in privilege. So everybody had something right in their life and everybody had something wrong in their life. So the single most important choice we’ll make in our life is we have to see in my life what am I going to focus on how life is unfair to me or how life is fair to me. So if you focus on how life is fair we can be resourceful we can move forward and make better ch we can try to make the best out of the situation or we can be resentful and that will take us down. So Duryodo then took the downward path karna and the Andas took what a poor path and what happened thereafter we’ll discuss in future sessions. Thank you very much. Hooray Krishna. Do we have time for questions? Are there any questions or comments? Anybody has some questions? Har Krishna Proj thank you for the wonderful analysis. It was so inspiring. My question is although we are in Krishna consciousness we have heard so much of uh uh lectures read so much still yeah we it is very difficult to come out of the enemy many times in life. So how we ne appreciate and transcend envy is my question. Okay. How do we deal with envy? It’s very difficult to come out of it. Yes. I don’t think it’s easy at all. And I would say that the first three three broad things I’ll talk about for dealing with envy is that first level is be kind to to yourself because what we might label as envy might actually be insecurity that don’t be too hard on ourselves in the moment it is very difficult to know whether it is insecurity or it’s envy so life is difficult and everybody has that feeling of does my life matter do I matter and we often look at this from a comparative perspective that you know that okay how much am I valued and how much is this person valued and we live in an incessantly comparative comparing society especially nowadays with see all of us we look at ourselves through what can be called as a social mirror how much others value us how much others respect us we look at ourselves through a social mirror now what has happened today’s world is that social mirror has become expanded to the social media mirror and especially among uh teenagers h the huge amount of insecurities there say one kid put some photos of oh I went to this party I went to this event and I got only five likes and he or she put the photos and they got 50 likes 50 likes why why don’t people like me and what happens is people don’t like me then I stop liking myself and it is there’s a I think jumping to the conclusion that it’s envy is hurting ourselves many times. So if somebody if we we don’t feel good when somebody else is successful or somebody else speaks like that we don’t have to jump to the conclusion that it is envy. First is look at that and be understanding be kind to yourself. Now second is that in general I’ll talk about the principle of karma tomorrow or day after we’ll see how it goes. But most of the times what happens is that we are envious we are of envy is directed towards people’s achievement that oh you know this person was praised so much this person got this award this person got this recognition but underlying that achievement is commitment. No, no one is envious of others commitment. The work that they put in. Now we may think that oh success just falls into the lap of this person. You know I work so much I don’t get any success. Everything just happens for this person. Now yes sometimes by karma sometimes some people may seem to get good fortune but you know there is a difference between good fortune and achievement. Good fortune can come by past karma. H like somebody just wins a lottery or somebody gets a job where the boss is very good to them or somebody gets a job in a company that just grows rapidly and the salary also increases. But you know fortune is fickle. It comes and it goes. But if somebody is consistently doing something if somebody has achieved a certain level of excellence that is not just by fortune that this by hard work. So in general The people whom we feel envious of if we just get to know more about what all they have done in their lives to get to that place then even if it is grudgingly that envy will move towards respect. See envy and respect are not that different. The key difference is envy and respect is that respect is hey you are so good. Envy is why are you so good? So respect is offered willingly and often happily whereas envy is offered unwillingly and unhappily. Mhm. The thing is if you just shift to the commitment that the other people have shown we’ll find that the our envy will go down and then you say okay maybe I should also become more committed. I can also work harder and then I can I can succeed. Maybe will we get exactly that same level of success? We don’t know. But just shifting to the others commitment is very helpful and that is become that is what becomes very difficult on social media also. In social media people put only the happiest moments of their life and nobody generally puts the their private sorrows and sufferings and so what happens is because of that we often see the best part of their lives and we don’t see their struggles and that also not only fuels our insecurity but can fuel our envy also. And the third Third thing is that we can try to see if we can focus on the shared purpose that while we may be competitors we all have a shared purpose. Say there’s a pandemic and there are two doctors in hospital and the patient one patient one doctor treats 50 patients another doctor treats 70 patients. So the point is should the doctor who treat 70 50 patients feel envious of the 70 patient person. Twitter. No, ultimately we’re trying to save people over here. So the more we are able to shift our focus to the focus to the cause that we are trying to serve. What is it that we are trying to do? Then envy will start going down. Ultimately we are here to serve Krishna. We are here to share Krishna’s message with others. And if Krishna chooses to empower some other devotey by observing that devotey, I can try to learn and maybe I’ll also be empowered like that. But even if I am not empowered, the point is Krishna’s mission is moving forward. Guru’s mission is moving forward. So it’s not it’s very easy to say this in the moment. It’s not that easy to avoid that feeling of envy. But overall the tangible steps by which we can decrease that feeling of envy. Okay. Thank you. Any other question or comment?
Har Krishna Prau G. Uh thank you very much Babu. Very nice uhly explained but um the insecurity now the conditioning I I don’t know I might be wrong but insecurity is a common factor for everyone so um it can be a positive reinforcement or a negative in reinforcement. It depends upon how one actually counters or um he faces that insecurity in life because all of us have insecurities in life. No pu so how can it be the single most conditioning factor for Duryodhana and not for Arjuna in his life in or the Pandavas and the other thing is um the um envy you said the boundaries now prau for envys um so yeah the the boundaries for envy but uh okay the I this kind of quality it it it comes from our previous lives. No, it is usually um the vasas are continued. So there is always a past.
Okay.
And so how I mean if that person is continuing to be in the same um condition, how can he actually rectify himself? Is there Why his intelligence is not proper? Yeah. So that’s the
questions. Should I answer now or should I answer tomorrow? Okay. I’ll answer them briefly now cuz we’ll be discussing both of these topics a little later in one of our future sessions. But so the first question was that insecurity is there in everyone. So can insecurity alone explain what Duryodhan did? Isn’t it that there are some general When people do some bad things, it’s often because they have some conditionings from the past which they carry on. Yes, that is true. So in general, I’m not saying that insecurity alone is the cause. But in general for us, whenever any event is happening, h say if right now suddenly the audio goes off over here. Now what I’ll think is did I accidentally switch off this mic or has the battery got discharged. So we will try to look for the immediate explanation or has the power supply itself gone off or is it that suddenly I think that maybe I have gone deaf or I have gone dumb. Like some people they while watching TV they sit on the remote and they press the mute and when they can’t hear a sound oh I’ve gone deaf you know that’s crazy or if suddenly I’m speaking and suddenly sound goes off should I think that Krishna is unhappy with me and that’s why Krishna turned off the mic no in general whenever we face any problems the naya the naya is vic logic naya says always start with the dushar the immediate cause because the immediate cause is actionable for us. Now there could be an adushtakar for that also. There could be an invisible cause for that also but always start from the immediate cause and then move towards bigger causes. So I was in UK last year and I was at one devotees home and this devotey had been introduced to Krishna consciousness through youth outreach. And he quite vigorous. He wanted to do a lot of uh lot of sharing of Krishna bakti. And he told me that he had got married and he says he says my wife is not at all cooperative. And you know I’ve got a realization. He said Krishna wanted me to become detached from material life. That’s why he has given me an uncooperative wife. And I told him wait a minute you know. So then I got to his home. and he was driving through the city. So they had made prasad and I was taking prasad. I was talking with him and his wife was also very intelligent lady very open to Krishna bi. And then when she was talking over all she was saying about how uh in the name of bacti he was neglecting many basic family responsibilities what a husband should be doing and that’s why she was unhappy with him. Now then later I told him that you know if there is a reason for her dissatisfaction Then you need to try to address that reason. If in spite of addressing that reason still she stays unhappy, still she stays uncooperative, then you can go to past life karma, isn’t it? Or past karma. So in general, so what we are trying to do over here is that we are trying to start with the immediate part. So there were some circumstances which led to duroy feeling in a particular way and acting in a particular way. Now were the circumstances the only causes? No. Where the conditionings we’re talking insecurity is the only conditioning. No not. But this is one condition. This is what is relatable for us. And we are we can also be a situation where we can go from insecurity towards envy towards enmity and we would like to avoid that. Now in general our past karma it can create certain conditionings which push us in particular directions. But our past karma never takes away our free will completely. Our past karma may make certain kind of uh emotions and desires more likely within us. But it is for us to choose. Yes, Duryodan had a lot of envy. But even though he had that envy let’s assume that came from his past life that came but still now he had the association of Bishma and Vura he also had the association of Shakuni he chose the association of Shakuni now that is a choice from this life we could say actually he would have been attracted to that association that’s true but still that was a choice so Often our past conditionings might be there but it is for the choices that we make that can either aggravate those conditionings or they can regulate those conditionings. If somebody is known to be short-tempered and if they are short-teered and they keep a knife or a gun in their home then they’re they’re just calling for disaster to happen. Isn’t it? If somebody has a weakness for sweets and uh they’re diabetic and they say I will take the service of being in charge of Mahar Prasad. Now there are many services we could do but that service may not be the best service for you. So we could just certain conditionings may be there from our past but we by our choices often put ourselves in conditions that aggravate those conditionings. So in that sense there is always scope for free will for us. Okay, we’ll discuss about this more in tomorrow’s session. Okay, thank you very much.