Mahabharata life lessons – Why Draupadi laughed when Duryodhana fell?

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna So today morning we are discussing on the first canto. So this section I see it as the place where the Bhagavatam meets the Mahabharata. The Bhagavatam is mostly spoken after the events of the Mahabharata have ended.
However, the Bhagavatam take a side-long back-glance towards the Mahabharata is given. And here it is given in the form of Arjuna’s remembrances of how Krishna helped him throughout. So a couple of weeks ago I spoke on the pastime of Mayadana and how through the whole set of events Krishna brought fortune through misfortune for the Pandavas.
Now in today’s session I will talk about what happened in the Maya Sabha. So misfortune in the palace of illusion. The Maya Sabha it has an interesting double meaning.
Prabhupada points to that in his purport also. Maya is the name of the person. And the activity that he did was also to create illusion, Maya.
So actually to do anything in the world requires expertise. To do anything constructive requires expertise. Now random destruction is easy to do.
You just pick up and throw something. But if somebody wants to do systematic destruction then that requires intentions. So Prabhupada talks about Dushkruti Naha.
That people have kruti. In 716 he says that people have capacity, ability but they use it in a misdirected way. When the twin towers collapsed it was an act of brutal ingenuity.
It was very intelligent but it was also brutal. So there were many kids after that in schools, especially in America, they were given they did projects of how we could bring the twin towers down. And then they were told how you could protect it.
Prevent it from happening. So Maya, his expertise is in creating illusion. So the palace that he had created was a palace where there was a lot of illusion.
And the illusion was in the form of basically when we talk about illusion it essentially means Maya, that is the Sanskrit word. Things are not the way they appear to be. That is the essence of illusion.
That there is substance and there is appearance. And illusion means the appearance and substance do not match. So when our perception is accurate, is real, when the appearance and substance match.
Whereas our perception is an illusion when the appearance and substance don’t match. And when somebody creates an illusion, that means what they do is that they do something in the expert way by which they make it natural to perceive the appearance and substance differently. Like most magic tricks, they are basically sleet of hands.
The magician is doing one thing and directs our attention in one direction while they do something somewhere else by which it appears as if it was they pulled out a rabbit out of a hat. Something like that. So illusion essentially means a mismatch between appearance and substance.
So when that is created, that also requires expertise. So the illusion that Maya Sabha, it refers to the palace created by Maya but is also another translation for the palace of illusion because Maya refers to the person and slightly changed that. Maya refers to illusion.
So it was the palace of illusion. And the illusion was Trisargoyenam as it says in Bhagavatam. In the first verse it says that that where it is land, it appears to be water.
Where it is water, it appears to be land. Basically, just as the Supreme Lord creates this world where there is illusion. And it is it is by seeing how believable the illusion is, how captivating the illusion is that we actually appreciate the brilliance of the Lord.
So why is the Bhagavatam talking in the first verse it says I meditate on that Lord who makes the unreal appear real. Now different Acharyas have different meanings for what unreal and real mean over there. But simply put the point is that to make, to pull off an illusion successfully requires expertise.
So Maya Sabha refers to the place where the illusion was pulled off in a brilliant way. And there was one particular character who was a victim of that illusion. Who was that? The real one, yes.
So there are certain incidents in in our epics in the Mahabharata or the Ramayana where the moral lines seem to get blurred. So normally, for example, if somebody is walking and they slip and fall, a normal human reaction, empathic human, compassionate human reaction would be to rush to that person and to help them get up. Normally, if somebody is walking and they slip and fall, we don’t laugh at that person.
We would consider that to be strange, even uncultured to do like that. So the question comes up that when Duryodhana mistook what was water to be land and he slipped and fell. So why did Draupadi laugh at that time? And as if that is not bad enough, in some dramatic renditions of the Mahabharata, it is depicted as if Draupadi not only laughed at him but also taunted him.
How did she taunt him? She said, The son of a blind is blind. So now, as far as I have seen, the Mahabharata has different recensions. But whichever recension we go to, I have not seen this in the actual Mahabharata.
And now, because sometimes old books, especially if they are very large, then some things might get changed in the Pathantara. Pathantara means in the past we didn’t have there was no facility to print books. So then the paper on which the book was written or whatever, the leaves on which the book was written, whatever material was there, because India has a tropical environment, so it doesn’t last for very long.
So they have to rewrite it. And while rewriting it, there can sometimes be some changes that happen. So that is called as Pathantara Bheda.
So whenever there is a traditional commentary written, Ramacharya writes in the Mahabharata commentary, before that there is some description. I have seen these different recensions and some places this verse is like this, some places this verse is like this. And then the Acharya might describe, both verses could, even if you use whichever meaning, this is what the import is.
Or they may say this is the right version because of this, this, this. So there is usually a section where this textual analysis is done. So for the Mahabharata, there is the Bandarka Research Institute in Pune which did a multi-year project with many many scholars together and they brought a critical edition.
Even in the critical edition, they have not included this. So this is just a dramatisation. And that dramatisation, now dramatisation is good if it conveys the essential point in a more emphatic way.
But dramatisation is bad when it gives a different import or gives a opposite import. So I will talk about this a little bit later. So as I said, the three degrees of problem are there.
First is, why did Draupadi laugh at Duryodhana? Then did she actually taunt him? And then on top of that, in the Bhagavatam, it is described that when Yudhishtira saw him falling and saw the queens laughing, Yudhishthira told them, don’t laugh. And Krishna said, let them laugh. So it seems, why would Krishna do that? Normally, even if somebody is uncultured or somebody is impulsive and they are laughing, we would tell somebody, don’t laugh, it is not the right thing to do.
So I was doing a class and some person was asking too many questions in a very argumentative mood. So then I gave an answer and then whatever answer, everybody started clapping. And then I could see that he felt insulted by that.
So I told him, please don’t clap. I am not here to earn some brownie points. I am here to basically the point over here is that why would normally we wouldn’t want somebody to, if somebody is already in a sense humiliated, we don’t want to, as we say, add salt to the wound.
So why would Krishna do something like that? Why did Krishna not only didn’t stop them from laughing, but rather so first point is that in general our reactions are situational. So basically you could say there are circumstantial reactions and there are intentional reactions. So circumstantial means whenever we do something, it could be that if somebody says something and we are shocked by that.
So okay, that’s just what you told me was shocking. That’s circumstantial. But when it’s intentional means we have certain bias, certain agenda and because of that we react in a particular way.
So in general, as I said, if somebody falls, the cultural response is not to laugh at them. However, there is a slight difference. There are some people who are puffed up.
Krishna uses the word dambho, darpo, abhimanasya, krodha, parushya, mevachya, ajnanam, chaavi, atasya, partha, sampadam, asarim. So Baldevidya Bhushan has commented in the Gita actually differentiate between these three dambho, darpo and abhimana. So there are different ways of analysing it, but still essentially it is that Prabhupada uses pride, conceit, all of them uses different words and I won’t go into the technicalities, but broadly dambho means to show oneself to be better than what one is.
Dambho is in that sense to claim credit where it is not there. In the qualities that characterise knowledge, Krishna describes Amanitvam and second is Adambitvam. And the difference is Amanitvam means even if I have some virtue, I don’t demand respect for that virtue.
So even if somebody is very scholarly, they don’t put on airs and they don’t demand everybody should respect. And Adambitvam means one does not actually put on airs. I am not scholarly, but I try to pretend, stand there and create a facade of scholarship.
So that is Amanitvam, Adambitvam, that is the difference. So dambho means we claim respect even when it is not due. Dambho, Darpa, Abhimanyu.
So Darpa is where we get pleasure. It’s like a person’s locus of self-worth is extrinsic. That means the person’s self-worth comes primarily from how much I get respect.
And Abhimanyu is where not only I feel secure when others respect us, but that is the joy of my life. So Abhimanyu is different from Swabhimanyu. Swabhimanyu is self-respect, but Abhimanyu is where I get pleasure when others respect me.
And then I feel enraged when others don’t respect me. See, there is a difference between Darpa and Abhimanyu in that sense. It’s like some people, if they have low self-esteem, that if somebody doesn’t respect them, recognise them, acknowledge them, then they sink into depression.
I am worthless. Nobody values me, nobody cares for me. So is that anger? Well, in a subtle sense, depression is anger directed at oneself.
When I feel that I am not good enough to be recognised by the world or I am not good enough even in my own eyes. And then I become angry with myself and I start beating myself down. Of course, depression can be a clinical phenomenon and that’s different.
But in general, so the idea is first is that I put on airs to claim respect where it is not due. Second is, if I don’t get respect, I feel pleasure and if I don’t get it, I exhibit anger. So when somebody is putting on airs, when somebody is very puffed up, then actually it is human psychology, not necessarily a desirable trait, but there is a certain pleasure in seeing the proud fall.
If somebody is very puffed up and if a normal person falls, then okay, it’s bad. But if somebody is putting on airs and then they fall, there is a certain pleasure, it serves them right. It’s not necessarily a desirable thing, but it’s human psychology that if somebody is claiming respect where it is not due, then when that respect is taken away, there is a certain pleasure in that.
And that pleasure, so yes, if it is desirable, well you could say it is circumstantial. It’s not necessarily a good thing, but circumstantially, if somebody is putting on airs and then that person takes a fall, so it was just a circumstantial reaction. So circumstantially, all of us may do certain things, some of which are desirable, some of them are undesirable, but that’s one thing.
See circumstantial is that the circumstance provokes the reaction. But when something is intentional means we want to deliberately put down the person, humiliate the person, denigrate the person. So Draupadi and the queens did laugh, but when it is portrayed as if she taunted him thereafter.
So when somebody, when it’s taunted and the specific taunt, now that is not just oh you know in this situation something funny happened. That situation is being used to humiliate that person and to connect that with something bigger and then put the person down. So that, that is a misrepresentation and that is wrong.
So in general, when people speak something to us, say if we are in the position of Duryodhana, when somebody laughs at us, so at that time a lot will depend on is this person my well-wisher or is this person my ill-wisher? Is this person my friend? Is this person my enemy? So is this person looking for opportunities to hurt me? And this is the opportunity that they found. So then, then if we come to know that this person is deliberately wanting to push me down, then our response will be very different. But if it is just circumstantial, then don’t take that seriously.
So there is a time when harsh words may be spoken even if they are spoken or some some annoying or infuriating actions are done but one doesn’t have to take them seriously. So the classic example if you want to take it up for this is another situation where Geeta spoke harsh words to Lakshman. She accused him of having an evil eye towards her and she told him, go from here to Ram.
If you don’t go, you will never be able to fulfil your evil desires. I will die rather than be touched by you. For a for a person who is honest, even the accusation of dishonesty is painful.
For a person who is pure, even the accusation of impurities is painful. So we could say that Lakshman would naturally have felt hurt and felt hurt, angered, shocked and if we say comparatively, Sita’s accusation against Lakshman is far more severe than Draupadi’s action towards Duryodhana. Isn’t it? But there is no evidence that Lakshman ever held a grudge against her.
It is Sita spoke that in that time because the situation was very very tense. She spoke that and Lakshman also reacted, went away from there. But Lakshman didn’t hold a grudge against her.
When they found Sita was abducted, Lakshman didn’t say serves her right. I told her this is a trick, she didn’t listen to me, now serves her right. He was there by the side of Ram to help him recover Sita.
On the other hand, what happened with Duryodhana? He not only took that as a grudge but he planned and for him, later on he schemed to have Draupadi disrobed. It was a way of getting back Draupadi. The attempt to disrobe Draupadi was driven not just by lust, it was also driven by arrogance, by the hunger for power.
So I was in America and I was talking with a devotee who who works in criminology. He works in crime and various. So in the west often the perception is created that in India women are very insecure and there is this there is violation of women that happens and now it is true in some ways especially in some parts of the country but to generalise India is a different thing.
But anyway, so we were discussing various things that when when a woman is violated it is not just because of lust. It is also because of power. So I asked him what do you mean by that? That actually if it is simply lust then somebody, people can just go to places where they can get their lust gratified.
But there is that urge to dominate, to control, it’s a power game also. I want to control you. I don’t want to control you physically but I want to dominate you and in that sense dishonour you.
So when Duryodhana did that, he tried to disrobe the Draupadi disrobed, it was an attempt to get back at her. You humiliated me, I will humiliate you. Now this is when one is see one of the one of the problems with the Anartha it is not only that they delude us when we are angry, when we are pride but actually the one way they delude us is they completely take away our sense of perspective.
Sense of Prabhupada defines intelligence in the 10th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita as intelligence means to see things in their proper perspective. Proper perspective means this is this important, this is this important. And to not see things in proper perspective means to make small things very big.
So for example say sexual desire, say sexual craving, lust. What it did to Ajamil? Yes, he saw some sight, it was provoking, it was titillating, it was agitating but when lust takes control what happens? It takes away one’s sense of perspective. You know to gratify that to reject one’s own parents, to reject one’s own wife, to lose one’s position in society and to act immorally from a Brahmana to become a thief and a and a criminal that was horrible.
So sense of perspective is lost completely. So for Duryodhana what happened? He took offence to such a degree that he lost his complete sense of perspective. Okay, you fell and somebody laughed at you.
Okay, that was a bad thing. And you may want to get back. But getting back by publicly disrobing and dishonouring a respectable woman is monstrously out of proportion.
It is like we are in a particular room and an ant comes and bites us. Or we are in a particular house and an ant comes, imagine there is a king. King comes to a particular house as a guest and the king is being honoured over there.
But there an ant comes and bites. And the king gets so angry and the king has a bomb dropped to destroy the whole house and destroy everyone in the house. Okay, okay, it was oversight that you know maybe they should have cleaned the place so that ant wouldn’t come and bite you.
But there has to be a sense of proportion. So now what what disturbs us the most reveals what shelters us the most. What we fear reveals what we hold dear.
In many ways our reactions to situations tell us about ourselves. So why was Duryodhana so agitated that he went to such an extent to take that to take to try to get back Andhra Pradesh. Now it was of course he had deep rooted envy for them for the Kauravas for the Pandavas.
And he had done a lot before. He had already tried to have the Pandavas burned alive. But the point here is that he was very was he was in a sense very insecure.
He wanted prestige. And when he saw the the Rajasuya Yajna and the prosperity of the Pandavas in terms of the gifts that they had got in terms of the opulence of the palace that they had that had been built for them he realised that I am outclassed over here. That if you know we treat somebody as a okay he is my equal my rival my competitor sometimes he is better than me sometimes I am better than him.
But then one day it’s exposed that they are not just better than us they are a different class. So it’s it’s not so easy to deal with that. So he he he felt especially he was already insecure he was already envious and then on top of that when he was humiliated it was extremely painful for him.
So it was so this I made the three levels I was discussing the problem. First is that why did Draupadi laugh? Then second is why the distortion misrepresents saying that she taunted and that particular taunt indicates that she had something in her heart and that came out and that is a misrepresentation. But then the third we could say probably the biggest question comes up is that why did Krishna stop Yudhishthir from stopping the queens when they were laughing? So now one extreme explanation I gave a class in London once and after that so after that one devotee says that I was talking about how in the western world people are very uncomfortable with the idea of religious violence and often because of that things get equated artificially that when I was in America common perception in America is that Hindus and Muslims are constantly at riots and they are constantly at their necks killing each other.
Now actually speaking if we put the partition aside the number of people who have been killed in riots in Hindu-Muslim riots is actually less than the number of people who are killed in car accidents in America. So there is tension no doubt but the point is that it is said that these people both people are just fanatics and both keep fighting with each other. So it is not like that and even if there is religious violence so what happens is the Bhagavad Gita is a prominent book and the Bhagavad Gita is a book which gets Arjuna to fight so people feel very uncomfortable with that.
Both are epics. The Ramayana and the Mahabharata are centred on a war and that also makes people very uncomfortable. If we consider the biblical stories there are wars described but neither the Old Testament nor the New Testament is centred on a war and more often than not in the Old Testament the Jews are the victims of the war.
Of course they win some wars they lose many wars but there is that perception. So I was giving a class and so I explained how Krishna did everything to prevent war. So many people say the Gita book which is meant to incite war so I talk about in terms of the three C’s what was the cause what was the cause it was not there is a war which is fought for we could call it see in some religions if somebody does not believe certain things then they are considered to be heretics and the heretics should be killed that’s the idea.
So if we see in the Mahabharata and the Ramayana the wars are not fought against wrong believers they are fought against wrong doers there is a big difference that Duryodhana or Ravana they were not killed because they did not believe in a particular conception of God they did not believe a particular religion they were killed because they did grievously wrong activities so the point I was making is you look at the cause of the war all the atrocities that they have done we look at the context what all the Pandavas did to prevent the war Krishna himself went as Shantidutra and then look at the content the Bhagavad Gita hardly contains any inflammatory speech no hate speech there is not even a one single reminder to Arjuna that just see how they have dishonoured Draupadi generally if you want to get somebody to do some violence the easiest way to incite people is by emotional manipulation remind them of how bad the other person is and then you will get them to fight now Krishna does not do that even once so it is remarkable so in the causes cause, context and content all three we see that the Bhagavad Gita is not really meant to incite war that is just circumstantial but when I was explaining how Krishna himself went as Shantidutra there was this devotee who raised a question he said actually it is Krishna who wanted this war to happen and that is why Krishna externally was telling was making the plea for peace but Krishna internally as the Paramatma was preventing Duryodhana from listening to it now I said first of all how do you know what Krishna as the Paramatma is doing in whose heart as of now we don’t have any commentaries by Acharyas on the Mahabharata itself the Mahabharata is just too big to write a commentary on the translation of the Mahabharata there are 2-3 scholars who have done it and it took them 11 years or 15 years or 20 years just full time work just to translate the book leave alone comment on it so we don’t have that and more importantly can we say that Krishna wants the war to happen Krishna wanted millions of people to die not exactly what Krishna wants is that we come face to face with ourselves and then we make a choice what does it mean we come face sometimes by Krishna’s arrangement circumstances are created for us where we are confronted with our weaknesses so wherever we are weak that is where we get provoked and then when we are brought face to face either we succumb or we seek strength in Krishna how can we rise up so to understand this let’s have another comparison let’s look at another situation where Krishna deliberately provoked someone which is the example where Krishna provoked someone on the 10th canto of the Bhagavatam that pastime which is very often depicted through pictures one of Krishna’s miraculous activities sorry whom did Krishna provoke deliberately provoked Indra Indra yes so now let’s consider actually they here at least all that Krishna has done is stop Duryodhana sorry stop Yudhishthir from stopping others from laughing at Duryodhana but Krishna in the Bhagavatam does much much more first thing is he stops the Rajavasis from offering the puja to Indra so if we don’t expect honour and then we are not honoured okay that’s okay I didn’t expect it but if we expect honour and then we don’t get honour then that’s agitation so what happens is Indra was habituated to that honour and Krishna stopped it and it’s one thing to stop something from being done as if to make matters worse Krishna rationalises the stopping of that sacrifice by speaking a wrong philosophy what is that wrong philosophy Krishna sorry yeah that nature is basically mechanical not personal what do you mean by that mechanical or personal that nature is mechanical means that if you do this you will get that so our nature is personal means yes if we do this this is done to please XYZ and when they are pleased then they do this for us then they give this to us so there are these two visions so modern science has this vision that nature is mechanical and there are mechanical aspects to nature but nature or all of reality definitely is not mechanical so now it’s not just a wrong philosophy which Krishna is speaking it’s a wrong philosophy meant to minimise Indra’s position that means Indra is simply like the figurehead it’s like having a post having a post without any power in India we have the prime minister and the president so all the power is the prime minister the president really has no power in Britain they still have the royalty they still have the queen but the queen is just a figurehead so it’s if somebody is a powerful person and they are called a figurehead it is actually very annoying it is very irritating so Krishna does that to Indra so basically the philosophy reduces Indra to a figurehead that actually if you do your duty there is no need to worship Indra he is forced to give rites Indra gets agitated so now why would Krishna do something like this so that is for a purpose that to force Indra to confront his own arrogance so then Indra goes completely wild with anger and tries to destroy the bhajavasis the sheer amount of action that he takes is again disproportionate ok your sacrifice is stopped ok but what do you do because of that you try to destroy the whole village and all the residence over there there Krishna intervenes and he protects everyone and after that when he is humiliated when all his efforts are frustrated what does he do at that time that time he chooses a humble position and what is that humble position he comes and offers his prayers to Krishna so sometimes there are wounds within us there are weaknesses within us and Krishna may bring them to the fourth Krishna may bring them into prominence through certain situations so that we get an impetus to cure them so the way things work in nature is paradoxical so everything that pains is not harmful and everything that harms is not painful everything that pains is not harmful so for example if somebody is exercising and when they are exercising then the muscles start straining so now that pain is not actually harmful so in exercise it’s microtrauma the muscles break and then they reform so that is actually the way people become stronger so all that pains is not harmful when a woman is pregnant and there is labour pain then there are contractions and all that it’s painful but it’s not harmful that fresh new life is going to come into the world so all that pains is not harmful this is 1837 in the Bhagavad Gita that which is like poison in the beginning can taste like nectar in the beginning so when Krishna is provoking either Indra or Duryodhana it’s painful it pains for them but all that pains is not harmful that pain is there but the purpose of that pain is to actually force them to face the reality of their own arrogance and then they can choose what to do and conversely all that harms is not painful all that harms is not painful so sometimes we may have some disease in the body which doesn’t cause any dysfunctionality at least normally that’s one of the reasons why cancer is so feared because quite often cancer just grows inside the body without any symptoms and later on when cancer is detected quite often it’s so advanced that it’s very difficult to cure so all that harms is not painful so for us sometimes we have certain anarthas they are harming us internally but they are not painful so we may have arrogance we may have certain other weaknesses they are harming us but there is no pain involved so Indra had an ego Duryodhana had an ego and that ego was harming them that ego was preventing them from functioning properly it was from realising their spirituality realising how to grow spiritually it was harming their spiritual prospects but it was not painful so that’s why Krishna says that Krishna also talks about his next verse 1838 that so we get that it is actually it tastes like nectar although it will become like poison in the end so when we say all that harms is not painful what we mean is right now it is not painful the pain will come just like cancer the pain will come later but right now it is not so we could say both Indra and Duryodhana had that cancer inside them the cancer of Aravind Dambho Darpo Abhimanasch which Krishna says are the characteristics of the demoniac nature now Indra was not a demon Indra is a devata but he had some at least in this past time he is exhibiting some demoniac characteristics and Duryodhana of course had a demoniac nature so then when this is brought forth when this provocation comes up so like somebody comes to know ok I have got cancer and what do you do you treat the cancer or cover it up so you know when when we all face situations when say we we are dishonoured or we are exposed to be not all that we we thought we were or we portrayed we were so we think I am this good and some situation comes up which shows that actually you are not that good you are quite poor so we portray that say we are very learned and then somebody asks us some question in a public forum where not only are we sure that we are we don’t know but what we know also is wrong so then what happens dishonour can lead to two reactions dishonour can either lead to humility or it can lead to humiliation now what is the difference between humility and humiliation humiliation is false ego frustrated humility is false ego rejected so we all have a false ego false ego in the sense that we often claim respect which is not due for us and in one sense it’s a part of culture and society that we respect each other but there are some situations when our reality is exposed and when that is exposed if we hold on to that false ego now I want respect and how dare you take away the respect that is due for me then what happens is false ego rejected false ego frustrated and that frustration leads to anger so both in one sense Duryodhana and Indra chose that response when their honour was taken away when they were dishonoured both of them became angry but the difference is that for Indra the anger was temporal and afterward he came to his senses on the other hand for Duryodhana their anger was not temporal he held on to it and then eventually he acted on it in the most brutal way so you could say Indra chose humility and Indra if you see later on Krishna tells Indra Indra offers certain prayers to Krishna and Krishna says I did this deliberately Krishna did not publicly strip away Indra’s position but Krishna told him you can keep the position but have the right disposition the right disposition is have a service attitude use what you have to do good to others but Duryodhana unfortunately never chose to have the right disposition and the result was an explosion so it is not that Krishna it is not that Krishna caused the war it is Krishna who did what he could to prevent the war they make us lose perspective instead of keeping small things small make them very big and that was what eventually caused the war it was Duryodhana’s refusal to take take that dishonour gracefully that was what caused the disaster and we see that sometimes if somebody makes a joke at someone and they just laugh it away then what happens is oh this is a good natured person they can take a ribbing in a sense it just reveals that this person is not so touchy this person is not hypersensitive so it also the ability to let passing mood just pass away that now we all have certain weaknesses within us and all that harms may not be painful but just because we are gliding along right now that doesn’t mean that things are going to always be the same we all will be provoked and if we are strengthening ourselves spiritually we are we cannot wish away our weaknesses but if we are at least building our sources of strength we can’t wish away if we have lust, anger, greed, envy all these we can’t just wish them away but just because they are not troubling us too much now doesn’t mean that we may not be provoked in the future so if we are preparing our spiritual strengths so that is by our study of scriptures that is by our sadhana then when the provoking situations come we will be able to turn towards our sources of strength and face those provocations without getting provoked so rather than choosing to get provoked we will become more connected with Krishna and then meets the Mahabharata the misfortune in the palace of illusion so we discussed about how the basic principle of illusion is a mismatch between substance and appearance so to create illusion also requires expertise so at one level illusion is in the eyes of the observer but for the eyes of the observer to perceive things in a wrong way it requires the expertise of the person who creates that so maya is the demon who created this palace of illusion and in that palace of illusion Duryodhana went into a double illusion one was the physical illusion where he mistook the water to be the water to be land and slipped and fell but the bigger illusion where he went into was that he chose his arrogance he chose to feel humiliated when he was dishonoured instead of becoming humbled and I discussed three questions with respect to this past time why did Draupadi laugh so I discussed that it is a circumstantial reaction normally we would laugh no culture person would laugh at somebody falling but if somebody puts on airs there is a certain satisfaction in seeing an artificially puffed up person being put in their place so the demoniac have a very extrinsic sense of self worth and to seek a honour where it is not due and to feel secure only when one is honoured and to feel pleasure when one is honoured or to feel fury when one is not honoured and Duryodhana exhibited that so it was critical mythology nor is our focus simply focussing on its historicity our focus is that each rendition of a story is told from a particular perspective to tell a particular lesson so we focus on sometimes people can have varied completely opposite perspectives you can clearly see that certain people have certain agendas so the classic example which I often give is that if somebody wants to support them they might say that he had problems in the past but he studied now you take the same points and say he studied now but he had problems in the past now what happens in general writing it is said that whatever comes at the end of the sentence is what stays in the people’s minds so you are saying the same points but one person who wants to recommend the person will say he had problems in the past but he studied now so what happens is that now this is agenda driven but whenever any incident is told the important thing is what is the lesson being drawn from it that the incident itself is not unimportant what happened is important but what is the point from it is so when do we try to when something is wrong we can choose humility and tolerate but if something is actually going wrong then isn’t it our duty to correct it also if we just 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