Value Education and Spirituality 12 – Mahabharata 6 – Karna 3 – Respond to adversity with integrity

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna.
Hare Krishna. Welcome back to the Value Education and Spirituality series. We are discussing from the Mahabharata and we will discuss about Karna.
We will discuss now about what happens to us is not as important as how we respond to it. Now, Karna is often depicted as a person who is consistently wronged. Those of us who know about the story of Karna, he was born to Kunti before her marriage.
So, because of the social stigma associated with premarital pregnancy and delivery birth. So, Kunti gave her child away and he was taken and raised by the charioteer’s family over there, Radhe and Adhirath. And he was therefore known as the Suta Putra.
Suta is a particular caste which comprises primarily of charioteers. So, that was because he had Kshatriya caliber and he had Kshatriya skills. So, for him to be called Suta Putra was a very painful label for him and he fought against it throughout his life.
So, in that sense, Karna is considered to be a person who was treated unjustly right from his birth. And still, he fought against it all and he rose to glory and even after that he was killed unfairly. That is what is the life story as is depicted of Karna frequently.
So, what we will discuss is, we will go into some details which we have not talked about. In order to understand things more clearly, we can compare Karna with Arjuna and look at their career trajectory. How it grew and where all it intersected.
So, the important point to recognize is that life from this life’s perspective is unfair for everyone. For everyone in some way or the other, life turns out to be unfair. Things happen which don’t make sense.
If we see in this lifetime, some people are born wealthy, some people are born poor. Those who are born wealthy also, some of them may be deceased in their wealth. Some of them may not be so good looking, some are not so intelligent.
And even if they are wealthy, sometimes some loved one dies in the family and a person is wealthy but doesn’t have a mother or a father. The thing is, in this life, everybody sooner or later faces things which seem unfair. And now, if we can understand the law of Karma, we understand that whatever we have done only comes back to us.
So, the seemingly unfair things are fair from a multi-life perspective. But from this life’s perspective, surely things do seem to be unfair. And all that we can do about it is raise our chin, gird ourselves and keep moving forward in life.
If we sink into depression and self-pity, then we make our life worse. Or if we go into self-righteous rage, thinking that I am constantly being wronged, that also creates negativity unnecessarily. Just accept it and move on.
So, yes, we can say Karna was wronged because he was deprived of the honour of the Kshatriya parentage which he was entitled to being a son of a Kshatriya lady. But then, let’s look elsewhere. If we look at the Pandavas, look at Arjuna, they were also born in royalty.
But in one sense, they were also deprived. Their father passed away when they were very young and then they practically became like orphans. Their mother brought them back to the kingdom.
And then, right from their early childhood itself, they were placed in a household where the dominant family at that time was trying to constantly get rid of them. Can you imagine how much insecurity it will be for children to know that there’s somebody else who’s trying to kill us in the same house and they’re expected to live over there? So, Duryodhana was little more than entering into his teens and Bhima was also in his teens and Duryodhana tried to poison Bhima. I fed him cake, I fed him delicious food and that he put poison.
So, after that, the Pandavas, they were trying to be burned alive. They, along with their mother, they apparently offered a house and then they were burned in that. Somehow, because of their intelligence and presence of mind and because of the good wishes and guidance of and arrangement of Vidura, they were able to survive.
But the point is, they also got rodeas. But what did they do? Did they become vicious because of that? No, they stuck to the side of virtue. So, now if you see, now when we want to study any, if we want to learn some moral lessons, some values from a book, then one easy temptation is to just take a part of the story and use that story to justify our pre-existing beliefs.
So, we may say, oh, see, the Indian society was discriminatory, there was caste system, this, this, that, that. And so, how terrible it was. But actually, if you look at the full picture, we’ll see that the Pandavas, actually, they were in one sense also troubled.
They may not have had the bad label of being Sutaputras, but still, they were troubled and for no fault of theirs. What was their fault that their father died young? What was their fault that Duryodhana and his family was envious of them? There was no fault of theirs, but still, they were troubled. And now, Karna had one big advantage from birth, which the Pandavas did not have.
Arjuna did not have. And what was that? Karna had an impenetrable armor. That armor ensured that he could be wounded, he might be overpowered, but he would not be killed.
So, in that sense, it almost made him invincible. Now, the Pandavas had no such thing. So, if you want to say that Karna was wrong because of his low birth, yes, that was one thing, but then he got something right.
And for a Kshatriya to have something which makes him invincible, that’s a big, big advantage. So, the point is, we all come to light with certain pluses and certain minuses. And grouching over them gets us nowhere.
We have to accept them and move forward in life. So, in one sense, if you want to compare it, life is like a cricket match in which we are batsmen who come in with a score at a particular level. Now, we have to take things from there.
We can’t complain, oh, why did the top order collapse under such a poor score? Now, I have to manage things from here. Or somebody else may come and the top order scored very well and then one has to carry it on. So, basically, we have some role to play and we have to accept the hands that are given to us and move forward.
And the whole challenge of life is to respond to adversity with integrity. To respond to adversity means when things go wrong, how do we respond to that? Do we use what the wrong that has happened to us to do wrong further? Or do we, despite the wrong that has happened, stick to the path of virtue? So, that’s what actually Arjuna and the Pandavas demonstrated. They stuck to the path of virtue even when wrong happened.
So, till the last moment, we see that the Pandavas choose again and again and again to be pacifistic. Although Bhima was poisoned, Bhima did not go and bash Duryodhana up. How dare you try to poison me? He tried to maintain the peace in the family.
Even when they were burnt alive, attempted to be burnt alive, they survived. They did not come back and accuse the Kauravas. Because then the accusation would bring the conflict into the open and would make amicable living impossible.
So, in the interest of peace, they overlooked the wrongs that had been done. And these were not small wrongs. These were assassination attempts.
So, the Pandavas tried to take the path of virtue as much as possible. Then after that, despite it all, Duryodhana’s envy was so great that he provoked the Pandavas to a gambling match. And in that gambling match, what they did? It was a rigged gambling match.
And in that gambling match, the Pandavas were dispossessed of everything unfairly. Their wife was dishonored scandalously, outrageously. And the Pandavas had to go and live in a forest for 12 years and one year incognito.
And incognito was even more humiliating. Because at least in the forest, they could have some amount of decorum. But incognito means they were practically fleeing all the time, concealing themselves.
So, they did all that. And even after they completed that, the Kauravas renewed their promise. And they said, we will not give you any kingdom.
So, how much atrocities can one tolerate? Now, we have India-Pakistan conflict going on. And Pakistan makes sometimes unprovoked attacks against India. So, now we want peace.
But to what extent can we tolerate unprovoked attacks, which often result in civilian casualties, military casualties, damages to equipment, damages to morale? How much can India tolerate that? Once, twice, thrice. But there has to be a communication to be conveyed that you cannot take us for granted. Tolerance should not be taken as a sign of impotence.
Tolerance requires strength. And then, teaching a lesson also requires strength. So, what happened is, the Pandavas tried every single way to check, to avoid violence.
And they showed exemplary restraint. So, if you want to say that Karna, something unfair happened to him in his life right at the beginning. Yeah, that he was labelled as a Sutaputra because of that.
Fine. But, what about the rest of the life? Rest of the life, the Pandavas were at the butt of, were the target of so much injustice. And they tolerated all with integrity.
So, now, we may say that was Karna deprived in some ways? There was Draupadi’s Swayamvar in which it is said that Karna was not allowed to participate. Now, that is how the popular depiction is. But actually, if you look at the Mahabharata carefully, it is said that Karna participated and missed the target.
Karna participated and missed the target. So, actually speaking, Karna was never as great a warrior as it is often made out to be. This is a little technical.
But it’s an important point to understand in recognizing the principle that one has to respond to adversity with integrity. But integrity does not necessarily always mean being tolerant and indulgent. It also sometimes requires, necessitates being assertive, even aggressive.
So, Karna was never a match to Arjuna. Karna, let’s look at it. We’ll look at all the incidents when Karna and Arjuna had a face-off and we’ll see what happened.
So, those of you who know the Mahabharata will be able to relate with this quickly. Those of you who don’t, you may have to stretch your memories a little bit to understand this. So, when we are talking about this Vyasa Yuga Mahascriptures, we are assuming that most of the audience knows the stories.
And we are not going to go into the technical details of the stories over here. The first face-off between Karna and Arjuna was in Drona’s martial exhibition. And at that time, Karna bragged that I will excel Partha.
But he equaled Partha. And afterwards, there was about to be a duel between them. And then a technicality came up.
And the time for the exhibition got over. And that’s why there was no match that happened. So, it was a draw.
Then the second indirect face-off between them happened in Drupada’s time. After Drona’s exhibition was over, the students went to Drona and asked, What Gurudakshina would you like to have? So, he said, arrest Drupada and bring him back to us. So, the Kauravas went.
And because now Karna had allied with them, so Karna also went. And they all attacked. The hundred Kauravas with Karna attacked Drupada.
And Drupada actually defeated them. And they had to flee shame-faced. And after that the Pandavas came.
Just five Pandavas. And they defeated Drupada. So, that means what? Drupada defeated Karna and Arjuna defeated Karna.
That means Arjuna won, Karna zero. Then after that, another face-off that took place was when the Pandavas had been exiled. And at that time the Kauravas came to try to brag their power.
And at that time the Gandharvas checked them. It’s a long story, but suffice it to say that the Gandharvas and the Kauravas had a fight. And Karna was also there at that time.
And the Gandharvas defeated the Kauravas. Karna fled from there for his life after being severely wounded. And Duryodhana was arrested.
And after that Arjuna came. And Arjuna came alone this time. Arjuna and Bhima actually came.
But Arjuna fought primarily with the Gandharvas. And Arjuna defeated the Gandharvas. So again, the Gandharvas defeated Karna.
And Arjuna defeated the Gandharvas. That means Arjuna turned out to be superior to Karna. So Arjuna too, Karna zero.
And after that there was another major fight that happened. It was at Virat. When the Agyatvas was over, the incognito side was over.
Then at that time there was a fight between the whole Kaurava army on one side. Which included Karna, Drona, Duryodhana, Dushyasana, Bhishma, Kripa, Ashwathama, Shakuni. All of them were there on one side.
And Arjuna single-handed was there on the other side. And in what was probably the greatest solo performance in the whole Mahabharata, Arjuna defeated all of them. And Karna was there.
Karna actually came twice and tried to fight with Arjuna. And both times Arjuna bested Karna. So it is now Arjuna three, Karna zero.
And then after that, for the first ten days of the Kurukshetra war, Arjuna and Karna never had a direct… Karna did not fight as long as Bhishma was the commander. On the eleventh day he came and there were small skirmishes. But there was no major confrontation between them till the seventeenth day.
And on the seventeenth day there was a fierce fight. And it seemed sometimes that Karna would get the upper hand, sometimes it seemed that Arjuna would get the upper hand. But finally it was that Karna became severely wounded and his chariot started going under the ground.
Now, so basically Karna now said, Oh Arjuna, remember, remember that you should not hold the thoughts that are cherished by cowards. So, actually, this is a different principle, which we will discuss more in detail on another session. But suffice it to say at this point Krishna had told Arjuna, Lord is born.
Krishna told Arjuna, Karna, you are remembering fairness, you are remembering morality. Where was your morality when you along with five other warriors killed the sixteen-year-old Abhimanyu, slaughtered him brutally, unfairly. Where was your virtue when you suggested Draupadi to be listed for this role? Where was your virtue when Shapuni was cheating the Pandavas? Where was your virtue when you set the Pandavas along with their venerable mother on fire, burned them alive? Where was your virtue and listed all the atrocities that Karna was a part of? Since if it was virtue at all those times, and today Arjuna will kill you by that same virtue.
And Arjuna shot and killed Karna. So, the point here is that suppose there is a cricket match. And in the cricket match there is some person from minority community.
And that person is, say, not elected because of being not competitive. But then after that in order to garner sympathy that person starts saying that because I am from minority community that’s why I was not selected. Now, there is discrimination against me.
Actually, there is no discrimination. There was just lack of adequate qualification. But then to conceal the lack of qualification and to try to garner unwarranted sympathy, one brings in the issue of the one’s race or caste or whatever it is.
So, by minority community I don’t necessarily mean minority religion over here. It can be any form of minority community. So, similarly, in terms of sheer competence, Karna was never a match to Arjuna.
And both of them got rod heels in their lives. Both of them got rod heels in their lives. But they took their rod heels and what did they do? Actually, Karna went and did a lot of unfair things, a lot of brutal things.
Arjuna stuck to the path of virtue. And that’s how Arjuna succeeded. So, rather than seeing Karna as a person who was unfairly wrong, yes, he was wrong, but then everyone is wrong.
But the important thing is that we should respond to wrong things that happen not by doing further wrong things. We will only complicate matters by that. We have to think deeply and make the right choices.
So, Karna, unfortunately, we discussed earlier how because of his attachment to Duryodhana, that bad association spoiled him and he made wrong choices. So, Karna not only was wronged like everyone is, but Karna made many wrong choices. And those wrong choices were the cause of his unfortunate destiny.
So, his unfortunate destiny of being killed on the war was not because the destiny was cruel to him, because he was cruel to himself by making wrong choices. By neglecting good counsel and neglecting the opportunities to live a principled life, he brought that misfortune upon himself. So, the important lesson for us is don’t use the wrongs that happen to justify the wrongs that we do.
The real challenge of life, the test of character, the growth of character happens when we respond to adversity with integrity. Thank you. Hare Krishna.