Value Education and Spirituality 10 – Mahabharata 4 – Karna 1 – Choose friends that bring out our best, not our worst

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna welcome back to the value education and spirituality series we are discussing from the Mahabharata now Dhritarashtra and Duryodhana are the central negative characters and they are negative not just because of some stereotyping but because of their own choices and their character now if we look at the Mahabharata the Pandavas are virtuous but there are shades even among them Bhima often tends to be quite strong and violent sometimes brutally so although he is a righteous person similarly among the Kauravas also Duryodhana is evil Dhritarashtra is not actively evil but he is passive condoling evil now Karna is on a spectrum where he has definitely much more virtues than Duryodhana and other Kauravas but somehow he gets trapped and from Karna’s life we will look at several lessons one of the most important ones is how a virtuous person gets spoiled by bad association so now let’s first start by looking at Karna as an example of a person who was person who did wrongs Karna comes out worst in the Asat Sabha in the assembly where Draupadi was dishonored so now let’s go we will discuss the details of the gambling match later and we will discuss about the dangers of gambling at that time but let’s focus on this one point right now that it was Karna who suggested that Draupadi be brought into the assembly and be dishonored be disrobed and dishonored now this is a ghastly suggestion for a Kshatriya who is meant to be actually a protector of people Kshata Trayate Iti Kshatriya so Trayate is to protect Kshata is hurt so one who is meant to protect people from hurt for such a such a person to actually suggest and plan and later on justify the dishonoring of a woman of a royal family whom he is meant to protect being related to that same royal family it was unspeakably barbaric for him to do that so when Karna made that suggestion the whole assembly shuddered because it was such an unspeakable suggestion what to speak of her actually being done should not have been spoken what to speak of being done but Indusha Sena went and grabbed Draupadi and brought her in and all that incident we’ll discuss later right now let’s focus on Karna’s role over here so eventually when the immorality of that action started becoming obvious Vikarna was one of the brothers of Duryodhana one of his one of the hundred Kauravas who protested strongly and he gave three reasons he said that Yudhishthira did not gamble voluntarily that the gambling match was against the rules because one person was taking the money and another was throwing the dice Shakuni was throwing the dice Duryodhana was throwing the money this was against the rules of gambling and thirdly Yudhishthira had gambled himself before he gambled Draupadi so therefore the gambling was not proper and therefore he said the whole gambling match should be declared null and void and the Kauravas should be given their king Pandavas should be given their kingdom back at that time all the courtiers and others assembled in the assembly cheered Vikarna and they approved him and the tide seemed to be turning against Duryodhana and Indusha Sena and their vicious schemes and it seemed that justice would reign but at that time Karna got up and he raised his huge powerful arms and he silenced everyone silence silence and he said I have seen many improper things in this assembly but the most improper thing I am seeing is the speech of Vikarna and he now that a woman was dragged into a public assembly and she was disrobed publicly that Karna is not thinking to be wrong he is saying that what? that the attempts to stop such a dishonorable thing is the most dishonorable thing he is saying what perversity is this and then he gave the reasoning nobody forced Yudhishthira to gamble the match gamble and he could have stopped at any time and it was Yudhishthira who gambled so it is his mistake it is not the assembly’s mistake that he gambled her after he had lost himself so he said let it proceed and then again Indusha Sena tried to disrobe Draupadi and then Krishna manifesting as an unending sari saved her honour but the point was Karna again and again tried to justify it and later on after this whole war took place 13 years later when he met Bhishma on the 10th day of the Kurukshetra war Bhishma fell and then Karna knew that Bhishma was going to die and he wanted to have emotional closure before death so he went and spoke his heart and they had a heart to heart talk and that time Karna said and Karna said this earlier to Krishna also when Krishna met him he said that actually I bitterly regret the words I spoke to about Draupadi he had called so another thing which he said was just which was very bad was that he said that what kind of woman has five husbands she is already a prostitute and she can nothing wrong if she is disrobed because she is already living like a prostitute now a prostitute is a woman who sells her body for money so Draupadi had done nothing like that she had not she had only participated in her father’s swayamvar the swayamvar that father had organized for her and then the contestant who had won the match she went with her but circumstances arranged that she had five husbands all that we will discuss later but the point was Draupadi had no role in going and actively soliciting more than one husband and the morality of that arrangement which we will discuss later had been ratified even by a great sage like Vyasadev so the point is it was a unjustified accusation and it was an intolerable accusation for a honourable woman to be called a harlot a Vesha is an unspeakable crime and Karna says over here to Krishna and to Bheesma at a different time that actually I bitterly regret the words I spoke to about Draupadi he says only my desire to please Duryodhana that made me do such things so how if we look at the trajectory of Karna’s character what happens is initially when Duryodhana and his team especially Shakuni and Shakuni are planning something evil Karna opposes that for example when they want to send them off to Bhavanavarth and burn them alive so at that time Karna says don’t do this let us call them have a fair fight defeat them and then you can take the kingdom Shakuni says we will not be able to defeat them they are too strong Karna wants to oppose him but Duryodhana takes the side of Shakuni and they go ahead with the conspiracy so in those times in the initial conspiracy that Duryodhana against the Pandavas Karna is a reluctant participant but slowly by that bad association with Duryodhana he gets spoiled and he gets spoiled to the extent where he decides to do he not only goes along with doing something dishonorable but he himself proposes something more dishonorable also see there are three levels over here one is somebody else wants to do bad and we go along with it second is we also actively participate in doing the wrong thing and third is we ourselves propose something new which is wrong which the other person had not even proposed and we propose that and that is total corruption it is actually perversity happening so what happens is Karna is initially a reluctant participant then he becomes an active participant and then he becomes not just an active participant but he becomes an active suggester of further aggravation expansion of schemes and in this way he actually decides to he actually spoils everything over there so how does this happen that is the power of bad association now the nature of the relationship of Duryodhana and Karna we will discuss in a future session but here the main point is we can all see in our lives how we are affected by the people around us now all of us want to feel accepted and respected in whatever social circle we belong to and if we are in a social circle of people who are virtuous, upstanding, morally upright then in order to be accepted and respected in that circle we have to also become upstanding, morally upright virtuous and that’s how the social circle can help us in our inner growth in the building of our character but if we are in a social circle that is against that encourages vice encourages bad habits and that cheers immorality and depravity then in order to gain acceptance and respect in that social circle we end up doing similar things so for example say when students come to college say they are coming to the hostel they enter into college and often there is ragging in the college that happens ragging is a very unfortunate and undesirable part of the campus culture today but unfortunately it is there and then so when the students at that time they will be compelled during the ragging sessions to do some things which they do not want to do which their parents have taught are wrong which they know themselves are harmful but they end up doing it so because all the friends are smoking or drinking they also smoke or drink and then afterwards they actively participate and then they find out some more things to do which others are also not doing they become leaders in the pack that is going towards perversity so in this way the social circle that we place ourselves in shapes our character the Bhagavad Gita says in 2.62 that our association is born desire so whatever kind of association we place ourselves in accordingly our desires will develop and when our desires develop accordingly then we go down or go up depending on those desires which are determined by our association that’s why it’s vital for us to choose friends who will bring the best out of us and not friends who will bring the worst out of us now Karna was in his own way virtuous but Duryodhana unfortunately brought the worst out of him and the worst was that he went against his own character, his own conscience and he suggested the disrobing of a chaste woman and the dishonoring and not only suggested but justified it and publicly called her by a shameful name so this is how actually bad association can bring out the worst within us and we have to be very careful to choose our friends and if we don’t we should know that choosing our friends essentially we are choosing our character because we all are social creatures and we want to feel valued and accepted and respected in whatever social circle we are in and we can’t live without some level of social acceptance in whatever circle we are in and to get that acceptance we will conform to the expectations of that circle so that’s why what is important is to place ourselves in a social circle that brings the best out of us now we may say that oh actually everybody does nasty things no that’s not true there may be majority of people who may have some bad habits but within every group even if you are in a college even in a class even in a hostel you will find there are actually some students who want to live a virtuous life who know that ok I have come here for college I have come here for studying, my parents are spending so much money so that I can have a good education and they expect me to live a upstanding good life no upstanding life not that I waste my time and get myself entangled in bad habits so when we remember this and then we seek out there may be a small friend circle also but that friend circle will give us a sense of belonging, a sense of acceptance and a sense of value and respect for what for the best that we can become Karna demonstrates that if we don’t choose the right friends then instead of the best coming out of us the worst will come out of us Hare Krishna