Value Education and Spirituality 08 – Mahabharata 2 – Duryodhana – Envy leads to destructive competition that is dissatisfying and degrading

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
right direction. Hare Krishna.
Welcome back to the value education and spirituality series. We are now discussing values from the Mahabharata and we discussed about Chakuni. We are moving from the black characters towards the white characters.
So, today we will discuss about Duryodhana. And in Duryodhana, we will discuss several characteristics, but one of the most important or the most damaging characteristics that we see in Duryodhana is envy. So, unfortunately, today, there are culture, in this today’s culture, often envy is glamorised.
Now, there was a television ad which said, owner’s pride, neighbour’s envy. So, the idea is, when you have this, you will make your neighbours envious of you. And as if making somebody envious of oneself is a source of happiness.
In fact, going further, there was a car advertisement which says, purchase this car and enjoy the envy in your neighbour’s eyes. Enjoy the envy in your neighbour’s eyes. So, what a level of enjoyment this is, that rather than enjoying the positive accomplishments that one has been able to do in one’s life, one seeks enjoyment by dragging others down and by delighting in others’ downfall.
So, what exactly do we mean by envy? Envy basically means that when I see others successful and more successful than me, then that makes me miserable, intolerably miserable sometimes. And that can, envy can even become malicious, where I cannot tolerate that person’s success and then I drag that person down, so that I can become at a higher position than that person. So, now there is competitiveness, which is an inherent and an avoidable feature of life.
And competition itself is not undesirable. Competition essentially means that different people are trying to achieve a goal and they all try to excel. So, the presence of others inspires them to put in greater efforts so that they can succeed.
So, there can be constructive competition and there can be destructive competition. Constructive competition means when others are good or others are better than us, that inspires us to perform better, to become more dedicated, to perform at a higher level, and it helps us to become better than ourselves, in the sense of what we were earlier. So, by taking inspiration from others, we try to become better than what we were earlier.
So, in constructive competition, the focus is on self-improvement, whereas envy is based on a foundation of destructive competition. Destructive competition means rather than if somebody is higher than me, rather than I raising myself up, which would be constructive competition. In destructive competition, I try to drag the other person down.
And when I try to drag the other person down, in the eyes of the world or in terms of game and position or power, I may become higher than that person. But actually, I have not developed myself. I have not done any justice to my talents.
I have not conquered over my lower self. I have not gained a greater degree of self-discipline, of self-mastery. And I have not actually become a better person by that.
So, for example, if a student, if two students are studying, and one student finds that another student is better. So, if there is a better student, the first student also studies harder, plans more intelligently and improves. Then there, what happens is this student has also become better.
And that competition has served a constructive purpose, competitive mentality. But in destructive competition, rather than I trying to become better, maybe before the day of the exam, if that other student has prepared some notes for quick last-minute revision, this student goes into that student’s room and finds those notes and burns those notes or steals those notes for one’s own use. And that way, it jeopardises the prospects of that other student.
In fact, it harms the prospects. Jeopardises means puts in danger, harms means actually cause harm, cause trouble. So, destructive competition may help one to gain some external designation sometimes.
But destructive competition cannot bring about any inner satisfaction. So, important difference. Now, external recognition, external designation, that means that somebody there in a class there can be only one topper.
Of course, sometimes there can be two joint toppers or something like that. But overall, you cannot have, we cannot have everyone as being a topper. So now, if some person, if there are two people competing to become the topper and one student decides that I will harm the other student, maybe burn that person’s notes or maybe cause some physical harm so that that person doesn’t come to the exam, this may be an extreme, but is not able to attend the exam and therefore can’t do well or whatever, I do something like that, then because of that person’s being incapacitated in some way, even the student excels.
The student may get external recognition, external recognition or external designation, okay, you are the topper of the class. But that will not lead to an inner satisfaction. Inner satisfaction comes where only when we live according to principles and actually do justice to our abilities.
That means we struggle against our lower side and we curb and conquer that side. And knowing that something which was difficult to do because of our own weaknesses, we overcame those weaknesses and then attained success with integrity that gives a satisfaction which is deeply fulfilling, which is meaningful, which is uplifting from an internal perspective. But just destructive competition which drags the other person down and thereby enables one to attain success cannot provide that sort of satisfaction.
And this is the defining characteristic of Duryodhana’s life. So Duryodhana, if we look at the broad story of the Mahabharata, then Duryodhana was the expected to become the king. So the whole story of the Mahabharata is that Pandu and Dhritarashtra were brothers.
Dhritarashtra was elder, but because he was blind, he couldn’t become the king. So Pandu became the king, but because of various circumstances, situations, because of his own inclination for renunciation and also because of a curse, he could not have children. And therefore, it was expected that in the next generation, the throne would go to Dhritarashtra’s son, that is Duryodhana.
Now, there was some arrangement made by which Pandu begot children. We will discuss that when we come to later aspects of issues. But here, when he begot the children and then the way it happened was that although Dhritarashtra conceived in Gandhari’s womb much earlier, but the embryo stayed in her, the gestation period was very long.
And in terms of birth, Yudhishthira was born before Duryodhana. So both Pandavas and Kauravas were many. The Pandavas were 5, the Kauravas were 100, but the eldest among all of them were Yudhishthira and Duryodhana respectively.
And Yudhishthira was slightly older. So the throne, which had gone to Pandu, and it had never gone to Dhritarashtra, Dhritarashtra was simply a caretaker. But because in the next generation, there was no one, a throne would have relapsed back to Duryodhana.
But when Yudhishthira was born and Yudhishthira was also older, therefore, the throne would naturally go to him. And initially, Duryodhana had been the eye of the apple for the whole Kuru dynasty, the Kuru elders, because the Pandavas had not even been born and were not in the picture. But when the Pandavas came back, and because they were cultured, they were respectful, they were virtuous.
So they attracted the hearts of their elders and also they were very caring and kind towards the citizens also. So they attracted the hearts of the elders and also of the citizens. And eventually, it was not only in character and culture that the Pandavas were better.
Certainly, Yudhishthira was far better than Duryodhana, but also Bhima was much stronger than Duryodhana. So now, Duryodhana started feeling displaced. He started thinking that the kingdom was my right and it has been taken away by the Pandavas.
And then, now what did he do? He tried various things. He first tried to poison Bhima and then he tried to burn the Pandavas in Varanavar and that did not work. Eventually, when they were given a kingdom, he saw the prosperity of the kingdom and he decided that I cannot tolerate it.
So we will focus on two main incidents in Duryodhana’s life to understand how this destructive competition, this envy and this resulting destructive competition harms oneself. What to speak of harming others in oneself. So now, when the Rajasuya Yajna, the sacrifice was performed, so basically, Yudhishthira was declared like the world emperor and when he, his prosperity was phenomenal.
Kings from all over the world came and gave tributes to him and on receiving these tributes, Yudhishthira gave profuse charity and he was not attached to the wealth in a adharmic or a greedy way. He wanted to use this wealth for serving society and for establishing society on a progressive path. But when Duryodhana saw this wealth, he was, he could tolerate it not at all and while he was returning back, so Yudhishthira was, his capital was Indraprastha and Duryodhana had been given half the kingdom.
So his capital was Hastinapur. Now, actually, from one perspective, we could say that Duryodhana had no right to any kingdom at all because the throne had passed on to Pandu and from there it would go on to Yudhishthira. But still, he had got half the kingdom and when he came back, when he was coming back with Shakuni and Karna from the Rajshri sacrifice from Hastinapur, from Indraprastha to Hastinapur, at that time he said, now he was grieving to Shakuni and Shakuni saw this opportunity and he came to Dhritarashtra and he said that, you know, your son is in great misery.
Ask him what is his misery. In fact, he’s thinking that his whole life is pointless. Ask him what is his misery and help him to help him solve the cause or remove the cause of the misery.
Dhritarashtra became very concerned, disturbed, alarmed. He said, what is the matter? And Duryodhana replied, who is the person who can be happy on seeing the prosperity of enemies and especially seeing that their prosperity to be greater than one’s own prosperity? And he described the profuse amount of wealth that the Pandavas had. And seeing this, hearing this, Dhritarashtra became concerned and he said, oh son, why do you worry? He said, you have magnificent palaces, you have your own courtiers, you have queens and maidservants, you have horses and chariots, you have your own kingdom, you have your own followers and what are you lacking? So, Duryodhana was phenomenally wealthy.
As a king in a country that was prosperous, he was phenomenally prosperous and Dhritarashtra made a valid point, what are you lacking? So, from the point of view of a normal or unbiased perspective, Duryodhana’s position was extraordinarily gifted, endowed, blessed. He had so much as compared to everyone else. But he said, what is the use of my wealth when the Pandavas have greater than wealth than me? Dhritarashtra said, if they have done a sacrifice, you do a similar sacrifice and by doing that sacrifice, you will also get tributes and then your wealth can also become augmented.
So, he said, no, it’s not possible. Because at one time, Dhritarashtra has been coronated as the king, as per the Rajya, old emperor as per the Rajya sacrifice, cannot have another sacrifice being done. And even if we do that kind of sacrifice still, I’ll not get so much tributes.
So, then what did he plan? What should I do? So, he said, I cannot live seeing Dhritarashtra’s prosperity like this. If we want to get their wealth, there has to be another way. What is that other way? He said, rather than trying to conquer the world and get the whole wealth, this was the idea which Shakuni had given and now Shakuni and Dhritarashtra both presented it to Dhritarashtra.
The Pandavas got all the wealth from the world, got the tributes from the whole world and then we can just get their wealth. We can have a gambling match. And then in the gambling match, Shakuni arranged to cheat and through that cheating, the war was won.
Actually, the wealth was won. The world’s the honour of being the greatest king and that was caught. The Pandavas were banished.
So, here what happened? Actually, was there any heroism in just defeating somebody in a nefarious way? No, there’s no heroism in that. Just like if there was a cricket match and within the cricket match, if one team wants to win the championship, then they have a good coach and they do rigorous training and their players become more and more professional. They get more and more talent papers and then they perform after that.
Then their victory becomes glorious. So, as often they say, may the best team win. So, that would be the spirit in these kind of sacrifices also.
May the best warriors in the world win. But suppose instead of, so one team wants to win, but instead of trying to improve the performance of that team itself, what the team does is, maybe bribes some players or some umpires or in some way does match fixing and in this way undercuts the performance of the other team or cheats in some other way by which the other team does not get the due credit. So, now for the namesake, this team may become the champion, but actually the team will not get, the glory is not meaningful.
The glory is not fulfilling because it has been got without getting self excellence and that it doesn’t satisfy. So, what happened? Now, we may say, what does it matter? The world thinks that this team is champion. It’s champion.
So, the world thinks that Durudhana is a ruler. He’s got what he wants. So, how does it matter? Actually, if we, the success in life comes when we live according to principles and bring out the best in ourselves.
When we’re not doing that, our whole happiness becomes extremely dependent on externals, dependent on externals. That means that no matter how much we have, we still want more and more and we want that the world should recognise how much we have and that we are better than everyone else. That’s what we should say.
So, Durudhana had the Pandavas dispossessed. He had the Pandavas exiled and yet was he satisfied now? He was the king. He made this devious gambling match in which after 12 years of exile, the Pandavas had to further stay for one year in incognito exile and only then they could come back and then they would be given back their kingdom.
So, now 12 years he was going to enjoy unarrivaled kingship. Yeah, and all the wealth that he had fantasised about, now he had got it. Was he satisfied? No.
Even despite having all this, he felt, actually, I’m not satisfied. And he thought, for my satisfaction, actually, let me go into the forest and let the Pandavas see with their own eyes my prosperity and their poverty. When they see this by comparison, then they will understand how I am great.
They are living in huts and they have no positions, practically speaking. No chariots, no elephants, no horses and I will go there with my chariots, my servants and maidservants, my elephants and my royal opulence. And there, when I flaunt my wealth in front of them, then that will be my glory.
So, this is what he decided to do. And he went there. But at that time, there were some higher beings, more powerful warriors than the Gandharvas.
And they fought. So, the Pandavas were on one side of a river. The Pandavas decided, as long as we are in the forest, let us try to increase our virtue by doing spiritual activities.
So, they were doing activities for self-purification and self-development by performing sacrifices and by studying and discussing scripture and spiritual wisdom. So, they were sitting, they were on the one side of the bank and Duryodhana’s plan was to be on the other side of the bank and flaunt his wealth. But on the other side of the bank, there were more powerful warriors than Gandharvas and there was a fight between them.
And during the fight, Duryodhana and his whole army and all his generals, including Karna, Shakuni, were defeated. And Duryodhana was arrested and mortified. And such total was his humiliation.
When Duryodhana, far from being victorious and flaunting his wealth, Duryodhana was defeated completely. He was arrested. And then he had brought his own servants, maidservants, queens and other palace ladies and he wanted to brag about his power and his wealth in front of them.
And in front of those very people, in front of him, he wanted to flaunt his power. What happened? So, he wanted to flaunt his power in front of his own palace residents to see how the Pandavas are prosperous and how the Pandavas are so poor. And he wanted the Pandavas to see his prosperity.
But his whole plan went topsy-turvy. And he was arrested and he was shackled and handcuffed almost like an animal. And Duryodhana was practically dying in mortification at that time.
And none of his warriors could rescue him because they had fled or they had been defeated. So, being helpless, some of his soldiers who had fled from the attack, they went over to the other side of the river and they asked Yudhishthira, Duryodhana has been arrested, please save him. Yudhishthira was a virtuous person and he said, yes, despite what they have done, they are still our brothers.
Although Bhima did not want to help them, he said, you know, forget that, forget our differences. Within us, there may be 100 and we may be 5 and there may be differences, but we are after all one family and against them we are 105. We must help them.
And then he told Bhima and Arjuna to go. And Arjuna went especially and he defeated all those warriors, including their commander who had been far, far superior to the Kaurava warriors. And thereafter, so firstly from the military point of view, Duryodhana was mortified because it was shown for the whole world to see that Duryodhana, who had brought his whole army with him, he and his army had been defeated by the Gandharvas and those very Gandharvas were defeated by Arjuna.
So, in terms of military might, in spite of having so much prosperity, he was still inferior to the Pandavas. This itself was humiliating, but worse still was that after he had been arrested, now Arjuna said, release him. And then the Gandharva, he had some supernatural powers, paranormal powers and he told the whole plan.
He says, why do you want to release a scoundrel like this person? Do you know why he came here? He came here just to put salt on your wounds, just to increase your misery by flaunting his wealth in contrast with your poverty. So, this person deserves to be killed for causing such misery to you and being such a sadist in wanting to cause even greater misery. So, now it is one thing to try to scheme to hurt others, but it is another thing to have one scheme exposed to Duryodhana.
The misery that he was experiencing because of the mortification, it worsened and worsened and worsened. And then to talk as if that were not bad enough, what happened was, Arjuna said, no, no, let us take them to Yudhishthira, he is our leader and let Yudhishthira decide what is best to be done. So, what happened is Yudhishthira was very noble and virtuous and he said, you know, Gandharva, you had the power to kill Duryodhana, but you did not.
So, I am grateful to you for that. He is a member of our Kuru dynasty and I will be grateful to you if you release him. And even when the Gandharva told him that no, this is what he had planned to do.
He says, you know, whatever is his plan, actually it is my duty as the eldest member of the family to look for the well-being of all our family members. So, please release him. And then Yudhishthira taking a paternal role, he was after all the eldest in that generation, taking a paternal role.
Oh, child, do not act foolishly in this way. And now you can go back. And this was unbearable for Duryodhana.
His humiliation, it could not be more. To be shown to be militarily superior, inferior, to be exposed publicly as a scheming malicious person and on top of that, to be condescended in a paternal load by a competitor and then being released because of the mercy of a competitor whom he had tried to disgrace and destroy. His envy was so great that far from feeling gratitude, he felt further rage.
Of course, out of chivalry, he said to Arjuna, you have released me. In the future, I’ll help you if you need anything. But that was not his focus.
His focus was, oh, what great misery I have suffered. So, here we see that he was in a… Even before he started scheming against the Pandavas, he was in a comfortable position. And in that comfortable position, he could have improved himself and excel.
So, but instead of doing that, he tried to bring them down. And even if he brought them down, still he wanted to push them down further. And what happened? He himself went down further.
So, actually, when there is constructive competition, the focus is on self-improvement. So, if at all you want to compete, the best focus for competition is oneself. That means rather we can take inspiration from others, but we compete with ourselves.
Compete with ourselves to try to become better and better. Okay, this was what I could do now. This is what I’ve been able to do now.
I’ll do in the future. This is what I’ll be able to do in the future. And in that way, we will keep improving, keep improving, keep improving.
And that way, whatever is good within us will come out more and more. And we will do justice to our talents. And if when we are focused too much on externals, okay, how much is that person doing? How much is that person doing? If that inspires us to excel more, that is better.
That is good. But otherwise, we understand that everybody is different. Everybody is differently gifted.
And we need to focus on what our gifts are and how to use those gifts. Envy, unfortunately, rather than helping us to see what we have, it makes us delight only in seeing what others don’t have and how we can take those things from others and thereby cause them misery and delight in that misery. Such envy is unfortunate and it is self-destructive and it causes destruction to others also.
So by learning to become focused, not so much on attaining external designations, but on self-improvement and by competing with ourselves, we can learn to avoid this pitfall of envy. And thereby, we can avoid this whole unnecessary complexity and misery that comes when we are focused too much on others and we have that low level standard of seeking pleasure in others’ misery. Thank you.