​Was destiny against Karna?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna Question, was destiny against Karna Answer not exactly, destiny gives something good to some people and destiny gives something bad to some people but actually destiny is never entirely against someone or entirely for someone, so yes Karna because he was he was actually born from great parents, a Devata and a Kshatrani and yet he was labelled as a Sudra throughout his life he was a Suta throughout his life so that was his misfortune and we could say that was destiny working against him, so now this is further we could say that he got training from Parashuram but he was cursed and to forget the mantras and then he was also cursed by a Brahmana that his chariot will go into the earth and all the such incidents can be said that can be used to make a case that destiny was against him but then you also need to consider that he met Duryodhana and Duryodhana gave him honour and power so if at all we are going to think of things from the material perspective then he for a person who was born as a Suta to be at the right time and to come exactly at the right time when the martial exhibition was there and when Duryodhana’s animosity towards the Pandavas and especially Arjuna was at his peak and Duryodhana was just looking for someone to act as a foil for Arjuna and for Karna to come exactly at that time and it was not that Karna planned it all Karna wanted to come to the martial exhibition but he is coming there at the exact time when Duryodhana was desperately looking for a foil to Arjuna we could say that is also the working of destiny and in that way destiny gave him a good deal because he was just an unknown Suta at that time but in one moment he got a as a close friend, a powerful Duryodhana and he also got a great kingdom so how many sons of Sutas will ever get that now we could say that yes that was because he had trained so much in archery and because he had become an expert archer that’s why Duryodhana gave it to him yes that is true but it is not that everybody who is skillful who is talented they all always achieve success there are certain things which are in our hands and there are significant number of things that are not in our hands so in that sense it is destiny which gave him a favorable deal that he was an expert Kshatriya but for him to come at that time, for him to be able to exhibit excellent performance which is equal to Partha’s and thus to be able to do what was required for attracting the friendship of Duryodhana it all happened right at that time and so that was destiny giving him a favorable hand and most importantly we see that you know that when we say destiny was against someone that primarily means that wrong things happened to him although he was a good person but bad things happened to him but then we see that Karna is not just a wrong character Karna also acted as a wrong character that means it was he who suggested that Draupadi be disrobed it was he who called Draupadi a prostitute, it was he who sided with the Kauravas on many occasions against the Pandavas and it was because of him that Duryodhana had the audacity to provoke the Pandavas and to wage and to wage a war against them and if Karna had not been there by Duryodhana’s side, Duryodhana would not have been so obstinate, he may well have accepted Krishna’s peace proposal and the whole catastrophic war could have been avoided so Karna was not just a wrong character, he was also a wrong character on several occasions and most importantly as far as destiny is concerned we see that the lord of destiny Krishna himself came to Karna and Krishna offered Karna everything Krishna told him that Duryodhana has offered you kingship, that is just of one Pradesh Anga, I can offer you the kingship of the world practically, you are the eldest among the Pandavas so you will become the king and Yudhishthira and even Arjuna will follow you as the devatas follow Indra, so what this means is that Krishna the lord of destiny offered him everything so at this particular point destiny worked extremely favorably for him now Karna did not deserve this, actually Karna deserved to be punished for all the wrongs that he had done earlier but rather than rather than having to suffer for all those wrongs Krishna the lord of destiny offered him a masterly opportunity unfortunately Karna because of his misdirected sense of loyalty rejected Krishna’s invitation he thought that it is Duryodhana who has offered me a kingdom and he has offered me his friendship, how can I reject that but actually the kingdom that Duryodhana had offered, that was not actually his to offer at that time he was simply a prince and who was going to be the successor was not clear and that’s why when he offered the kingdom it was actually it was not a proper thing for him to do because it was not his kingdom to offer actually precisely speaking, but even then the point is that ultimately everything belongs to the supreme lord and Duryodhana had also got it from Krishna and Krishna who is the lord of everything was inviting him on the side of virtue so for him to reject his reject the opportunity for turning towards Krishna for the sake of choosing Duryodhana was a disastrous blunder this was destiny determines what happens to us our free will and how we use that free will determines how we respond to it so for whatever wrongs may have happened to Karna here he made a disastrous blunder that he chose man over god he rejected god for the sake of a man and not even a virtuous man a man who was quite vicious that is Duryodhana and even if he did not have a devotional mindset and even if he did not consider Krishna as god still he could have used his practical sense of virtue clearly the Pandavas were virtuous the Kauravas were vicious and he could have chosen virtue so he gave up a life of honor for choosing for the sake of the world of honor the world of honor means he had said to Duryodhana that I will always be with you and I will be your friend and he but by being a friend to a dishonorable person, by honoring his word to a dishonorable person he had to live a dishonorable life fighting on the side of vice but if he had come over to the side of the Pandavas then he would have been able to live a life of honor, a life of virtue so he rejected that and that was his great blunder so when destiny offered him an opportunity he rejected that opportunity when the lord of destiny offered him that opportunity he rejected it and that was a tragic blunder from his side so it was not that destiny was against him it was that destiny gave him some unfavorable things but destiny that way gives everybody some unfavorable things. The Pandavas lost their father when they were still very young and the Pandavas by higher arrangement beyond their control were put into a family where their cousin was so viciously envious against them so what had the Pandavas done to deserve this? We could say the Pandavas also got a raw deal in losing their father and losing their and having a hostile cousin so but they accepted that.
Ultimately our life is determined not by what happens to us but by what we do in response to what happens to us our choices are what determine our success or failure of our life of our life and Karna at many especially at the final strategic moment made a decisive blunder and thus it was not that destiny ruined him it was he ruined himself by making wrong choices so Krishna told Krishna embraced Karna and told him oh Karna when a destruction comes a person’s intelligence gets perverted and then he said now we will meet in the battlefield so Karna sealed his own fate by his wrong choice. Destiny did not kill him, he killed himself by going against the lord of destiny. Thank you Hare Krishna