When Sugriva had planned Vali’s fall why did he feel remorse?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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So, when Subrivas felt that, I have killed my brother for my own greed, so, he had actually very conscientiously thought out before putting the hole on the cave. So, why did he think like this? Actually, at this point, he was thinking, it was primarily about Vali’s being shot by Ram.
That particular situation where Vali had been killed, he felt, it was I who teamed with Ram, and then Ram shot Vali because of me. So, he was thinking, because of me, he was killed. Now, Ram consoled him.
See, there are emotions which we all go through, and our emotions, they don’t always reflect reality. But our emotions reflect also our orientation, our sensitivity, our attitude. You see, if a person is starving on the streets, now, one emotion will be, they are just suffering the results of their crime.
Now, you may say, this is philosophically true. But, from a point of view of sensitivity, now, if we are in a position to help them, we can and should help them. We can give them some paswaras, something we should do.
So, sometimes, the philosophical reality and the emotional sensitivity, they both need to go together, and they may not go together. If I just focus only on the philosophical reality, if everybody seems to be suffering because of their karma, that’s all, if we start looking at the whole of life in terms of karma, I’ll talk about this in one of the future classes, we can end up with a very hard life. You know, if a baby is crying, should the mother think, baby is crying because of her karma? No, the mother is going to take care of the baby, isn’t it? So, just, we cannot, the philosophical reality, in one sense, is the object to reality.
Karma is the object to reality. But, we also have to consider from the view of emotional sensitivity. So, here, it just reflects Sugriva’s soft heartedness.
That he was not a power hungry person who had deviously conspired to have his brother killed so that he can grab the body. Even after he had been wronged, even after he had justifiable grievances, then when his brother fell, still he felt grief. That shows his soft heartedness.
Does this answer your question? So, he was not at all to be blamed, but his feeling reflects his soft heartedness. And that’s why when Ram consoled him, he accepted it. He knew that, in the back of his mind, he knew that he was not to be blamed, but still he felt, you know, because of me this happened.
So, these feelings simply reflect his sensitivity.