Why did Mahadeva give the empowering sword to Ashwatthama?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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thank you so why did Mahadev give the sword to Ashwatthama when Pandavas were on the side of the virtue yeah there are two different things over here there is the soul’s desire and there is the higher empowerment which comes along so it was not that when Ashwatthama was sleeping Mahadev went and woke him up and told him you know take this weapon no actually Ashwatthama himself resolved to kill the Pandavas when they’re sleeping and first Mahadev came in the way and it was not that Ashwatthama would not have exactly recognized this Mahadev but he could have seen this very powerful being and attacked him attacked him even he tried to kill him so the point of this is Mahadev saw through this that Ashwatthama is completely bent on doing this course of action so there is the principle of karma so for example say A kills B that means if A is killing B that means B had done some karma by which B had to die at that time but that karma could have come in any way B might have had an accident B might have had a heart attack so if A kills B now A is not thinking oh I am fulfilling the law of karma A is simply angry and A is simply acting out of out of murderous anger so even if it is B’s karma to die A does not have to become the instrument for that and A is not thinking I am becoming an instrument A is doing because of one’s own anger and murderous desire so even if it was B’s destiny to die by B’s own karma A is doing that makes A responsible so similarly by the arrangement of time the Pandava warriors also were going to die at that time but by the arrangement of time they were dying some other way so when Ashwatthama chose chose to act in an evil way and showed his evil resolve by attacking even a person who was obviously formidably powerful at that time Mahadev chose him as an instrument just because we get some power bigger than ours that does not mean that that means we are on the right track sometimes some people claim that say some higher being is speaking through them or something like that but if we see that there are times when in the Mahabharata there are several stories actually another story where at one time Duryodhana decides to commit suicide out of frustration and then Duryodhana while he goes sits in a fast to commit suicide his body is transported he’s transported to the Dhanavas to the loca of the Dhanavas. Dhanavas say that actually we have done Tapasya so that you will be born on the earth and you are going to be our instrument to destroy the Devatas and therefore you fight and we will be with you and we will enable you to win so here there may be some power higher than Duryodhana’s which is helping him but that does not mean that power is for his good or that does not mean that he has to do that see he had that desire to continue on the evil course of action and then some higher being used so Duryodhana so it was Mahadev basically was giving people was arranging to give people but Nashwatthama had an evil desire Mahadev used him for that purpose but Mahadev used him not by forcing him but because he himself had the desire that’s why it is said that we are often forced to do what we choose to desire that means what is in our power is desiring once we choose to desire something after that things go beyond our power is forced to do it so it’s like you know if somebody decides to jump off a 10-story building they can choose whether to jump off the 10-story building or not but after they choose and after that whether I fall or not that is not in their hands so like that once we choose a particular desire then there are forces bigger than us which will use us and that’s why our intelligence our independence is primarily in choosing the right desire the empowerment is based on our whatever we desire and our karma so what it means is that somebody can be a very good singer and that person is a good singer they can sing about Krishna and they can attract people to Krishna somebody can be a very good singer and they can be singing about sensuality and they can drag people down now in both cases the ability of singing is a gift of God but where that ability is being used that is up to that person so just as somebody might be having a very very great gift that may come at birth in terms of a very sweet voice but they will use it according to their level of consciousness their motives and their choices just as so now that sweet voice is actually a gift you could say it’s empowerment but people may use it people may abuse it so just as this depends whether one gets a empowerment or not that depends on one’s karma and it’s up to karma here means what one has done in past life but how one uses that empowerment that will vary according to person to person so Hitler he he had the he had he was a great speaker actually phenomenal power to speak and when he would speak you just he could galvanize thousands and thousands of people so he had that power speaking power but he used it in the wrong way to poison people’s minds and he misled people with the Nazi ideology just as some people may have some ability by birth some people may develop an ability by painstaking effort Hitler would spend hours at that time there was no television so it was radio so his speech would be broadcast on radio before that he would spend hours rehearsing his speeches that he would have maximal impact on those nationally broadcast speeches so somebody may get a power by that and again that power may be used wrongly so Ashwatthama by his own karma he was meant to get that power but he could use it have used that power for a right purpose he could use that power for a wrong purpose so naadatte kastachit paapam na chai vasukutam in the fifth chapter Krishna says that I do not accept the good results of anyone nor do I accept the bad results of anyone it is they act good and bad ways because of being deluded by ignorance so Krishna gives gyan by which you can counter the gyan but it’s up to us to take the gyan so we shouldn’t think that Mahadev caused the death of the Kauravas it’s just that it is Ashwatthama by his karma had to get that empowerment and he used that empowerment wrongly at that time so there is it’s like sometimes there may be a person in the army and they have machine gun and the person is given a machine gun to protect the country and they have been given the machine gun why because in the past they have acted responsibly they use the weapons properly that’s why they may be given a very advanced machine gun but then they may use the machine gun to kill civilians so when they are used to kill civilians at that time if the commander of that particular soldier had given a machine gun that commander is not to be blamed at that time because that person had till then he had earned that and then they misused it so like that Ashwatthama was to be given empowerment by karma but he chose to act not only strongly but viciously with that empowerment okay any other questions yes madam