Lessons for daily life from Mahabharata

Mahabharata, an Indian classical scripture, contains a number of examples to demonstrate different types of fixations, prohibiting the spiritual growth of the people. Probably, one character that is the fulcrum of the entire story is Dhritrastra. He is blind since birth. Despite being the elder son, his kingship is denied due to his blindness and his younger brother Pandu becomes the king of Hastinapur. Since he had a very deep desire to become the king and his ambitions are killed by Pandu, he develops a strong dislike towards Pandu and his family. Later, Pandu dies and Dhritrastra becomes the king. Despite becoming the king, he does not treat the family of Pandu well. Since Pandu’s son Yudhistira is elder than his son Duryodhana, Yudhistira has the first right to be the king of Hastinapur after Dhritrastra. Dhritrastra is not able to tolerate this and becomes a partner in all types of conspiracy against Pandavas.

There are two very significant learnings from the character of Dhritrastra to us. First, our fixations have nothing to do with what we already have. Dhritrastra was born and brought up in a royal family. His life was quite comfortable. He had all the physical comforts such as money, good food, and servants. Yet, he felt so deprived. He was so fixated on being a king. The reason is quite simple. Since he was blind, he had a deep feeling of being discriminated against by nature and developed a deep psychological deficiency. He had the conviction that by being the king, he would be able to prove his abilities. 

It also happens to us. We have so many things in life but have certain deficiencies as well. The sorted-out beings focus on what they have and live life happily. The unsorted ones focus on what they don’t have. As we focus more and more on the deficiencies in life, they start captivating our attention and we start losing awareness of what we already have. For example, when we focus on one particular object, it captivates our attention and slowly the other objects start disappearing. The same thing happens with a focus on deficiencies and soon we start losing awareness of what we already have.

With such a focus, the person may sit idle and keep cursing the entire ecosystem. He may start blaming all the people around him for his deficiencies. Or he may make it a life mission and aggressively pursue certain ways and means that he feels will help him overcome these deficiencies. With a deep focus on these deficiencies over a period of time, these deficiencies enter deep into the unconscious mind and keep directing our lives. Dhritrastra also wanted to be a king of Hastinapur to overcome these deficiencies.

The second learning for the character of Dhritrastra is that intelligence is no criterion to decide the degree of awareness or fixations. The most intelligent people may be quite fixated and the most unintelligent may be quite aware. Vice versa is also true. Dhritrastra was very intelligent and got the best education. He had the company of the most intelligent persons like Bhishma and Vidura. In fact, Krishna was also one of his relatives. All of them try to show the mirror to Dhritrastra quite often. Yet, Dhritrastra was so obsessed and fixated on his deficiencies and resultant ambitions that everyone who tried to show him the mirror became his enemy. Everyone who supported his ambitions became his friend. That is how our intelligence acts in falsity. The rational mind is a slave of the emotional mind, till it learns to act under divine guidance. Till that time, it just supplies logic to support the cause of the emotional mind. The sharper the intellect the more powerful the logic. Hitler could convince a majority of Germans to support him for his ambitions with his strong logic and intellect.

Therefore, the first lesson for the spiritual seekers from Mahabharata is to observe ourselves to be aware of our deficiencies and ambitions. To see their true place in our entire existence. To understand and appreciate the vastness of our existence. If our attention is focused on a particular object in the room, for quite a long time, and we do not notice any other object lying in the room, thousands of advice to take the focus away from that object may not work; or little inspiration may work. It’s difficult to say. However, I strongly feel that if we practice awareness on a regular basis, it’s quite unlikely to get fixated on any deficiency or ambition. So, as we start practicing mindfulness, there are fewer chances of being fixated.

The second important character in Mahabharata is Bhishma. Bhishma is the son of Shantanu. He is the son of Ganga. He takes a vow that he will serve Hastinapur throughout his life and will not marry. Tied by this vow, he serves Hastinapur throughout his life and fights the battle from the side of the Kauravas against the Pandavas. He has neither greed nor ambitions. His intellect knows very well that Yudhistira is the rightful king of Hastinapur. Yet he fights from the side of Kauravas to honor his vow.

Bhishma gives us an important lesson. We often get fixated on social conventions and traditions. Quite often, these social conventions and traditions become stagnant and lose their relevance in the contemporary ecosystem. Yet we remain fixated on them and end up narrowing down the spectrum of our lives.

That is the reason why we need to constantly evaluate social conventions, traditions, and norms. We need to understand the rationale of these conventions. Once we understand their rationale, we would understand the background in which such rationale evolved. With this understanding, we would be able to compare the current background with the background when the convention evolved. This will help us dynamically adjust the conventions. There are many conventions that have biological logic. For example, getting up early in the morning helps us get exposure to the Sun and maintain the desired levels of vitamin D. However, there are many conventions that evolved more due to the contemporary social systems and are no longer relevant due to the changes in social structure. For example, child marriage would have become a convention due to the fear of the kids, especially the girl child, being abducted by the ruling class. Moreover, the opportunities for their education and career were also very limited. In today’s context, that does not make any sense. So, we need to continuously evaluate the contemporary relevance of different social conventions and traditions to see their suitability in the contemporary world.

The third important character in Mahabharata is Karna. He was the son of Kunti and Sun. Since he was born before the marriage of Kunti, Kunti discarded him and he was born and brought up by a servant. Since he had the abilities of a warrior and his abilities were not recognized, he developed a deep sense of injustice being done to him. When the entire society disrespected him, Duryodhana gave him support and made him king of Anga. He felt obliged for his life and repaid the debt by fighting the battle of Kurukshetra with Duryodhana.

The character of Karna has significant lessons for us. This world is not fair to anybody. Even Lord Rama had to spend 14 years in the forest for none of his faults. He was so well-behaved with everyone and had the purest intentions. Krishna’s parents, for none of their fault, were in prison. Krishna was also born in prison and was brought up by Yashoda and Nandbaba, who were not his biological parents. He had to face so many difficulties since childhood and in fact his entire life. Yet, he chose to be the charioteer of Arjuna in the battle of Kurukshetra. So, Krishna tried to bring harmony wherever he noticed injustice and disharmony. As against this, Karna was fixated on the injustice done to him. His perspective of looking at justice and harmony was individually centered. Such an individual-centric perspective of injustice and disharmony will always misguide an individual and any efforts to bring harmony, with such centricity, will always result in divisions in society and create different sects. All efforts to bring harmony, with an individual-centric perspective, always bring greater disharmony because at the core of these efforts lies division.

That is what exactly happened with Karna. He was fighting against the injustice and discrimination against him by society and ended up fighting the battle of Kurukshetra on the side of Duryodhana and Dushasana who are outrightly unjust in their approach. That’s how the unconscious dictates our life. It just tilts the reasons and logic to suit its convenience.

The fourth character from Mahabharata is Dronacharya. He wanted to take revenge on King Drupada. He needed able disciples to do this. That was the reason he used Pandavas and Kauravas to take revenge on Drupada. The character of Dronacharya has a very crucial lesson for all of us. In life, we get different positions. As children, we occupy a particular position in the life of our parents. As parents, we occupy a particular position in the life of our kids. We get a particular position in the life of our family and organizations. All these positions bring certain responsibilities and authority. The position of Rajguru offered to Dronacharya was a position that commanded a lot of respect and therefore had huge responsibilities. Dronacharya misused the position. Rather than guiding the king properly, he used the position to take personal revenge.

This is an important lesson for us. The more powerful position we acquire either in any person's life or in any organization, the greater the chances of its misuse by our unconscious. The moment, we become powerful vis-a-vis any person, community, or organization, there are more chances that our unconscious mind plays its game in the guise of promoting the cause of that individual, community, or organization. Since we have gained a very powerful position over that individual, community, organization, it may not be in a position to restrain the same. Therefore, if we wish to grow spiritually, we have to be of the utmost care and self-observant in such situations, and even if the individual, community, or organization is in a self-destructive mode, that can not justify our taking sides with such decisions.  Duryodhana wants to fight the battle of Kurukshetra. Dronacharya knows that it is disastrous to not only Duryodhana but the entire Hastinapur. He still fights the battle from the side of Kauravas. 

The next character from Mahabharata is Draupadi. Draupadi's father carries out a competition to hit the eye of a fist by looking at the image in boiling oil. Since Arjuna had very sharp concentration, he won the competition and married Draupadi. When he reached home, his mother unknowingly instructed Draupadi to marry all five brothers. That's how Draupadi married all five brothers. It was quite against the social conventions of the day. Draupadi had the awareness to live with five husbands. That's probably the most difficult situation in anybody's life. If she is seen to be favoring any of the five, it would have led to disastrous effects and a fight among the brothers.

She could handle such a challenging task because of her "doubtless faith in Krishna". She stayed with the Pandavas in the most difficult situations. She became a queen after the Pandavas got Indraprastha as a compromise. After that, she was insulted by the Kauravas in the palace of Hastinapur. She handled all these and much more because at the core of her existence was always Krishna. She trusted Krishna without any doubt. That is the reason why despite all so capable husbands sitting there when she was being insulted, she just remembered Krishna. Draupadi taught us the power of that faith. However, the faith has to be doubtless even in the worst of circumstances. Doubt makes the faith impure and loses its strength and value. 

I feel that it will become clear to us the moment we understand the underlying mechanism of faith and doubt. Doubt is based on give and take. A gives something to B with a presumption that B will give something in return. B also does the same with certain presumptions about getting back from A. Sometimes a communication gap gets created that results in doubt. Either what A presumed to get back in return was something different from what B presumed about the same or B's presumption about the return was wrong. That may happen either due to A's or B's wrong projection or because of their wrong perception of the other person's intentions. 

Faith is completely different from this. The foundation of faith is based on love. Love is a natural product of "Yoga" or a merger with the beloved. In love one merges one's identity with the other. There is no separate "I" left. In such a situation, there can not be any expectation. There is just surrender. The lover finds joy in giving. In fact, there is no feeling of giving also since one can not give to oneself. Draupadi's character teaches us the true meaning of faith. 

The next character of Mahabharata is Vidura. Vidura is the minister of Hastinapur. He is blessed with great wisdom. He cautions Duryodhana and Dhritrastra at each step, yet he stays back in Hastinapur. Despite being so wise, he still ends up staying away from the battle of Kurukshetra. Throughout his life, he remained prime minister of the kingdom of Hastinapur. 

His character has an important teaching for us. So long as we identify with a community or organization or kingdom, it's not possible to grow beyond that. As the consciousness grows, one will have to leave Lanka like Vibhishana. One needs to have that courage with the growth of consciousness else, one ends up being Vidura and will not be able to participate freely in the most significant events of life. 

The next characters of Mahabharata are Yudhistira and Arjuna. Yudhistira is the eldest of the Pandavas. He is called Dhararaja since he knows what is right and what is wrong. 

Arjuna is not dharamraja. Arjuna has 3 most important qualities. He has unshakable faith in Krishna to the extent that when he was asked to make a choice at the most crucial time of his life while fighting the battle of Kurukshetra, he chose Krishna over his entire army. Not many of us can make such a choice for any of our loved ones. The second quality is his unwavering concentration. Once he takes a particular aim, nothing can make him move away from that. 

Despite having all the 2 qualities life long, and staying with Krishna all the time, he could not get the teachings of Bhagwad Geeta before Kurukshetra. It was only during the battlefield that he developed the third quality. He developed vairagya, a sense of meaninglessness or purposelessness. While Yudhistira and all other Pandavas were sure about their sense of being right, he was quite confused as to how killing the cousins and relatives was good. He was confused between his duty as a warrior and as a brother. This created a strong vairagya in his mind. Only in this state of Vairagya, he could surrender to Krishna fully, and with his faith in Krishna and power to concentrate, Krishna could show him Virata roop. 

Despite being dharma raja, Yudhistira had a clear distinction between right and wrong in his mind. While deciding between right and wrong, he gave preference to the community over the individual. But spirituality is much beyond all the divisions howsoever wide they may be. Spirituality can not even be confined to nations or humanity. The consciousness of Yudhistira was confined to a community or nation while Arjuna got vairagya. In that state of vairagya, with surrender to Krishna and with his practice of concentration, he could see the reality, undivided between right and wrong, and fight the battle with that understanding or awareness.

This is the most important lesson from Mahabharata for all of us. We need to develop the following 3 qualities (which Arjuna had) to grow spiritually:

1. unwavering concentration
2.  Vairagya
3. Unshakable faith in the divine

Then only we can fight our own battle of Kurukshetra like Arjuna.