CLASH BETWEEN LOVE AND LOSS

In loving one always fears losing the beloved.  Therefore there is anxiety flavored affection in  the relationship.  In such situations one experiences pain in union which is caused by fear of losing, and when one loses, there is pain caused by losing the  object of  one’s love.

Seeing this phenomena some philosophers suggest,  giving up all relationships will lead to freedom, because there is no entanglement  of relationship. They move to the "philosophy of seclusion," having no relationship with any one.  They escape the whole affair, but that does not work, and  it is  unnatural.  One’s experience of the world does not agree with this principle of giving up to  avoid entanglement. 

Life is like a war, every one fights, there are internal struggles and external struggles, even those who are in renounced order of life, cannot avoid action, because that is not natural for the living beings. Seeing is action, and one cannot avoid seeing, and responding to seeing is reaction, that  also  cannot be  avoided.  Eating is action, and satisfaction or dissatisfaction is a  reaction.  Inhaling is action and exhaling is reaction, can anyone avoid this ?  It is unnatural to  not  be active. In this situation,  the Bhagvat Gita gives us the perfect advice.---Perform action in Karma Yoga, or Nisakama Karma or the heightened form  of Karma Yoga is Bhakti Yoga, which is done without any motivation or personal benefit. None of these processes talk about giving up things rather they talk of utilizing things,  at the cost of personal sacrifice.

In  the Mahabharata War Abhimanyu’s sacrifice was  a cause of  great pain for the pandavas . Drona had formed the Chakra vyuha, which was very difficult to break, and the only person who knew how to break the vyuha was Arjuna, who was engaged in  fighting the Shamshptakas elsewhere.

Yudhisthira had to make the tough decision of agreeing to Abhimanyu’s  bold decisioin to break  the vyuha and enter it even though he did not know how to come out.  It was break or perish, but allowing Abhimanyu meant losing him.  Yudhishira faced a conflict between love for Abhimanyu, or loss of a huge army and adharma’s progress.  He could not simply say  as the dreamer says   “ may such  a situation never arise,”  that is not a reality, the reality is, there is a clash, “love clash.”  Love of duty or Love of dutiful son Abhimanyu?

Yudhisthira’s love for dharma made him lose Abhimanyu,  it was a painful choice  but it was  also a reality of life.  Since  the loss of Abhimanyu' s life was for  a cause of dharma this loss of  life became the sign of greatest love for the pandavas.  He remained the legacy builder,  and an  immortal  soul and his presence  continued in  the Pandu kula in the form of his great son Pariksita.

Do we want the inaction dream, a  reactionary nightmare or loving, dutiful action?  Choice is ours.

IS HE YOUR PARTNER

Choosing our partner whether for life or a  professional partner,  needs some connectivity.

Arjuna chose Krishna to be his  partner his chariot driver, and Krishna was gracious enough to become a chariot driver for Arjuna.  
This picture is imprinted in the heart of millions forever.  
On the other hand when Karna  who wanted to match  Arjuna s power asked Duryodhana to find some one as good a charioteer as Krishna , Duryodhana chose Salya to drive the chariot of Karna.
Salya with  many conditions and great hesitation agreed.   
Apparently Salya was as good a chariot driver as Krishna and Karna  matched Arjuna 's valour. But  did the parternship work for Karna and Salya?
It was one of the most disastrous partnership.

Arjuna was confused in the beginning, Krishna cared for him, and eventually when Arjuna was ready to hear Krishna spoke the immortal science of the bhagvad gita.   Whenever Arjuna was in of need of any kind of help, including massaging the horses, feeding them grass, and again driving the chariot  the great lord Krishna would do it as a part of his daily routine.

On the other hand Karna was is no mood to hear anything that was spoken by Salya, and Salya in his high spirit  and at the cost  of being offensive would  continue to speak to Karna. This situation went on for days. 
Eventually Salya left Karna  as Karna would not listen.

Once the wheel of Karna 's chariot got stuck in the mud  however Salya was not there to help his partner when Karna needed him the most, to pull out the wheel of his chariot.  
This situation cost Karna his life.
Where even an ordinary charioteer could have helped Karna, his own charioteer was also not there to help him. ...
Salya was  a great partner, but the  partnership was an utter failure. It is better to choose a person who becomes part of  a good partnership even though the partner may not be  efficient.

SHORT COMINGS ARE SHORTNED

Yudhisthira was  a deep thinker  to the extent that at times Bhima would get  irritated by this quality of deep thinking.
 Bhima was action oriented  and would think from a quick  present action point of view.
 Yudhisthira would think from the point of view of  future consequences. 
Both qualities had its pluses and minuses..  
If we look only  at the future  no present how will we be survive even to see the future? 
If we look only at the present not at the future how will we enjoy  the fruits of our hard labor?
 In one sense both the pandavas  had some short coming but other party would supply the  quality which was in shortage  whenever required and  they continued to live together cooperatively.

Once Bhima was stuck in the coils of Nahusha Naga, who was a great king but had turned into a huge python by the curse of Rishi Gautam.

Nahusha would gulp every one who came in touch with him and unfortunately once mighty Bhima came in his coil.
Bhima with  all  his might  could not release himself from the jaws of the mighty python but  Yudhisthira maharaja  by his controlled emotions saved him from  near death .  Yudhisthir maharaj then inquired from Nahusha and  answered all the questions of the python  and satisfied him.

On other hand when Yudhisthira maharaja had to punish Jayadratha who  had tried to kidnap Draupadi, it was Bhima who took swift action against Jayadratha. 
This is the beauty of  the Pandava brothers, rather than exploiting each other’s weaknesses they were using each ones strength to overcome the other 's weakness. ..
They were shortening their shortcomings-----

Dharma of Yudhisthira needed the power of Bhima and Bhima s power  needed Dharma to release  power at the right place and at the right time.

Do we have Dharma in the first place and is our power is controlled by Dharma?

GOOD STRATEGY BUT PAINFUL REALITY

Satyavati’s father was able to dominate the great Devavrata who was willing to forgo all his stake for the kingdom and the pleasure of being a prince  which was due  to him by his position and birth.

Devavrata thought  only of his father Shantanu' s pleasure  ..he wanted his father  Shantanu to  be happy so that he could happily serve the citizens.  
So Devavrata agreed to Satyavati’s father's condition of forgoing the pleasure of being a king.
On this condition Satyavati and Shantanu were married.

However Satyavati  and her father ‘s pleasure was short lived. 
She had to live a life of continuous anxiety and pain.  She lost  both her  sons at an early age, and her daughter in laws became widows for most of their lives.  Her grand children were blind and diseased, and their kids had rivalry from birth, which eventually culminated into the  bloody Mahabharata war, which took the lives of millions of soldiers' .

What was the gain to Satyavati’s father, other than some pleasure in his daughter becoming a great queen?
 She was any way  meant to be the queen but the bargain that he asked for --that was a big disaster.

If he  had not bargained  for any thing for giving his daughter away to Shantanu, then there would have been a  different story, is it not?

Of course it is not about changing the story but learning from the story in our life.  How when we are assured of something, we try to get maximum out of that assurance, and it makes us fall flat on the face, to suffer for a  long time.

Bargain has to be within the limit of Dharma, so that it is profitable to a large number of people, and gives good governance.

Ultimately every value, is not a value in itself to feel good. Rather the practice of the value needs to result in  the following
1. A good structure, 
2. Creation of  good legacy of stability
3.Needs to be profitable from the material social cultural and spiritual point of view.

WORKING HARD AND CHANGING DESTINY

Dharmik scriptures are not against working and working means working hard. What the Dharmik scriptures are against is trying to manipulate our destiny with hard work.  
How do we know what is our destiny? One may raise the next question. I do not know the future hence I need to work hard to get what I think I am supposed to get.
  Working hard is our prerogative, getting some specific thing is my desire, that may sound coherent but  it is deceptive .

Dhrithrasthra was powerful but his blindness made him clearly understand that he could not be the king,  however blindness was not a disqualification to grow. 
He was not disqualified from becoming a complete human being. 
However kingship required certain specific qualifications. Which he did not have, but still he schemed to see that he and his son could be the future king of Hastinapura.  He worked hard to change his destiny but did not work hard to grow .

Unfortunately all the signals which he was receiving from all the quarters were heard but not realized, felt but not experienced.  He was instructed but he failed to put these instructions into practice.

Destiny made more twists in his life.
 It  did not give him what he duly did not deserve, plus took more things away from him in terms of peace and dharma, and because of this he lost all his children. And no one was left even to sympathize with him.  It is difficult to feel sad for such people, they loose everything, even the sympathy of good people.

Next time when we try  to equate working hard and changing destiny beware of the Dhritharasthra syndrome.
 We might be working in wrong direction and go so far way from benefitting that our hard work  instead of making us grow, it might take us in the opposite direction where we drown

DEATH DISASTER, DESTROYS NO DESTINY

Pandu was suddenly raised to be the king of Hastinapura even though he was younger than Dhritharastra. 
He was hard working but had never thought or dreamt that he would be the next king.  
He worked  hard to grow, but destiny took him to a another path.

His being king was short lived, since he was cursed by a sage who was in sensual pleasure and was mistakenly shot by Pandu. 
The sage cursed Pandu that if he ever engaged in the act of sex for pleasure or procreation, he would  be dead. 
Destiny did not take away his kingship but  took away the pleasure. Pandu on his own gave up his kingship and came to the forest to practice a life of restraint. 
After having five children through the grace of different gods, he sealed the destiny of his sons to take over the reigns of Hastinapura even though he died trying to enjoy.
 This put the pandavas into great difficulty but  their destiny of being king never changed.
Kunti along with her sons suffered a great deal , but in all the difficult conditions, they continued to remain the prospective kings of Hastinpaura. All scheming all conspiracy took them to the death gallows, but could not ultimately take away their kingship.  
Destiny  placed them as king even though they were dead, and many times they did die for the general mass of people, but not for destiny. Of course,  the pandavas did not work hard for the kingship, they worked hard to be complete human beings  that was their prerogative, and making them king was the prerogative of destiny. That means ultimately the lord  was master of everybody’s destiny.

The son of  Drona wanted to destroy the last heir of the Pandavas, so that the kuru kula would be bereft of their family, but destiny revived the dead Pariskit and placed him on the throne of Hastinapura.

The entire family of the pandavas  from Pandu to Pariksita, Kunti, to Uttara learned never to  fight the desire of the lord,
 and in all this they never stopped fighting the good war of life.

The kauravas worked hard to stop the pandavas to get what they deserved.  And pandavas worked harder to accept that also as part of their life as destiny. Not only did they become king, but they were indifferent to the change in their destiny before the stipulated time in an artificial manner, rather they used that life as the time to grow and learn, to row the their boat in the river of life.

Fighting lethargy is our response, and bowing down to our destiny is  the best response from us to the lord.

POWER IS OVER WITH PRIDE

Nahusha ascended to the throne of Indra by his supremely pious activity.  As long as he was doing pious activity he was continuing on Indra’s post. It was his good fortune to be on Indra's  post but that very fortune turned into misfortune. This was  because of  Nahusha's pride due to being in a powerful position.   
He was so intoxicated with being on Indra's  post  that he completely forgot that it  had come to him due to his good behavior. He  failed to realize that he would lose the position  if he becomes impious.  From being King of Indra, he became a  disgusting human consuming snake.

Powerful position is not a reward, 
it is a  higher responsibility for being in that position. But when responsible people consider positions as a reward, they became like the intoxicated people who lose balance in walking and fall into the ditch.

Bonus is not for squandering, bonus is an investment on the employee by the employer. No employer wants his employee to lose his efficiency by giving him a special privilege, rather he is hoping that the bonus would give greater impetus to the employee to work.
 If the employee  on receiving the bonus becomes incoherent, he not only loses what he has gained as a  privilege, but also loses the cause of his privilege- his very job.

Nahusha wanted to enjoy the queen of Indradeva, thinking  that since I am Indra,  everything that belongs to Indra is also mine. 
So to get the queen,  Nahusha made the sages carry him on a palanquin. This ruined his position further, he ordered the humble sages to go faster to her chamber,  and on losing  his patience, he kicked one of the great sages, and kicked off his piety, position and power and became  an obnoxious human eating snake.

Bonus is nothing but increased responsibility, if we want to get more bonus, we use it wisely and grow more.