1.#Opinion : Saturday, February 18, 2023. 06:00. 3025/// Ancient Culture ( Samskaram ) of India ( Bharatham ) - 16. Swami Krishnananda.

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1.#Opinion : Saturday, February 18, 2023. 06:00. 3025///

Chapter - 7: The Message of the Mahabharatam.-7.

Post-16.

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This friendship, this communion of people, this family life, this gaiety of community is compared to the coming together of logs of wood in the ocean, again a verse from the Mahabharata. As we know, winds blow on the surface of the ocean, and logs of wood drift towards each other due to the power of the wind. One log goes and touches another log. “Oh, my dear friend, how are you? We shall have coffee in the hotel.” They go together, and the friendship increases. One hugs the other. Attachment takes place. One log of wood is attached to the other log of wood. Then the wind blows in another direction, and the log drifts away. “Oh, bereavement, death has taken place. My son has gone, my brother has died.”

This is what is happening. When the wind of the cosmos blows in one direction, something comes in contact with something else, but not because there is something worthwhile in us; it is the destiny of the power of the cosmos that has been working. We say, “A child is born. How happy! The marriage has taken place. The wedding has been successful. Glory, glory!” Then suddenly the man dies or the wife has gone. “Oh, gone, gone!” we say, because the wind has blown in another direction. As is the coming together of logs of wood in the ocean, so is the friendship and the community affection of people in this world. But as the wind will blow in another direction and the logs will separate, so is bereavement in this world.

A message in the Bharata Savitri, which is towards the end of the Mahabharata, says : “Hundreds of occasions we have every day to be happy, and also hundreds of occasions we have to be sorry.” Why is it? One moment we are smiling, and the next moment we are frowning. The idiocy of the mind is demonstrated here. Fools have hundreds of occasions to be in a state of exultation, and also hundreds of occasions to feel sorry. Does the day pass in one mood only? For a few minutes we are happy for some reason, and for another few moments we suddenly feel that hell has descended on our heads. The mind is not able to appreciate and delve into the truth of things. But wise men know that there is nothing to attract, nothing to hug, nothing to call one's own in this world. Kings and emperors have come; empires have come. Where have they gone? They have gone to dust. Kings and emperors have gone to dust, and do we think we will be there, superior to all these people? All these Napoleons and Hitlers and Caesars who walked the earth with the thud of their feet, thinking that the whole world belongs to them, have become atoms, minute particles of earth. Do we think we will be in a better position? The whole thing goes.

The author of the Mahabharata, Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa, says, “Oh people, with uplifted arms I am crying. Obedience to the law of the cosmos is also the source of material comfort and emotional satisfaction. Moksha, final liberation, will be yours, provided dharma is followed. But who listens to me? With uplifted arms I am crying from the housetops: Follow dharma. Obey the law of the universe; you will have moksha, you will have material facility, and happiness will be yours. But nobody wants to follow the rules of life, the wisdom of the cosmos.” This is what Vyasa cries finally at the end of the Mahabharata epic, which story, even considered historically, actually concludes with the end of all the glory of the Pandavas and the Kauravas.

Great turmoil, great preparation, great rejoicing, great warfare—what for are all these things? And a little, insignificant span of life was the glory of Yudhisthira as the king for about thirty-six years. What is thirty-six years? They had suffered so much, and the benefit accrued was only thirty-six years of precarious joy—precarious because he was not happy even then. After all, he began to weep and wail, “What is the kingdom I have got after the bloodshed of all my kinsman? My brothers have been destroyed. I have killed everybody, and then I have become king. I don't want this.” He was wailing every day. So in spite of having been enthroned as the king of Indraprastha, Yudhisthira was not a happy man. Finally he came to know that Krishna departed from this world. That was the final shock to him. The Pandavas all bundled up their baggage and went to the Himalayas for their final journey to the other world.

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To be continued

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