The core message of Mahabharata

Mahabharata, the epic written by Ved Vyasa has captivated human imagination for ages. However, I still feel that somewhere, down the line, the core message of Mahabharata seems to have been relegated to the background, if not lost completely. There are so many characters in Mahabharata and each of the characters has centered his or her life around something. Except for Arjuna, nobody has centered his life around Krishna. Mahabharata explains, with the minutest of details, the outcomes of setting these different things as the center of life.

Duryodhana has greed and self-obsession at the center of his life. He wants to become the king of Hastinapur. Despite being younger than Yudhistira, he wants to become the king and in the process, he tries all ways and means including the conspiracies to murder the Pandavas in order to become the king of Hastinapur. Throughout Mahabharata, he is never contended or satisfied. He is always burning in the fire of anger. This is what happens to us when we center our life around greed and self-obsession. The very moment, we center our lives around greed, we become restless and this restlessness increases with the passage of each moment. We become greedy for a particular career, then promotions, positions, pay rises, particular posts, and powers and positions. The greed is never satiated. We keep burning in the fire till we die. This is because we have not taken a lesson from the life of Duryodhana.

Dushasana centered his life around luxuries. He knows that these luxuries will be available to him if his brother Dushasana becomes the king of Hastinapur. The more luxuries he gets and stronger his desire for more luxuries. He wants to snatch the palace built by the Pandavas in Indraprastha. He goes to the extent of taking Draupadi's clothes away. That is exactly the nature of desires for comforts and luxuries. We want a small home, then a big home then a bigger home, and then many more homes. We want a small car then a bigger car and then many cars. There is no end point to these desires. The more desires are fulfilled, the more empty we become. Slowly, accumulation becomes a mental disease. I have seen many people running from one accumulation to the other till they come to realize that what they ignored has actually gone out of their hands. Some realize that their kids have been spoiled to make them cry for the rest of their lives. Some realize that their health has spoiled to make them dependent on others. Some realize that their family has broken away.

Karna centered his life around revenge against social justice. He is a very bright archer. However, since he is brought up in a family that is considered to be service class, he is not allowed to get formal training in archery. This feeling of injustice fills him with a great fire within. That fire is noticed by Duryodhana and he uses that fire to his advantage. Duryodhana knows that he needs such a talented archer to fight against Arjuna and therefore he offers friendship and respect to Karna. Due to this, Karna feels obliged the whole of his life towards Duryodhana and fights from the side of Kauravas despite knowing very well that they are fighting for an unjust cause.

This is what happens to many of us. We also feel exploited. We are also agitated with the feeling of injustice. With time, these feelings start growing stronger and in a hurry to take revenge to set things right, we shake hands with certain groups and sects that have a hidden agenda and fall into the trap of these sects. It is quite common in schools. Some of the students develop anger against the education system and get into the trap of unruly students. In society, some of the disgruntled people fall into to trap of terrorist groups. We are blinded by a strong feeling of injustice and in the state of blindness, we are induced by certain interest groups who use us to their advantage.

Bhishma centered his life around Hastinapur. For him the king of Hastinapur and his directions were supreme. He tries to convince Dhritrashtra many times, however, finally, he fights the battle from the side of Kauravas. That is what happens with many of us. Many of us center our lives around our families or organizations caste communities or religion and lose the bigger picture. I have seen that a few people get some fixated on the divisions they are working in that they end up making decisions that are harmful to the entire organization while giving small benefits to their division. Therefore, if we center our lives around a small section of society, we may end up missing the complete picture and may become quite narrow-minded.

Dhritrastra is a classical example of self-destruction. He centered his life around an inferiority complex. He thought that his right to become a king had been denied due to his blindness. This made him full of an inferiority complex which he tried to do away with by making his son Duryodhana the king of Hastinapur. Nature has given each one of us so many strengths and weaknesses. The moment we start comparing our weaknesses to the strengths of others, we develop an inferiority complex. We start blaming a few people, then the entire society, and then even God for our inferiorities. Since we are not able to accept these deficiencies, we start thinking about them all the time and get fixated on them. They start driving our lives and the more we try to fill the gap, the greater the gap becomes. We will have to learn to accept these deficiencies and explore the potential of our strengths.

We come across many instances where people despite their physical and mental disabilities have achieved great feats. Many people not having legs run marathons and become world-famous athletes. Many people despite not having eyes become great intellectuals.

Dronacharya centered his life around revenge. He wanted to take revenge and due to that, he started teaching archery to Kauravas and Pandavas. Finally, out of gratitude towards the kingdom of Hastinapur, he had to fight the battle from the side of Kauravas despite not being convinced about the cause. That is what happens with many of us. In order to take revenge, we stoop to the lowest in our lives and end up making our lives meaningless and full of guilt.

Vidura centered his life around intellectual pursuits. He studied logic very well and knew what is right and what was wrong very well. He tries to explain Dhritrastra and Duryodhana many times before the battle. However, all his efforts were in vain. He did not fight the battle. That is the biggest lesson from his life. Many of us, in the pursuit of spirituality, center our lives around the intellectual pursuit. We read a lot of books to try to understand what is right and what is wrong. All that pursuit is useless, if we are not able to live life accordingly. There is no point in having all the spiritual knowledge if we do not apply the same in our lives. We all have to fight our own battle of Kurukshetra. There is no use in reading the Ramayana, Mahabharata, and Geeta if we do not apply the same in our lives.

Aswathama centered his life around frustration. Frustration is probably the most negative emotion. Out of this frustration, he killed all the offspring of Pandavas like a coward, while they were sleeping. That is what frustration makes us do. Frustration is basically a strong feeling of injustice or anger with no venting or action. It grows within like a volcano and then one fine day it just erupts. It does no good to anyone. We also come across many frustrated people in our lives who do a lot of damage to the entire society and keep burning throughout their lives.

Yudhistira centered his life around dharma, the right and the wrong. He had probably the best of the understanding of the laws of nature. What should be done and what should not be done? However, he lacked the practical wisdom that Krishna possessed. The rights and wrongs are not fixed sets of rules. They have to improvise with the circumstances and situations. Many of us also center our lives around the fixed set of rules which become quite impractical in many situations. Wisdom comes when we go to the root of the rights and wrongs. Every right and wrong is contextual. These rules have developed to bring harmony in a particular context and may become redundant in a different context.

For example, killing people is generally prohibited by all the rules and laws. However, when a soldier is fighting at the border, this rule becomes irrelevant. He has to shoot the bullet to the chest of the enemy to do his duty. Obeying the elders is a general norm but Vibhisana's disobeying the elder brother for the sake of larger benefit is wisdom.

Arjuna was the only one in Mahabharata who centered his life around Krishna. He was not fixated to anything. He was not driven by the safety of his body, or his desires, or his greed or family, or certain beliefs, or rights and wrongs, or the rules. He just surrendered to Krishna and all his actions were driven by divine guidance. We may analyze his action of killing Bhishma or Karna with the lenses of rights and wrongs but he simply did everything as per the guidance of the divine.

On the surface, it appears that his killing of Bhishma was against the rules. However, we go deep down, Bhishma himself wanted the Pandavas to win. He himself told Arjuna the secret of his death. It was for Arjuna not to kill Bhishma due to the fear of criticism for breaking the rules or to remain centered around Krishna and improvise at the moment. He chose the latter. When Karna's chariot broke, he could have stopped and not killed Karna. But Karna, in turn, could have killed many more violating the rules, as he killed Abhimanyu. Rama also killed Vali hiding behind a tree.

I feel that is the biggest lesson of Mahabharata. The moment we surrender to the divine and allow our life to be guided by his will, all our confusions vanish. In fact, all our fixations are in the domain of matter. We are fixated on the forms. Either we want our family, community, or organizations to survive and remain as they are. Or do we want them to prosper and achieve new heights? Or do we want harmony in the systems to allow equal opportunities for everyone? In each of these cases, we get fixated on the form of the matter. We lose touch with the divine, the consciousness.

Consciousness is dynamic and not static. That is the reason why there is no fixed rule there. The moment, we center our life around that consciousness, each of our actions is guided by a simple thing and that is the infinite possibilities. There are infinite possibilities in each moment. We choose one of them while we make any of the decisions and start working on that possibility. So long as we are not fixated on the form, substance will keep guiding us. There is complete clarity in this guidance.