Draupadi: The Epitome of Surrender and Love

 I often wonder at the depth of life's understanding of the author of Mahabharata, Muni Ved Vyas. One of the characters, that always intrigues me, is Draupadi. She is a wonderful character. A princess who decides to marry someone who will meet one of the toughest conditions for Swaymvara (Marriage). Somebody who can hit the eye of a fish looking at her image in the water. She gets Arjuna as her husband. When she reaches the home of her husband, mother Kunti tells her to be the wife of all the five Pandavas. 

Somebody so particular about the qualifications of her would-be husband is suddenly asked to live with five brothers as a wife. That must have been a test of her character. In fact not only a test of the character but probably that's a test of complete understanding of life. I feel that until and unless each corner of one's existence is full of love and one is completely free of all doubts, one can never play such a challenging role. In fact, unless one is willing to undertake that challenge, why would one do it? She always had an option to go back to her father. This was never a condition for the marriage.

She chose to take up this challenge and lived with all five husbands with pure love. She still had to pass through the toughest of the tests. When there was a game of dice between her husband Yudhistira and Duryodhana, Yudhistira put her on the stake and he lost the game. Duryodhana, Dushasana, and other Kauravas insulted her at that time and tried to take her clothes off in the presence of all the elders of the family. Arjuna, the other four husbands, and all the elders, for whom she had extreme love did not come to help him. I feel that it is the biggest test of one's spiritual advancement. Whomsoever one loves most in this world does not come to help in the weakest moment. 

However, that is why Draupadi was quite different from the rest of the people. She just closed her eyes and connected to the divine. She could connect to the divine even in the weakest of the moments of her life and taught all of us the greatest lesson in spirituality. Until and unless we give away dependence upon the whole of the support system of this material world, we will not develop complete surrender to the divine. The moment we leave every material support system and surrender completely to the divine, He has no option other than holding our hand and taking us out of the situation.

It was the absolute surrender towards Krishna that made her life full of love. Even during Ajnatvas, she lived with five husbands in absolute harmony. It was her pure love for all of them that she kept all of them united even in the toughest of circumstances. She has been the pivot around whom the entire story of Mahabharata revolves. She is one character that makes us understand the real meaning of surrender and love. That is why she was so dear to Krishna. She set an example of unconditional and infinite love for human beings. No other example in history or mythology exists where a person can love five husbands unconditionally and observe complete equanimity. 

Draupadi could not have faced the most brutal challenges thrown at her unless she had complete surrender to Krishna and the purest of connection to the divine. It was her divine connection that made her so full of love that she could love her five husbands equally and despite them leaving her in the weakest of her moments, she never left them. She was always in a "giving" mode. Unconditional "giving" without any expectations of taking. That is possible only when the surrender to the divine is complete. That divine connection gives infinite joy and there remains no need for worldly pleasures from "taking". One loves just to "give" in the relationship.