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Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.
You must be knowing that I am writing on Mahabharata. It is not writing the whole of Mahabharata but making a synopsis, a very, very short synopsis setting forth what this Mahabharata as a rendering of Indian history is. It primarily consists of characterization. The idea in characterizing each person of each character which I take up is to bring forth, is to enable or provide an understanding of the human mind, in fact the human personality.
The human personality, the bodily part is not within our control or even making. Everyone is born with a body, a biological aggregate. What we can do is provide food and nourishment to it, it grows by itself. The growth is arrested by its own laws and processes. Our complexion will not change, teeth will not change, physiognomical features will not change, maximum we can look after the body in its way. Take exercises along with food and nourishment and live for the normal longevity it is meant to be. This is all what we can do. We cannot add anything to the body or take away anything from the body. It remains in itself.
Then where is the role for each individual? It is only in making or marring the inner personality. The inner personality means mind and intelligence. You can also say ego. All the changes, transformation, improvement, qualitative enrichment we can think of making is to the mind and intelligence. It is with regard to this inner personality that we say character, behavior and interaction. In these three words, everything about the inner personality is included. Now Mahabharata discusses the nature of the inner potential, inner personality, the potential it has, the possibilities it holds and it illustrates these with some of the people who have lived here. So it is a history of our own predecessors.
This morning, I was going through and completing the article for 'Science of Inner Redemption'. Kumbha is explaining to Sikhidwaja in response to his enquiry, "How do the jeevan muktas live in this world? Do they not have any mind? If they live, will they not contract misery, bondage? Will they also not have further birth? So what is that mind, that structure or nature of the mind by which they live in the same world, interact with the same world? So what is the difference?"
In other words, who is a jeevan-baddha and who is a jeevan-mukta? This is the subject. And the subject is analyzed. It is presenting the human mind in its own exalted level to such an extent that we say jeevan-muktas do not have the mind or the mine-ness. How is it that they don’t have the mind? So the mind is defined, mind’s behavior is explained and that kind of a mind not being there, they are supposed to have no mind. In that place, they will have something called sattva, the pure being that what is. So you can understand, it is a very, very subtle level of discussion.
Now I am also writing Mahabharatam in which I am going to enter into Bhishma. I have completed the one on Draupadi. Karna and Draupadi have taken quite substantial time from me. Now, Bhishma I am wondering how it can be begun. So some thoughts come to me, I thought of mentioning it here.
Mahabharata is something that Veda Vyasa has penned. Veda Vyasa himself is an important character there and six generations including himself are the main subject. But he begins the narration by reference to Pratipa. Pratipa was a king who lived normally long enough. He decided that “It is enough. I am going to leave the throne, go to the forest and plunge myself in austerity.” Imagine! This is what the human mind can do. All of you are reporting to me saying that "We are bound, we are bound, we cannot live, we cannot live." Now, here is a king, a great family man, the whole kingdom is his family. He has left and he is living in tapasya. That is the time Ganga became a young girl and approached him saying that, "You should marry me." She even went and sat on his thigh. Just imagine the narration.
Pratipa said, “My dear girl, I cannot think of marrying you. I have already married and I left my family life. You have come and sat on my thigh. It is the place for a daughter. So the best I can do for you is, I will go back, live with my wife, have a son and that son will marry you.” Can you imagine what Veda Vyasa tells us? Please get away from your rotten mind. Think a little bigger, higher and vaster. He went back, had his son born - Shantanu.
Shantanu was told that this is what has happened. So he went to the forest, Ganga approached him. They decided to marry but Ganga made a stipulation that “I will marry and live with you provided you agree to one thing. Whatever I think, speak and do, you should not object to it.” He said, “Yes.” And they had one child after the other, each child was thrown into the Ganga. And the husband could not speak anything. When it came to the eighth child, he resisted. See, how the human emotions, how the mind is given to excellence, at the same time how the mind is victimized by its own emotions. So he resisted. Ganga went away and finally gifted the child back to him. That is this Bhishma. I will now say what Bhishma did. And this is a father, wonderful father Shantanu, he was radiating peace wherever he was, that is why he was called Shantanu.
Then he fell in love with a fisher girl and that was a time when Bhishma had to say, "For the sake of enabling my father, I will remain unmarried." See the contrast Veda Vyasa presents. On the one hand Pratipa, his wonderful mind, Shantanu, his agreement, not to speak a word of resistance, then failure, resisting, and then child was born, wife is gone, he was fascinated by a fisher girl, the girl’s father made his stipulation and Bhishma comes up without even the knowledge of the father to say, “I will not marry. I will remain a lifelong celibate.”
This is the character Bhishma following whom the entire Hastinapura dynasty survived and this is the Bhishma who lies in the battlefield of Kurukshetra after the entire war was fought and 4.5 million minus ten people were killed. He fell in the battlefield but he continued to lie there and he is the one who instructed Yudhishtira. After his victory he was not able to contain his mind, he (Bhishma) gives a beautiful peaceful gospel lying in the bed of arrows and then he departs from the world. Can you imagine the pen work of Vyasadeva? So I am going to write on Bhishma now. Then I would like to characterize Krishna also and then stop. I also want to tell you the contrast in my mind. One is the sublime undifferentiated consciousness, this is floating in the ecstasy of its own sublime oneness. Another is the vibrant nature of the human mind with its untold potential, possibility, strength and magnificence. Just see the two.
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.
