During my hostel days in PUC, we used to have an hour of ‘Bhagwad Gita’ class on Sunday mornings. The lady who took it had least interest in Gita and it used to be a boring class. When she started in her monotonous tone “Dharmakshetre Kurukshetre” I would be dragged into the land of sleep and it used to be a struggle to keep my eyes open. Needless to say I gained absolutely nothing from those sleepy hours.
Same words with magical effect
Recently I started listening to Manoj Kaimal’s talk on ‘Bhagwad Gita’. And when he started “Dharmakshetre Kurukshetre”, I was captivated. He explained that the word ‘Kshetre’ means field (the war field in the setting of Mahabharat yudh) and also temple. This refers to our body. It is in our hands to make this physical body into a war field or a temple. I felt as if nectar started pouring into my inner core. It was very fascinating how every incident and words were compared to things in our daily life in such a way that it made a deep impact. From then on I was waiting eagerly for his Monday evening discourses.
Parikshit and the dead snake
Parikshit was the last king of Chandra Vanshi, the grandson of Pandavas and son of Abhimanyu. One day Parikishit was in a forest for hunting and he felt thirsty, so he went to sage Shamik. Sage was engrossed in his meditation and he didn't listen to King Parikishit. Such a humiliation prompted Parikishit to put a dead snake around Shamik's neck. After some time Shamik's son came to his father and on seeing a dead snake around his neck, he cursed Parikishit that he would be dead in seven days by getting bitten by a snake.
In our daily life when we get irritated by people, mindlessly we throw dead snakes at them. For example, while you drive when somebody doesn’t allow you to overtake, some abusive words may be uttered. We think these words are harmless (the other person hasn’t even heard it, right?), just like that dead snake. But we need to remember that every action of ours is going to come back to us. Once this fact sinks into our psyche, we will be very careful with our words and actions.
When you are in your own shoes
Arjun had single handedly fought and defeated the Kaurav sena with great warriors like Bhishma, Dronacharya etc. when he was in the guise of Brahannala. His mind or hands didn’t waver even once. But when he was in the battle field of Kurukshetra, in his real identity, he was trembling and his bow, Gandiva slipped from his hand.
When we confront difficult situations in life, standing in our own shoes, we get blinded and can’t see any solution. If we can just step aside, mind becomes calm and receptive to the solution that already existed.
Is your intellect blindfolded?
To face our life in a balanced way, we need to let our mind direct us under the guidance of intellect. Manoj beautifully described the reason why things get into a mess . Our mind is Dritharashtra, who was blind from birth and intellect is Gandhari. Gandhari chose to spend her life time blind folded. Same way we keep our intellect blind folded and let the mind run amuck and complicate our lives!
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PS: If anybody is interested to listen to Manoj Kaimal, it’s Rm 30 per talk, which can be paid through PayPal. Whoever is interested can mail at mkaimal@gmail.com. And Manoj will help you with payment and then send a Dropbox link to download the talk.
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