The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita : Ch-2. Part-7.

2: Challenges of the Spiritual Seeker-7.



Before the Universal takes possession of us, it burnishes us and cleanses us completely. This process of cleansing is the mystical death of the individual spirit. There it does not know what happens to it. That is the wilderness; that is the dark night of the soul; that is the suffering, and that is where we do not know whether we will attain anything or not. We weep silently, but nobody is going to listen to our wails. But the day dawns, the sun shines and there seems to be a ray of light on the horizon. That is towards the end of the Virataparva of the Mahabharata. After untold suffering for years, which the human mind cannot usually stomach, a peculiar upsurge of fortune miraculously seems to operate in favour of the suffering spirit, and unasked help comes from all sides. In the earlier stages, it appeared that nothing would come even if we asked. We had to cry alone in the forest, and nobody would listen to our cry. Now the tables have turned and help seems to be pouring in from all directions, unrequested for. Great princes, rulers of the time, join themselves into a force and gather into a power in an assembly led by Sri Krishna, contemplating the future steps to be taken under the circumstances. The most beautiful and magnificent force of literary strength of Vyasa comes in the Udyogaparva of the Mahabharata. God Himself takes up the responsibility of guiding the spirit. Well, when that happens there is nothing else that we need. We need not even speak—He speaks for us. He does everything for our sake. He advises us, He reprimands us and shows us the path.


The Udyogaparva, which describes in a beautiful manner the assembly of the princes of the time in the court of Virata, goes further into greater detail of the contemplations of these princes. There are difficulties in the decisions to be taken—what is to be done? There are various opinions coming forth from various parties. Whenever a personality faces the world, the universe in front of it, it has various interpretations of it. Are we to make friends with it? Are we somehow or other to adjust ourselves with it, to make its law our own law? Are we to change the world, or are we to change ourselves—which is better? What is the relationship between me and the world? These were the questions, the deliberations of the great assemblies that were held prior to the war of the Mahabharata. Ambassadors were sent on both sides; there was concourse between one party and the other party. A decision was difficult to take. We cannot finally come to a conclusion as to our relationship with the world. We always have favoured the things of sense and the delights of reason. This difficulty persists even to the last moment, until doom, we may say, because the evaluations of things in terms of worldly experience continue even at the last point of spiritual aspiration.

To be continued  ...