Bhagavadgeeta : ( 26/11/2012. )

Bhagavadgeeta : ( 26/11/2012. ) : The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bh... : 1: The Plight of the Pandavas : Part :7. But here is a caution that has to be written on a placard when we may have the c...

1: The Plight of the Pandavas : Part :7. But here is a caution that has to be written on a placard when we may have the complacency that we are advancing in the spirit. The rajasuya sacrifice was the crowning glory of success for the Pandavas, but that very glory was a curse upon them which increased the jealousy of the Kauravas and ended in their being turned out of the kingdom into the wilderness. So the little satisfaction, the little vision that we have in meditation, and the little satisfaction that we are on the right path may rouse the jealousy of the natural forces with whom we have not become friends, for reasons which cannot be explained at present. The external forces, the objective forces, are the Kauravas. The forces that are subjective may be likened to the Pandavas. So the Mahabharata is a war between the subject and the object. Now, what this object is, is also very difficult to explain. It may be a pencil; it may be a wristwatch; it may be one sing...

Bhagavadgeeta : ( 26/11/2012. ) : The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bh... : 1: The Plight of the Pandavas Part-6. Now, this is a tension between the Pandavas and Kauravas in a very low sense of the term...

1: The Plight of the Pandavas Part-6. Now, this is a tension between the Pandavas and Kauravas in a very low sense of the term—purely from the point of view of psychoanalysis or psychology. But the Mahabharata is not merely a scripture of psychoanalysis or psychology. It is a spiritual epic, which tells us something about our destiny in this world in the context of our aspiration for God-realisation, ultimately. This conflict between the Pandavas and Kauravas is an inner conflict within the spiritual seeker, and what the Pandavas underwent, the spiritual seeker also may have to undergo. The jubilant spirit of a youngster who knows nothing of life ceases when he is opposed by the realities of life. The realities may be social; they may political; they may be economic; they may be material—whatever they may be, it does not matter. They are oppositions of various types which put the spiritual seeker in a state of great hardship as to how to move forward when he is in the sam...

Bhagavadgeeta : ( 26/11/2012. ) : The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bh... : The Plight of the Pandavas : Part-5.   The Puranas, particularly, embark upon an expatiation of the war that takes place between t...

Bhagavadgeeta : ( 26/11/2012. ) : The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bh... : The Plight of the Pandavas : Part-4.   The Puranas, particularly, embark upon an expatiation of the war that takes place between th...

The Plight of the Pandavas : Part-5.   The Puranas, particularly, embark upon an expatiation of the war that takes place between the devas and asuras, in a cosmic sense. Often people say the devas and the asuras described in the Puranas are allegories of psychological functions in individuals. These are all artificial, modernised interpretations, under the impression that that reality is confined to one section of life alone. We cannot say that there is no cosmic counterpart of the individual psyche. The Puranas are right; the psychologists also are right. It is true that there is a Ganga flowing in us in the form of the sushumna nadi, and there are the Yamuna and the Saraswati in the form of the ida and pingala. There is no gainsaying; it is perfectly true. But there is also an outward Ganga; we cannot deny it. The world outside and the world inside are two faces of the single composite structure of reality. So the battle between the devas and the asuras takes place in e...