A series of short articles on the
Bhagavad Gita for people living and working in our volatile, uncertain, complex
and ambiguous times filled with stress and fear. This scripture born in a
battlefield teaches us how to face our challenges, live our life fully, achieve
excellence in whatever we do and find happiness, peace and contentment.
[Continued from the previous page.]
nainam chhindanti shastraani nainam dahati paavakah
na chainam kledayantyaapo na shoshayati maarutah // 2.23 //
acchedyo'yam adaahyo'yam akledyo'shoshya eva cha
nityah sarvagatah sthaanur achalo'yam sanaatanah // 2.24 //
avyakto'yam achintyo'yam avikaaryo'yam uchyate
tasmaad evam viditwainam naanushochitum arhasi // 2.25 //
atha chainam nityajaatam nityam vaa manyase mritam
tathaapi twam mahaabaaho nainam shochitum arhasi // 2.26 //
jaatasya hi dhruvo mrityur dhruvam janma mritasya cha
tasmaad
aparihaarye'rthe natwam shochitum arhasi // 2.27 //
“Weapons cannot cut it, fire cannot burn it, water
cannot wet it, wind cannot dry it. It cannot be cut or burnt, pierced or dried
up. It is eternal, all-pervading, changeless, unmoving, ever-new and existed
before the world came into being. It is beyond thought and beyond all changes,
so say the wise. How can you then grieve
over it, Arjuna, knowing this is its nature?
“And even if you think of it as something that is
born again and again and dies again and again you should not grieve over it.
Death is sure to happen to whoever is born and birth is equally sure to happen
to whoever dies. So you should not grieve over something that is inevitable. ” BG
2.23-27
O0O
One of the scariest stories I have ever read
as an adult is Camera Obscura by Basil Copper, which I originally read it in a
collection of stories edited by Alfred Hitchcock called Stories that Scared Even
Me and have since come across elsewhere too. Camera Obscura tells the story of a
heartless money lender called Mr Sharsted trapped for eternity in ‘lost and
damned time’ in a part of his town and is condemned to wander forever its
streets never reaching his home. He comes out of the house of one Mr Gingold
whom he had gone to see and after walking away from his place for a long time,
finds again near Mr Gingold’s premises. He walks away taking a different route
this time only to find him once again near Mr Gingold’s premises. This goes on
and on endlessly.
The story is scary in itself, but what made
it truly scary was associating it what India says about reincarnation. We are
born again and again endlessly, forever trapped in samsara, until we attain
jnana or knowledge of our true nature through our personal experience –
experiential knowledge, and not book knowledge as a lot of us understand.
Mrityoh sa mrityum apnoti, as the Katha
Upanishad tells us: He wanders from death to death.
There are thousands of books written about
reincarnation in the modern west, each one of them telling of people born again
and again, each time a different person, frequently changing their gender, but
essentially repeating the same life pattern, because we are prisoners to our
mind, to our psychology. Just as in this lifetime we repeat our life patterns,
some people always becoming victims of abuse, some bullies, some winners, some
losers, some lonely, some surrounded by loving people, we repeat our life
patters across lifetimes too.
At one level what we can do is
create positive life pattern so
that we do not end up living negative lives repeatedly. Speaking of people
obsessed with negativity, with asuri sampada, Krishna says in the sixteenth chapter
of the Gita that they shall be born again and again in evil wombs. This is not
a punishment given to them by Krishna or by anyone else, but is the nature of
things. Just as those with positive tendencies are born again and again in
noble families living noble lives, those with evil tendencies are born again
and again in evil circumstances. Our births, the Upanishads make it clear, are
chosen by us, exactly as we chose where to stay and what to do on a vacation.
So if it is jealousy and anger and hatred that rule our lives today, the same feelings
will keep ruling our lives in our post-death existence too and when we decide
to take birth again, they will guide us in our choices. It is something like
which hotel you go to eat at during the vacation – provided we have the
necessary resources, we have multiple choices, like a south Indian hotel or a
north Indian one, a vegetarian hotel or a non-vegetarian one, Chinese or
Continental and so on.
The Kumbhakonam edition of the Sanskrit Mahabharata
tells us the story of a woman obsessed with sexuality called Nalayani. Her
story is told in Chapter 212 and 213 of the Adi Parva of the epic. The epic
tells us her story soon after Arjuna wins Draupadi and before all the five
Pandava brothers wed her. It is sage Vyasa
who tells her story, explaining it is this Nalayani that is reborn as Draupadi
in her current life time. He tells this story in order to convince Drupada why his
daughter should marry all the five brothers together.
Let me reproduce here my translation of the
conversation of Vyasa and Drupada from the Kumbhakonam edition of the epic. The
translation has been made from the original Sanskrit and to my knowledge this
is the only translation of her story availabble in English.
Please remember that what I am reproducing
below is an exact translation of the original Sanskrit and I have altered the
text in no way – I have neither added a single word of my own to the story nor
dropped a any.
O0O
“Vyasa Said: Oh king, do not grieve over your
daughter becoming wife to all five Pandavas. Her mother had earlier prayed that
Draupadi should become the wife of five men. Yaja and Upayaja, constantly
engaged in dharma, made it possible through their tapas that she should have
five husbands and that is how Draupadi was attained by the five Pandavas as
their wife.
“It is now time for your whole family to celebrate. For in the whole world
there is no one superior to you and you are now invincible – no one in the whole
world has the power to defeat you.
“Let me explain further how she attained five
husbands. Listen to me, your heart free from sorrow.
“In another lifetime, your daughter was called Nalayani, a woman of impeccable
virtue. She served her husband Maudgalya, an old leper, with great devotion.
The man was mere bones and skin, bitter by nature, lustful, jealous and prone
to quick rages. He stank terribly – his body emitted every foul smell. Advanced
in age, his skin was wrinkled, his whole body crooked. His head had grown bald
and his skin and nails had begun to wear off.
“Nalayani served her husband who practiced
severe penances; she lived by eating his left over food. Then one day while he
was eating, his thumb fell off into the food. Without the least hesitation,
Nalayani removed it from the food and ate the leftover food. The man, who had
the power to do as he wished, was pleased with this. He asked her to ask for a
boon.
““I am not old or evil-tempered, nor jealous or hot tempered,” he told her. “My
body does not smell, nor am I short in height or lust-filled. My blessings on
you, beloved one!. Now tell me how I can delight you and where you wish to live
and enjoy. I shall do all that you wish, tell me whatever is in your mind.”
“When he repeatedly asked her to ask for a
boon, she asked for one.
“Maudgalya was a man of pure actions and he was now pleased with her. He had
the power to give boons and he gave all one wished. So Nalayani of blameless
beauty told her husband: “O lord, unthinkable are your powers. May you attain
great fame in the world by dividing yourself into five and pleasuring me in all
those five forms! And after that I want you to become one again and continue to
pleasure me.”
““Let it be so!” the great seer Maudgalya of surpassing spiritual power told
Nalayani of beautiful hair and alluring smile. He then turned himself into five
and pleasured her in those five forms in every imaginable way.
“He spent time in the ashrams of sages worshipped by them, moving from one
ashram to another, assuming any form he desired. He went to the world of the
gods and there moved among the celestial sages taking her with him. He lived as
a guest in the palace of Indra, worshipped by Shachi, his food the ambrosia of
the gods.
“Desiring to enjoy pleasures with Nalayani, also known as Mahendrasena, he, the
great lord, boarded the divine chariot of the sun god and moved around with
her. He then went to Mt Meru and started living on the mountain. He dived into
the celestial Ganga with her. He lived in the rays of the moon as the
never-ceasing wind does.
“When the great sage took on the shape of a mountain range, because of his
ascetic powers she became a great river in the middle of the mountains. When
the sage transformed himself into a saal tree full of flowers, she attained the
form of a creeper and wound herself around him. Every time he assumed a body,
she traveled with her husband assuming a similar body. And so living, her love
for him and his love for her increased in equal measures. The great sage continuously
reveled with her using his yogic powers and she, as divine will would have it,
gave him pleasures in turn.
“All this time, she remained the sage’s single wife, like Arundhati to
Vasishtha and Sita to Rama, and like them entirely devoted to her husband. In
this respect, she became nobler than Damayanti’s mother. Her mind became
totally engrossed in the great brahmana Maudgalya, as though her soul itself
had merged with him, and it never wavered from him.
“This, oh great king, is the truth and for that reason, never think of it in
other ways. It is this Nalayani who is born as your daughter Krishnaa from the
sacrificial pit, as some divine plan would have it.
“Drupada said: Great brahmana, best knower of all scriptures, tell me the
reason why the auspicious Nalayani took birth in my sacrifice.
“Vyasa said: Listen to me, King, of how Lord Rudra gave her a boon and why the
glorious one was born in your house. Let me tell you more of Krishnaa’s former
life story.
“Famous by the name Indrasena, the noble Nalayani travelled around with her
husband Maudgalya, no worries in her mind. For Maudgalya, those years of
reveling with her passed like moments. And then one day, after years of
enjoying them, the sage lost interest in pleasures. Desiring the highest
dharma, his mind was now turned towards brahma-yoga. The great sage, now keen
on austerities, abandoned her.
“Abandoned by him, oh great king, Nalayani fell to the earth. As she fell,
addressing Maudgalya, she said: “Do not abandon me, great sage. I have been
enjoying pleasures as my heart desired, and I am still not satisfied with the
enjoyment.”
“And Maudgalya told her: “You speak to me without any compunctions about things
that should not be spoken of. And you are causing obstacles on my path of tapas.
So listen to what I say. You shall be born on the earth as a princess and will
attain great repute. You shall be the daughter of the noble-hearted king of
Panchala. You shall then have five renowned men for your husbands. With those
handsome men, you shall long enjoy the pleasures of sex.
“Vaishampayana said: Cursed thus, the glorious Nalayani became miserable and
went to a forest. Still discontented with the enjoyment of pleasures, she
worshipped the Lord of the Gods through tapas. She gave up hopes and
expectations, fasted with only the air as her food, and following the diurnal
course of the sun, began practicing the tapas of the five fires – with the
burning sun above her and four burning fires surrounding her. Rudra, the Lord
of Beasts, Pashupati, the Great Monarch of all the worlds, the Great God, was
pleased with her severe penance and gave her a boon. “You will be reborn again
and in that birth you shall be a lustrous woman; and you shall have five
renowned men for your husbands. They will all have bodies like that of Indra
and in valour too they shall be like Indra. And there you shall achieve for the
gods their great work.”
“Hearing this, the woman said: “I requested you for one husband. Why have you
given me these five husbands? A woman shall have one man. How can a woman
belong to many men?”
“And the Great Lord said: “You told me five times, repeatedly, to give you a
husband. Noble woman, you shall have five husbands and you shall find happiness
with all of them.”
“The woman replied: “It has been decided long ago that it is the dharma of a
woman to have only one husband, whereas it is the dharma of a man, as practiced
by many, to have several wives. This is the dharma for women that the sages
decided in the past. And it has also been said that a single woman would be the
partner of man in religious rituals. And we also see in the world that a woman
has a single husband, just as she has a single virginity – once ended, it never
comes back. The smritis allow a second husband to a woman for the purpose of
conceiving through niyoga in an exigency. If she goes to a third woman, that is
considered a sin and when she has a fourth man, she falls and becomes a
prostitute. This is the path of dharma and for that reason I cannot accept many
husbands. That is something not seen practiced in the world and how could I be
absolved from the sin of corruption if that happens?”
“The Great Lord said: “In the past women lived a free life sexually and were
considered pure after their monthly periods. It was not just once that you
asked me [for a husband]. But having many husbands shall not be against dharma
for you.”
“The woman replied: “If I am to have many husbands, and if I desire sex [rati]
with them all, I request you to grant me that I shall remain a virgin after my
unions with each of my husbands. In the past I attained spiritual merit
[siddhi] through service to my husband. I also attained desire for sexual
pleasures through that service. Grant me that I attain
both in my coming birth too.”
“The Great Lord said: “Listen to me,
auspicious woman. Rati [sexual pleasure/the goddess of sexual pleasure] and
Siddhi [spiritual progress/the goddess of spiritual progress] do not enjoy each
other’s company. In your next birth too, endowed with great beauty and good fortune,
enjoying with your five husbands after regaining your virginity repeatedly, you
shall attain great glory. Go now!”
0o0
So we see here Nalayani’s unsatiated longing
for sex leads to her birth as Draupadi, wife of the five Pandavas, a woman of
such a powerful aura of sexuality around her that at least two men attempt to
molest her – Kichaka’s ḍeath in Virata happened because he desired her sexually
and Jayadratha, Dusshala’s husband and hence her brother-in-law one step
removed, carried her away to make her his own while she was living in the
forest with the Pandavas. There are high sexual overtones to what was done to
her in the Kuru Sabha at the end of the dice game, including Duryodhana’s
bearing his left thigh and asking her to come and sit there and Karna’s order
to Dusshasana to remove even the single clothe she was wearing.
O00
In the real life story of Gail Bartley in
Rosemary Ellen Guiley’s Tales of Reincarnation [already mentioned briefly
earlier in an article of this series] too we find how the same obsessions and
compulsions leads her and her partner lifetime after life time for two thousand
years and numerous rebirths, including their latest one in contemporary New
York.
In her
current life time in New York, soon after her marriage ended in divorce, Gail
fell in love with a man called Roger. As an advertising executive she had ample
opportunities for meeting other attractive young men, she did not really like
Roger, her mother took an instant dislike for him and a voice in Gail’s head
kept screaming all the time, “Get away. He hates you. He is trying to destroy
you!” In spite of all this, Gail felt irresistibly drawn toward Roger. And he
abused her constantly, hurt her emotionally and did not hesitate to beat her up
occasionally; once he even tried to choke her to death during one of the fairly
frequent violent outbursts between them. The relationship had wrecked her
personal life, drained her emotionally and destroyed her self-esteem. However,
in spite of all this, Gail found herself unable to get away from the man – and
she completely failed to understand her love-hate relationship with this man,
as did others around her.
It was this riddle of her relationship with Roger that eventually sent her to a
past life regressionist. Upon regression and reaching her first past life
experience, Gail found herself standing in a bedroom with high ceilings. She
was now a twenty-three year old woman called Joyce in the 1920s. The
experience, completely new to Joyce, was strange and eerie: she was at once the
woman Joyce and Gail, who was watching her. Gail experienced that Joyce was
shaking with fear, fear caused by a man who was with her in the room, lying on
their bed – and that man was none other than Joyce’ s husband and the man Gail
knew as Roger.
And then Gail experienced the man getting up from their bed and walking towards
her. Joyce was now shaking in terror and Gail’s breath changed as she watched
it, and she began to hyperventilate. The regressionist asked Gail what was
happening and she told her the man was strangling her. Joyce fell on her knees
at the violence of the attack and then collapsed on the ground as the man
continued to throttle her. However, Joyce did not die. Before that could
happen, the man released her throat and walked away, leaving her on the ground,
struggling to breathe.
In a later part of the regression, Gail once again felt Joyce’s terror. Joyce
was in their room again, that same night, and she hears him approaching her,
climbing the stairs leading to their room. As he comes near, she sees he has
something in his hand, which he is hiding behind him. His eyes are cold and she
breathes in the hatred that emanates from him.
He rips open her gown with the knife he was hiding behind him, and brutally
stabs her with it. Gail feels choked, her breath escapes her and she realizes
she is experiencing the last moments of her life as Joyce. Coming out her body
and hovering in a corner of the room, Joyce watches what is happening. One of
the things she witnesses is her husband’s utter shock at what he has done, his
complete disbelief and intense remorse.
Further regressions reveal a sad tale of revenge and guilt spanning across life
times, centuries and continents. It all started in ancient Rome where Roger and
Gail in a long ago lifetime lived as brothers. The two of them loved each other
deeply and thoroughly enjoyed their life as Roman citizens. In her regression,
Gail sees herself as the younger brother, a blond young man filled with raw
energy and impatience to win a chariot race that is about to begin. The race
begins and his chariot takes off like a storm, another chariot keeping abreast
with him. And then the tragedy takes place. His chariot swerves violently, hits
the other chariot, the man driving that chariot is thrown off his balance and
falls, his head hitting his own chariot wheel, causing an instant death. In the
middle of his shock he realizes the saddest truth: the man killed by his
mistake is none other than his beloved brother.
This life follows a series of lifetimes revealed by the regression, in each the
elder brother is violent and vengeful, and the younger brother, Gail of this
lifetime, is his victim. In one of these, Gail is a boy of seventeen, George,
who lived in the Old West of America with his ill tempered, hateful,
domineering father and his mother who was terrified of him. On one occasion his
father catches George with his girlfriend, a girl who had grown up with him as
his playmate. The two were together in the barn and they were kissing and
feeling each other. The father orders George back into the house and then he
rapes George’s girlfriend. One night the boy is asleep in his tent while
camping out with his father in the wilderness. He wakes up hearing repeated
dull thuds and realizes his father is digging something in the night. His
father has been furious with him that evening about some small thing, maybe he
hadn’t tied up the horses properly. Sudden realization comes: his father is
digging a grave for him! And then the father hits him on the head with a shovel
and he is dead and out of his body. He sees his father dragging his body to the
pit he had dug and burying him in it.
O0O
The guilt that the younger brother who is now
Gail felt and the need for vengeance that the older brother who is now Roger
felt have lived within them life after life making both of them suffer for two
thousand years, such is the power of our feelings and emotions which Krishna
groups as asuri sampada and daivi sampada. While both positive feelings and
negative feelings stay with us across lifetimes, it is the negative sampada
that punishes us like furies that avenge. It is for this reason that Krishna
tells us that those who nourish asuri sampada within them suffer hell life
after life and asks us to cultivate daivi sampada, positive emotions and
feelings, positive ambitions and passions and not to be slaves to negativity.
Keep away from cruelty, anger, vengeance and
other dark powers. Live by daivi sampada like kindness, compassion, love for
all, forgiveness and so on. That is the only wise thing to do, which is the
reason why Krishna teaches us about these two types of sampadas. The Gita is meant for living by – not for
memorizing, not to become scholars of, not for winning debates and arguments. We
must remember that while our soul is
deathless and immortal, leaving the body behind, the rest of us travel from
birth to birth and as we make this journey, it is these sampada that guide us,
fuel our journey. Just as everyone born must die, everyone who dies must also
be born again. So long as this wheel continues, the only wise thing to do is to
live by daivi sampada.
And of course, the final solution to end it
all is, as India alone has pointed out, to end this cycle, to end our slavery
to this cycle, a process India calls multi or moksha, which is the other choice
we have. And to achieve that, there is only way: awakening to out true nature,
as eternal beings, as immortals, whom weapons cannot cut, fire cannot burn, water cannot
wet, wind cannot dry; as the eternal being who cannot be cut or burnt, pierced
or dried up, as the all-pervading, changeless, unmoving, ever-new reality
behind the world that existed before the world came into being, as
sat-chid-ananda. This awakening is what India calls jnana, direct experience
beyond the senses where the knower, the process of knowing and the known all become
one, what the rishis called the aparoksha anubhooti, for want of a better name.
The negative passions in our heart block all possibilities to this
awakening. He who bears no ill will to anyone, who is friendly to all and full
of compassion, who does not cling to things, people or possessions, who is not a slave to his ego, who remains
even-minded in pain and pleasure and
thus keeps his mind still, who forgives even great acts of anger and
violence committed against him, who is ever
content, who has great self-mastery, practices regular meditation and has for
his aim this ultimate freedom, he alone attains it, as Krishna tells us in
Chapter 12 of the Gita.
He by whom the world is not agitated and who cannot be agitated by the
world, who is free from joy, anger, envy, fear and anxiety – it is only he who
is qualified for this awakening, others live as prisoners to their negativity,
obedient to it, blindly taking orders from them and executing them, as the SS
commanders obeyed the evil orders of Hitler, as
zombies obey the zombie master, sleep walking through life, considering
themselves men of great power while they are mere slaves to powers of darkness.
And living
for awakening is the only life worth living – na anyah panthaa ayanaya vidyate,
as the Shwetashwaratara Upanishad tells us.
Awakened
living alone is living. All other living is death.
O0O
Photo courtesy: Unknown artist
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