How do we go about approaching what we know and what we believe?

Someone once told me that before you can move forward with what you believe, you have to hold what you believe to be true.  To be honest, I somewhat disagree with this point of view. This goes back to the idea that one religion is “right” while others aren’t.  For example, should faith be guided by historical accuracy? Should we try to prove which religious texts are accurate, and in effect, follow them? Should we try to prove a monotheistic or pantheistic view of the world? Should we question whether the mythology of Krishna and Arjuna and Shiva and Parvati really occurred, and should the answer influence our belief in God?

I think back to the story of Narada, a devotee who asks Vishnu to show him the truth of Vishnu’s maya.  Vishnu instructs Narada to jump into a pond, from which Narada emerges as a princess named Sushila.  Sushila is married and bears children, but when her father and husband break out in a bloody feud, resulting in her son’s death, she throws herself upon the funeral pyre from her grief.  Narada wakes up in his previous form, but when Vishnu asks him what was the name of the child who died, Narada cannot answer.

This story tells us that the world surrounding us is maya, an illusion that we construct to perhaps assign false meaning to our lives.  Hinduism teaches that it is through the goodness of our deeds and actions that we are liberated from our maya, so our current lives are certainly not useless or completely insignificant. However, using the “truths” we extract from the world (maya) around us to guide our beliefs in a higher power can be a faulty method.  For all we know, we could very well be like Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy in Narnia, or like Vladimir and Estragon waiting for Godot… or like Sushila, currently stuck in a pond of ignorance, with Vishnu, symbolizing the reality of the supreme, divine, and infinite, waiting to pull us out.

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Many of us Hindus, as children, were told (or read ourselves) the basic story of the Mahabharata over and over.  I have taken so much from it, and it has truly affected my perspective on life.  That being said, I cannot truly give the epic that responsibility without studying it more thoroughly.  Before this, I had never read more than a children’s version!  I am sure many of you readers may feel similarly, and so one reason why I have chosen to write about my experiences reading these versions is for you to find one that appeals to you.  I hope that all of you will someday (if you haven’t already) pick up a more thorough version of Vyasa’s story.

Having finished Rajaji’s version, I thought I might share with you all a few memorable passages from it.  (If you’d like to read it yourself, here is an online version, which is only 217 pages!)  What I particularly like about this version (who knows, it may be true with others as well) is Rajaji’s delicate commentary throughout the story.  Sometimes it gets to be a bit too much.  Here is a passage from when the Pandavas are attempting to make peace with the Kauravas while simultaneously preparing for battle:

In December 1941, the Japanese were carrying on negotiations with the Americans and, immediately on the breakdown of those talks, took them unawares and attacked Pearl Harbour destroying their naval forces there.  Drupada’s instructions to the brahmana would show that this was no new technique and that, even in the old days, the same method was followed of carrying on negotiations and even sincerely working for peace, but simultaneously preparing, with unremitting vigour, for outbreak of war and carrying on peace talks with the object of creating dissensions in the enemy’s ranks.  There is nothing new under the sun!

A bit much, right? At other times, Rajaji’s words precisely capture the idea of the story.  He details a side story of a brahmana and a dutiful wife with the following end remarks:

The moral of this striking story of Dharmavyadha so skilfully woven by Vedavyasa into the Mahabharata, is the same as the teaching of the Gita, that man reaches perfection by the honest pursuit of whatever calling falls to his lot in life, and that this is really worship of God Who created and pervades all (Bhagavad Gita XVIII: 45-46).  The occupation may be one he is born to in society or it may have been forced on him by circumstances or he may have taken it up by choice but what really matters is the spirit of sincerity and faithfulness with which he does his life’s work.

There are too many times in the Mahabharata where people clearly make the wrong decision.  Rajaji comments thus:

The Puranas wherein right conduct is always preached, sometimes set out stories in which conduct, not in conformity with Dharma, seems condoned.  Is it right, one may ask, for religious books thus to seem to justify wrong?

A little reflection will enable one to see the matter in proper light.  It is necessary to bring home the fact that even wise, good and great men are liable to fall into error.  That is why the Puranas, although ever seeking to instill Dharma, contain narratives to show how in this world even good people sometimes sin against Dharma, as though irresistibly driven to do so.  This is to press home the truth that howsoever learned one may be, humility and constant vigilance are absolutely necessary if one wishes to avoid evil.

Why indeed, did the great authors of our epics write about the lapses of Rama in the Ramayana and Yudhisthira in the Mahabharata? Where was the need to make mention of them and then labour arguments to explain them away, thereby disturbing men’s minds? It was not as though other had discovered the lapses and Vyasa and Valmiki had to defend their heroes.  The stories are artistic creations in which lapses themselves impress the desired moral.  The parts dealing with the lapses deeply distress the reader’s mind and serve as solemn warnings of pitfalls which wait to engulf the careless.  They dispose the mind to humility and watchfulness and make it realise the need for divine guidance.

The modern cinema also projects on the screen much that is bad and immoral.  Whatever may be the explanation offered by the protagonists of the cinema, evil is presented on the screen in an attractive fashion that grips people’s minds and tempts them into the path of wickedness.  Not so in the Puranas.  Although they do point out that even great now and again fell into error and committed wrong, the presentation is such as to warn the reader and not to allure him into evil ways.  This is the striking difference between our epics and the modern talkies, which arises from the difference in the character of the people who produced them.

Ok, he again goes a little too far in the last paragraph (or sentence).  Rajaji is clearly not of our generation!  But I find the rest of his discussion illuminating.

Rajaji presents an interest view of choices in a chapter on Balarama’s lack of involvement in battle (Krishna’s elder brother is torn between sides and loses all interest in the world):

This episode of Balarama’s keeping out of the Mahabharata war is illustrative of the perplexing situations in which good and honest men often find themselves.  Compelled to choose between two equally justifiable, but contrary, courses of action, the unhappy individual is caught on the horns of a dilemma.

It is only honest men that find themselves in this predicament.  The dishonest ones of the earth have no such problems, guided as they are solely by their own attachments and desires, that is, by self-interest.  Not so the great men who have renounced all desire.  Witness the great trials to which, in the Mahabharata, Bhishma, Vidura, Yudhisthira and Karna were put.  We read in that epic how they solved their several difficulties.  Their solutions did not conform to a single moral pattern but reflected their several individualities.  The conduct of each was the reaction of his personality and character to the impact of circumstances. Modern critics and expositors sometimes forget this underlying basic factor and seek to weigh all in the same scales, which is quite wrong.  We may profit by the way in which, in the Ramayana, Dasaratha, Kumbhakarana, Maricha, Bharata, and Lakshmana reacted to the difficulties with which each of them was faced.  Likewise, Balarama’s neutrality in the Mahabharata war was a lesson.

Perhaps I include these specific passages because I agree with them, but I cannot avoid that bias.  One of the reasons I feel compelled to read the epic in so many different ways is because the story itself appeals to me in so many ways.  For me, the Mahabharata is the truth of life: that we humans are all faced with difficult decisions and we navigate these decisions by following our moral compass, our Swadharma.  That is all we can do to make peace with, and in, the universe.

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There once was a man that was drowning in the middle of sea. He could see no land in any direction. So as he tried his best to keep treading and holding on to life, he prayed to God for help. ‘God, please help me out of this situation or I will die!’ As he kept treading, he bumped into a log large enough for him to hold onto so that he could rest and swim back to shore with ease. The man, however, did not use the log because he was waiting for God to come and save him, and so the log floated away. He continued to pray for God’s help and shortly after, a boat came by and offered to take the young man to shore, but the man refused saying ‘Thank you for your offer, but I am waiting for God to help me’. The boat went away and the man continued to pray, ‘God, please hurry or I will drown!’ After some time, a helicopter flew by and the passengers asked the drowning man if he wanted to climb onto the helicopter. The man refused, yet again, saying that he was waiting for God to help him.

Unfortunately, the man grew more and more tired and could no longer tread to keep himself alive. Once he arrived in heaven, he asked God, ‘Why didn’t you save me, God? I prayed so much for your help as I was treading to keep myself alive, but you never came!’

God responded, ‘I sent you the floating log, but you didn’t use it. Then, I sent the people on the boat and the helicopter to where you were and you refused their help! What more could I have done?’

The message in this story is that when we ask for help, not just from God, our solution may come to us almost immediately. It is up to us to be able to notice the solution. If we are only looking for the one solution to the problem, even if countless other solutions appear in front of us, we may not see them. The idea is to keep our eyes and our mind open to different possibilities. Sometimes the solution is not as easy to find as was the log or the boat that came by, but it can be said that the solution to a problem arises almost as soon as the problem does. Is this a practical way of thought or does it sound fantastic and unrealistic?

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The boy’s father takes him into the forest, blindfolds him and leaves him alone. He is told to sit on a stump the whole night and not remove the blindfold until the rays of the morning sun shine through it. He cannot cry out for help to anyone. Once he survives the night, he is a man.

He cannot tell the other boys of this experience, because each individual must come into manhood on his own.

As the night progresses, the boy naturally becomes more terrified. He can hear all kinds of noises. Wild beasts must surely be all around him. Possible among these beasts could be some human wanting to harm him. The wind blows the grass and earth, and shakes his stump, but he sits stoically and unwavering, never removing the blindfold. It would be the only way he could become a man.

Finally, after a horrific night, the sun appears and shines through the blindfold. The boy removes his blindfold, relieved that he made it through the night.

It was then that the boy discovers his father sitting on the stump next to him. He had been at watch the entire night, protecting his son from harm.

Such is true with our relationship with our own family, friends and even God.

Although we may be the ones that have to perform a certain task or overcome an obstacle by ourselves, like the young man, we must wait and perform our duty to the best of our abilities until the sun shines through. The most difficult task is to not remove the blindfold before dawn and give into our fears. What we can do is to do our best and have faith in ourselves, our family, our friends and in God. Once dawn approaches and we remove that blindfold, we will see them all sitting on the stumps next to us, having been at watch for the entire night, ensuring that we were safe.

A relevant message this legend has to offer is that none of us is ever alone. Our God, our friends and our family will always be watching over us, just as they do every day, guiding us and protecting us, to help us safely make our way through the night.

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Mullah Nasruddin found a diamond by the road-side but, according to the Law, finders became keepers only if they first announced their find in the centre of the marketplace on three separate occasions. Now Nasruddin was too religious-minded to disregard the Law and too greedy to run the risk of parting with his find. So on three consecutive nights when he was sure that everyone was fast asleep he went to the centre of the marketplace and there announced in a soft voice, “I have found a diamond on the road that leads to the town. Anyone knowing who the owner is should contact me at once.” No one was the wiser for the Mullah’s words, of course, except for one man who happened to be standing at his window on the third night and heard the Mullah mumble something. When he attempted to find out what it was, Nasruddin replied, “I am in no way obliged to tell you. But this much I shall say: Being a religious man, I went out there at night to pronounce certain words in fulfillment of the Law.”

To be properly wicked, you do not have to break the Law. Just observe it to the letter.

I can be sure to say that many of us have definitely done this. For example, in various Hindu rituals, there are often mantras that are suggested to be repeated a certain number of times. The easy way out of this would be for one to mindlessly repeat the mantra while his or her thoughts wander off. After repeating the chant for the recommended number of times, the individual would have technically completed the chanting part without sincerity in the prayers.

This is not only true in Hinduism, but for almost all other religions of the world. Regardless of our religion, it would be better if we keep ourselves from being the Mullah Nasruddin by sincerely practicing the rituals or following the rules without looking for loopholes.

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