Art of Living Blog

Everyone in the world is seeking same thing – Inner Peace and Joy.

Mahabharata, the greatest epic in Indian history, actually happens in the life of every Yogi. Life of a Yogi without Bhagavad Gita is incomplete. Why is Mahabharata and Bhagavad Gita so important for a yogi?

First let us see who is a yogi. A Yogi is the one who is walking the path to become centered and established in himself or herself. A Yogi is one who is looking for the Inner Peace and Joy in real sense. How is this story of war so important for a yogi? Is Mahabharata actually the story of a war? It was written by one of the greatest sages of mankind, Maharishi Ved Vyasa, who was already centered.

For me, the teachings of Poojya Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar ji have been of tremendous help to understand the essence of Gita and the way of life. Sri Sri has wonderfully simplified the precious knowledge for a happy and peaceful life and give it to us in a capsule through the Art of Living course. Its like taking the capsule with some water and its done.

I love to fancy that this history of Mahabharata was supposed to be created by the Nature to teach something to the entire mankind for its real growth and prosperity.

Bhagavad Gita starts with:

Dhritarashtra uvacha

dharma-kshetre kuru-kshetre

samaveta yuyutsavah

mamakah pandavas caiva

kim akurvata sanjaya

Why did Bhagavad Gita start with Dhritarashtra – a blind king? It may be because Dhritarashtra represents the confused blind mind. The nature of our mind and Dhritarashtra are quite similar. Our life also starts with this confused and blind mind. That is where “I” is born.

From the mind, its eldest son Material Desire (Duryodhana) is born. It is natural. When we are born, we cannot sustain ourselves without the material things around us. When we are born, the Being is ruled by the mind. Mind starts thinking that the real pleasure and happiness is in the material possession. The Kurukshetra can be considered as our being which is happiness and joy. Our mind and body needs that. And then from the basic desire all the other 100 desire become his brothers and go together. Its a continuous process. Since the mind is helpless, it starts thinking that the material desire born out of it is the source of all happiness.

From the being is also born the discriminative intelligence (viveka), Pandu (brother of the blind Dhritarashtra). Its offspring are the 5 elements of our body or the pandavas. They are bound by the Shakti Draupadi.

So the war is symbolic of the difference of force between our own positive and negative tendencies to get the happiness within.

After all the efforts by the Yogi, its time to confront the desires and the negative tendencies to realize the peace and happiness within. The first obstacle that comes in his way is his feelings for his ego and material desire. That is where the knowledge of the self comes to the rescue in the form of Bhagavad Gita. It was just impossible to conquer kauravas without the help of Sri Krishna and His Knowledge. Arjuna (the fire within to be happy) could not even begin the war.

Then comes his ego (Bhishma pitamah), who will always support the material desire and it cannot die without his own self will. May be that is why the most painful phase for a yogi is when he gets rid of his ego. Ego always goes with some pain with it. That is how Bhishma pitamah was lying in the bed of arrows towards the end of the war and he left his body with his self will after bearing the pains of innumerable arrows pierced in his body.

Our own impressions are like Dronacharya. He was the teacher for both Pandavas and Kauravas. Our own impressions teaches us throughout our life. Usually the impressions are strong for the material desires.

So, the ego and impressions become a very big obstacle for a Yogi to realize the self, the source of true happiness and joy. How to get rid of that?

Like the Bhagavad Gita for Arjuna, Sudarshan Kriya becomes the first step towards our real happiness and joy. After that, we start understanding the negative tendencies as and when they come and try to overcome them. We start caring for people around and give them more respect and help those in need. Then the real living starts. Never mind if things does not go well all the time. Sri Sri’s mission is to guide every individual on the Earth to get rid of their negative tendencies to become a good human being and attain supreme happiness and live together in harmony like the Pandavas.

As we move on with the knowledge given by Sri Sri and become regular in our practices of our sadhana, seva and satsang, our life becomes more and more beautiful and joyful leaving us more happy and prosperous. By sharing our happiness and prosperity with others we also become more useful to everyone else around us.

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