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Art of Living, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and My Self!

Tag Archives: Mahabharatha

The Mahabharata inside you – Part III

16 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by Aravind Venkatachalam in Knowledge

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

emotions, Events, Inspiration, Krishna, Life, Mahabharata, Mahabharatha, Pandavas, Spirituality, the Game

Even though the Mahabharata symbolism series of posts has generated a lot of interest from the readers, I promise this is the last post in it :). I have surely enjoyed researching and writing this series of posts and I hope you readers have to. I would love to write on all the major events in the epic and how they are related to each one of us but it would take too long and most of them would be abstract. We saw the symbolism of Kauravas and Pandavas. Now that you guys have the picture, I wanted to bring a closure by taking your attention to some of the major events in the Mahabharata. With these

The Game of Dice – represents the Game of Delusion. In childhood, the senses, and the development of the body, are governed by the soul’s powers of discrimination. As youth approaches, the strong sense desires are awakened, by temptations in this life and Samskaras (habit tendencies) of past lives. The game is very charming, and the princely faculties of discrimination are enticed into a deceitful game with the sense desires, and man stakes his entire bodily kingdom. He is overpowered by them, and the pure discriminative intelligence of the soul is ousted from the throne, and sent into exile. The Pandavas are lured into the game by Duryodhana which is how the mind deludes its own energies into playing this whole game which we call life. Yudhisthira and the Pandavas lose the game and are banished from the kingdom and sent into exile for 12 years, with a further 1 year in total anonymity.

12 years of exile – A spiritual aspirant, who is armed with the grace of his Guru, and the knowledge of Kriya Yoga, and with all faculties intact, can with perseverance, evolve spiritually within twelve years, to the point where he can wage a battle with the senses to reclaim this body kingdom. This is a known fact to Spiritual aspirants. It is written in many yogic texts that a aspirant has intensely practice for 12 years before he can completely win over this senses which in turn control the mind. In the 12 years that the Pandavas are banished, they had to go through various events where they grow spiritually.

The One Year in Anonymity –  refers to the period when the aspirant, having attained a lofty height of spiritual evolution, i.e., he has attained Yudhistira’s calmness, Bhima’s Pranayama, Arjuna’s nonattachment, Nakula’s adherence, and Sahadeva’s power to resist evil, he is now ready to immerse himself in states of Samadhi. In the state of Samadhi, the Sadhaka is withdrawn from the world, and all that is worldly, immersing him in states of consciousness. In the State of Samadhi, one’s consciousness is not in the material world, but in the supreme consciousness, hence, why the Pandavas were incognito, to the people around them.

Kurukshetra – the Land (field) of the Kurus, is the symbolic representation of the body. Kurukshetra is formed from the Sanskrit roots, kri meaning work, material action, and ksetra means field. So this Field of Action is the body, on which all activities of life, take place.

Bhagavad Gita

Bhagavad gita – In our  inner conflict when we lose peace, it is the aspect of  knowledge in us that is confused needs clarity. This aspect in us that seeks teaching represents Arjuna. As we already discussed Arjuna represents bondage it seeks freedom to attain the kingdom of Peace. It seeks Krishna the manifestation of pure Consciousness. We seek for clarity a teacher, a Guru. What we seek outside is already in us. The external teacher helps us to seek our internal teacher Krishna, the pure consciousness. The dialogue between the Krishna and Arjuna is Bhagavad Gita.

KRISHNA – Lastly, who is Krishna? Krishna the manifestation of pure Consciousness. Consciousness is the “being” of every form and formless in this universe. The reflection of that Consciousness  is awareness. Krishna is the cousin and brother -in-law of Arjuna and interestingly Krishna is the father-in-law of Duryodhan’s daughter, that is , Krishna’s son married Duryodhan’s daughter Lakshmana. So Krishna is related to both the positive and negative groups of  brothers. This is why Indian God’s are represented with three faces. The two faces on the sides represents the pair of opposites of the same body. Explains that both positive and negatives qualities resides in us. I can go on writing about Krishna.

So here are the symbolisms of the characters and events in Mahabharata. It is not just another long story that happened long time ago. It is happening right now right her within you. If you believe in these allegoric events, then read the Mahabharata again. Only this time see if you can relate to these characters for they lived and died(mortally) to relate to us.

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Avatars in the Mahabharat

03 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by Aravind Venkatachalam in Katha Vidya, Stories

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Tags

avatars, incarnations, Mahabharatha

Avatars or incarnations in Hinduism is the descent of a Supreme Being on earth to accomplish a specific mission. This term has become famous with the ten avatars of Lord Vishnu who came to Earth. The ten main incarnations of Vishnu are known as “Dasavatars” and is part of any puranas or stories of Vishnu. Now why am I talking about Avatars and what am I coming to tell? Well, I was reading about avatars and came across a very nice article talking about the avatars in the Mahabharat, the greatest epic ever written. Did you know that almost all the main characters in the epic are reincarnations of some deva, deity, rakshasa or asura? I have collected them and here are some of them

Character

Avatar of

NOTES

Krishna Vishnu
Lord Vishnu’s 9th incarnation was Shri Krishna
Rukmini Lakshmi
Lakshmi is Lord Vishnu’s consort. She incarnated as Rukmini who was Krishna’s wife
Draupadi Sachi
Sachi Devi is Lord Indra’s wife.
Duryodhana Kali  Kali is the reigning lord of Kali Yuga and is considered as a negative manifestation of Lord Vishnu. He operates to destroy this world and is a demon and arch enemy of Vishnu.
Bhishma Dyaus He is the divine consort of Prithvi maa and was cursed by Vasishta for hurting Nandini, the divine cow to be born as a human.
Drona Brihaspati
Brihaspati is the Deva guru to the devas.
Vidura Dharma  The diety in charge of dharma in this world
Ashwatthama Rudra
A god associated with wind or storm. An aspect of Lord Shiva.
Shantanu Varuna
Shantanu was the father of Bhishma. Varuna is the Lord of the Ocean
Bharata Kama
Bharata was one of the righteous king. Kama is the Lord of Love
Vyasa Vishnu Vyasa was also an incarnation of Lord Vishnu who came down to classify the Vedas
Abhimanyu Varchas
Varchasi is the son of Lord Soma who was destined to be on Earth only for 16 years.
Durvasa Shiva Rishi Durvasa is an amsa of Lord Shiva. He was known for his anger.
Balarama Shesha Shesha is the thousand headed snake on whom Lord Vishnu rests.
Kamsa Kalanemi
Kalanemi is a demon who had special powers to break himself into atoms.
Dhrishtadyumna Agni
Lord of Fire
Pradyumna Sanatkumara
One of the 4 sons of Lord Brahma
Jarasandha Viprachitti
One of the asura king who married the sister of Hiranyakashipu. Rahu was his son.
Arjuna Nara One of the twin reincarnations of Lord Vishnu – Nara-Narayana.

We all have read the story of Maabharatha many times but did you know about these avatars being in the story all along? Interesting isn’t it – how many things we still don’t know about our epics?

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Aravind Venkatachalam

is a senior software engineer living in the Bay area. He is a devotee of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and volunteers for the Art of Living Foundation. He uses this blog to share his ideas on ancient wisdom from the Puranas and from Sri Sri along with many other stories and juicy stuff!!

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