One day someone got up in the evening satsang and asked Sri Sri, “Is it fair for a teacher to put one student at a disadvantage to favour another? Dronacharya asked for Eklavya’s right thumb to stop him from being better than Arjuna. Was that fair?”
Sri Sri said, “This is a natural question. Dronacharya appears to be very unfair to Eklavya. But look at what that sacrifice did to Eklavya. If this had not happened, Eklavya would have been an ace archer and a hunter who lived and died in the forest anonymously. By asking for Eklavya’s thumb, Dronacharya immortalized Eklavya’s name and in turn, tarnished his own. From this perspective, Drona made a great sacrifice for Eklavya.
Similarly, Kaikeyi in Ramayana. Just before going to exile, when Rama came to meet Kaushalya and take permission to leave, she said,
‘If it is your father who has exiled you, I can overrule him’ – in those days, queens had the authority to overrule the king’s word. ‘But if it was Kaikeyi, you must go. Certainly, she has your best interest in mind.’
Kaikeyi was the one who loved Rama the most; Rama was her very life. Everybody cursed Kaikeyi for sending Rama away, including her own son, Bharat, who refused to talk to her. The greatest character in Ramayana is Kaikeyi. She took all the blame from the whole world…”
At this point, Gurudev’s voice choked. He paused but not everybody noticed that he was holding back tears, including the lady holding the mic, eagerly waiting for the first opportunity to speak. She thought Gurudev had finished the previous answer and fired away her question. He began answering her as if nothing had happened but a few seconds later, wiped his eyes. Those who did notice all this were stunned first at the way he suddenly got emotional, then how he was interrupted and then the way he just continued.
After satsang, someone asked Gurudev about what had happened. He said, “The story itself (Ramayana) is such that it brings tears to the eyes. Kaikayi was a very strong-willed and capable woman. She was the force behind Dasaratha. It was she who was actually running the kingdom, not him. Nobody knows that it was Goddess Saraswati who asked Kaikeyi to send Rama away. The Goddess asked her to do it for the greater good and also to get over her attachment to Rama. But she would be blamed by the whole world for doing so. There is a Saraswati Gita in which She gave knowledge to Kaikeyi but nobody knows about it.”
What we heard from Gurudev that day turns the whole story that we’ve known all our lives. If I’d heard this explanation second hand or read it somewhere, my reaction would’ve been, “Oh, come on!” All this time, for me Kaikeyi had been a symbol of the notion that ‘at the top, only money and power matter in this world.’ It’s not that there is no goodness in people and while I appreciate Gurudev’s talks on human values I still felt that when the stakes are high, it’s all about power and money. And this notion was supported by other examples from history – Mahabharata, Bible, Buddha’s story and many more. Over the years, I had come to terms with this ‘reality’ about the world but it did harden my feelings about people and relationships.
But that day I saw him sharing this story really feeling Kaikeyi’s pain, what she must have gone through to force herself to turn into a villainess and not be able to tell anybody why. Her heartbreaking predicament was revealed only by the manner in which he shared it, in that moment when his voice cracked and the tears that welled up in his eyes. I could never have imagined that such a sacrifice was possible. How much love must have been there behind it and how much love was needed to see this side of the story and empathize with her. It softened me.
I didn’t need anyone to tell me that ‘life is all about power and money’ – it was an easy conclusion to draw. But to know that despite everything, in the end, life is about love and sacrifice, I needed my Guru.
Reproduced from a authentic post on a WA group
I have cried watching tbe Ramayana episode for the gems of knowledge related in each section of the Telecast Amazing and how deep is the only word I can think of.
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