Happiness and sadness
Happiness and sadness, success and failure. We all know these feelings and while we prefer happiness and success and also praise ourselves and others when we/they are successful. We judge ourselves and others on our/their failures. Much better would be acknowledgement of happiness and success in a quiet way and when we are sad or fail not to judge the sadness or failure but how we respond to that sadness and failure, what we do with it, sadness and failure can lead to amazing times of creativity. And sometimes just sitting on your asana is the right thing to do. We will all face sadness and failure. Accept these feelings, your failure. But do not hold on to them, just as the wind moves from sunny south to chilly north and back again. Everything changes. Do not hold on to either happiness or sadness.
Thank you all for sending me quizzes, funny videos, something to learn, questions. Your support has been a real blessing, I’m honoured to have such good friends.
Yesterday I gave you a brief list of names of people you need to keep in mind. You’ll find that the Mahabharata is really many stories inside one story, some of those small stories are insightful. Historically the basic story was called Jaya meaning victory and then more got added and it became Bharata and then eventually Mahabharata. There is no complete finished version. There are critical editions. But both north and south India have slightly different tales. An that is the wonderful thing about stories they can be told and retold around the fire, shared.
Drona, the poor brahmin who became a warrior and has a grudge against King Draupada. Well one day he see the Pandavas and Kauravas trying to get a ball they have lost down a well. Drona picks up a blade of grass and throws it down the well and then another and another blade of grass. The first blade pierces the ball the following blades of grass each pierce the preceding blade. Until he has made a chain of grass, at which point with the Pandavas chins hitting the ground in amazement he pulls the ball out. Then he throws his ring down the well and shoots an arrow after it which catches the ring and bounces it back off the water up to Drona’s hand. With the showing of such skill they ask him to be their teacher. He agrees under one condition. ‘You must capture Drupada alive’. So when the kauravas and Pandavas were ready enough in their fighting skills they attacked Draupada’s city. The Kauravas rush head long and were defeated but Pandavas held back and timed their attack and so captured Draupada and brought him to Drona. Drona said ‘if you want your freedom then you will agree to give me half your kingdom, then we will be equal’. Of course Draupada agreed but really he is seething underneath. Holding on to his anger, resentment and failure was not going to help him, much he had to learn.
Talking of learning, Arjuna was a fantastic student. Always following Drona’s advice. He became even better than Drona’s own son Ashvatthama, who of course might have felt some anger/jealousy. But Drona tried to keep some secrets away from Arjuna, wanting to keep the power and knowledge to himself. He instructed the palace servants never to let the candles and fires go out. But one night a strong wind did just that and the palace was plunged into darkness. Meanwhile Arjuna realised that if he could eat and drink in darkness surely he could find his target with a bow and arrow in darkness. And so he practiced in darkness, over came sleep, could shoot with either hand (remember that bit) and became possibly the worlds greatest archer, or did he…