Clap for the NHS
Wasn’t it lovely the big clap for the NHS yesterday. We live opposite an estate and it was great to see so man people at windows, people we never normally see. It’s amazing how many people live on our street, probably hundreds. And where my Dad lives, a hundred mile glen in North Scotland there are less than 100.
Practice on friday always seems a bit of a push. Sometimes it can be Monday, Tuesday too. Always when I find that I feel it’s going to be a hard practice I pick one asana and put more effort in to it. Maybe its trikonasana, may be the breathing at the end. Just a simple thing can make a big difference.
We left the Mahabharata with the birth of the five Pandavas. Sons of Pandu, well sort of. This thing where one parent is human the other Divine happens in lots of myths and stories and they often are the protectors of the world. What about Pandu’s elder and blind brother Dhritarashtra and his wife Gandhari? They had 100 sons and one daughter. But the pregnancy went on for two years! And when Gandhari gave birth she gave birth to a ball of iron. Vyasa steps in again and splits the ball of iron into 101 parts and puts them into pots with magical ghee. So far we have covered people born half man half woman, of no gender, people born through niyoga, where someone else fathers a child and now we have pot born babies!
So Kunti is now looking after the Pandava boys as a single mother. But now that Pandu is dead Dhritarashtra is sitting on the throne and there is a problem as to who should be the crown prince, the next in line. Yudhishthira is the oldest son of Pandu so should be the crown prince, but Duryodhana is the eldest son of Dhritarashtra who now sits on the throne. But Yudhishthira was born first. So there is from now on some antagonism between the two sets of cousins the five Pandavas and the 100 Kauravas. Who has the right. Sometimes we like to see things in black and white and see the Pandavas as good and the Kauravas as bad, but both sets of cousins covers all ranges of good and bad. Where we prefer a yes or no answer, Indian thought is often both yes and no.
So how were they all brought up in the palace of Hastinapura. Bhishma had appointed Kripa and Drona as their teachers. The story of Drona is worth telling. Drona was a priest and was extremely poor and his son Ashvatthama had never tasted milk. Drona went to his childhood friend Draupada to ask for help and a share of his cows. Draupada was now a king and said ‘we used to be equal but now we are not, so I will give you charity but not share what is mine’. Drona felt hurt and swore that he would have his revenge. And we all know where revenge leads. Drona learnt all his skills of warfare from Parushurama (another Avatar of Vishnu). But Parushurama asked Drona never to teach these skills. But that promise was broken and had a rather unfortunate consequence. Don’t make promises you can’t hold and value the knowledge you have been given. I realise I have introduced a lot of people with long and sometimes difficult names. So tomorrow I will give you a list of names as a reminder.