Parashurama

When I first started teaching astanga yoga one of my first students was an ex-submariner. He’d spent three months underwater with 100 people. Not that I ever wanted to be a submariner but I imagine the freedom we have now would still be amazing compared to being in a tin can under the artic. And this was before the internet. How did we cope??

People sometimes ask me what I would have done if I hadn’t taught yoga. I spent a few years working in the homeless sector, so may be I would have continued with that. If not that and may be this is for next life I would have been an army medic, would have helped if I’d actually spent much time at school though.

One of the hardest things about self practice, as in on your own in your living-room/bedroom is not getting distracted and getting started. Put any tech away the night before and keep away from your phone. Set a few things up the night before. If you are the sort of person who has lots of thoughts, of things to do, while you practice put a pad and pen out, then once you have written it down you don’t have to think about it again. But rule number one is DO NOT beat your self up. There is no failure, all yoga is beneficial.

Yesterday we ended with Karna, so that is where I will start. Well actually we need to go back a whole era. Back to Parashurama, Rama with an axe. Parashurama is an avatar of Vishnu, as are Rama and Krishna. Vishnu has quite a few avatars, not all men, and one where Vishnu’s avatar is twins. Nara and Narayana, who are reborn as inseparable Arjuna and Krishna. Anyway back to Parashurama. He was a brahmin but pretty pissed off with all the Kshatriyas, the warrior caste. A kshatriya has a duty, a dharma, as does everyone. But a Kshatriyas dharma is to support those who need help. To maintain a balanced society. Not to take and take from mother earth and all the people just for their own benefit. That is adharma. And as we know Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita ‘I reincarnate when there is a rise in adharma, to right that wrong and bring back dharma’. So Parashurama rights that wrong by getting out his big fuck off axe and cutting some heads off. Parashurama will only teach Brahmins. He has already taught Bhishma and Drona. Karna wanted to be a great warrior so he pretended to be a brahmin and asked Parashurama to teach him. One day Parashurama took rest on Karna’s knee. When he awoke he saw that a tick had bitten into Karna’s leg and blood was coming out. ‘Why did you not wake me you must be in lots of pain?’ Karna replied ‘I didn’t want to wake you’. Instead of being proud of Karna Parashurama realised only a kshatriya would stand the pain without flinching. So he threw Karna out of his school saying you are the best warrior but you will forget everything I have taught you in your hour of need.

So who should be the next king? Shantanu had three sons and only one had survived, that was Bhishma, so no grandchildren there. His other two sons had failed to have children but their wives did, via Vyasa. So neither Dhritarashtra or Pandu were direct descendants. Pandu remember was given the throne as Dhritarashtra even though older was blind. But Pandu is now dead. Yudhishthira was the first born of all the cousins. But Duryodhana has good claim to the throne as his father Dhritarashtra is sitting on. Duryodhana was born at the same time is Bhima, the second Pandava. Bhima was super strong (nearly as strong as Hanuman) and he loved throwing the Kauravas about. So one day the Kauravas decided to poison Bhima but there is an interesting twist that we will discover tomorrow…