In the previous episode, we had witnessed King Yayaati in a free-fall from the “Svarga Lokha”, all the way down to the “Manushya Lokha”, as Indra pushes him down. Of course, we’ve seen Indra as a very narrow-minded person, but the ground reality is that, King Yayaati’s “Punya Karma” account was coming to a close. When this happens, automatically we would be pushed down again to the earth, only to take another birth here. However, if we’re going beyond the “Svarga Lokha” and the “Naraka Lokha”, with our “Bhakti” component very strong in us, Bhagawan is going to take us to the ultimate stage called “Moksha” or “Vaikunta”, from where, we’re never going to come down again to this earth for another birth. This is what King Yayaati’s free-fall signifies, and with this background fact, let us witness the continuation of what the sages asked King Yayaati and what did he respond to them.
As we’ve seen earlier, King Yayaati was falling down and was on the way back to this world. As we witness this free-fall of King Yayaati, we’ve to also witness one more important aspect here – When Indra asked this question to King Yayaati, he did not ask it directly. He asked some two or three very friendly questions and then came to the point. He started a nice little conversation with King Yayaati before asking the ultimate question. Even in our case, in the marketing context of business what do we do? How do we approach a customer to sell a product? We first start a nice conversation with the customer by asking him / her as to what they do, how is their health, how is their family, etc. By doing this, we make the customer feel warm and comfortable and gradually make the customer open up with his or her needs, isn’t it? If we ask the customer directly whether he / she is interested in our product or not, more certainly than not, the customer would directly reject our offering! Thus, we can see here how a marketing executive tries to convince a customer to buy his product, isn’t it? This is exactly what Indra did to King Yayaati here. Indra assumed the role of a marketing executive and commenced a beautiful conversation with King Yayaati and made him feel comfortable!
Of course, Indra knows that King Yayaati is an epitome of truth (“Satya-Vaakya”) and Indra knows where exactly will King Yayaati fall into the trap! He thus started with a simple conversation, “Oh King Yayaati! People in the world used to praise you for all your good deeds and “Dharma” that you’ve done to all of them! I’m indeed very impressed with all of it!” Upon hearing this from Indra, King Yayaati’s ego rose up a bit. If anybody appreciates us for something that we’ve done, what would happen to us? Our ego would go up and we would feel as if we’ve accomplished something great, isn’t it? This is exactly what King Yayaati was also feeling here as Indra appreciated him! As King Yayaati was feeling proud of himself, Indra started questioning him slowly thus, “Oh Yayaati! You had ruled the kingdom for a long time and you’re vastly experienced in the “Raaja-Dharma”, isn’t it? Now before you came to the “Svarga Lokha”, what were the things that you taught your son Puru, when he took over from you? I’m sure you must have passed on a lot of good things to him. Can you please detail them a bit for me?”
Again, this question of Indra boosted King Yayaati’s morale a bit more, and he started to open up to Indra thus! King Yayaati gives a detailed reply to Indra, not knowing that he’s getting into a trap here! King Yayaati explains to Indra thus, “Oh Indra! I had given my son a lot of lessons on “Dharma”. I’ve educated him on how he should abide only by the truth everytime. I’ve taught him as to how he should lead a kingdom without harming any living being. I’ve taught him in detail about the Karma theory – How Bhagawan Vishnu is responsible for “accounting” all our “Paapa Karma” and “Punya Karma”. I also taught him how he should behave himself with others without getting angry. As a leader, one important characteristic is to be calm and composed, isn’t it? Hence, even if someone scolds you, you’ve to learn to avoid him and not get angry in return!”
This is a very important lesson for all of us here – How should we keep calm all the time? We should understand one concept here – For instance, if someone is praising us and garlanding us for something that we’ve accomplished, we’ve to realize that it is our “Punya-Karma” that is coming in the form of the person who is garlanding us, and we’re enjoying the effects of the “Punya-Karma” that we’ve done. However, if someone comes and scolds us with extreme anger, how do we take that? We should understand that our “Paapa-Karma” is coming in the form of the person who is scolding us. We’ve witnessed that the “Punya Karma” and “Paapa Karma” takes the form of the person in front of us, isn’t it? How does this happen? It is none other than Bhagawan Himself who comes in the form of the “Punya Karma” or “Paapa Karma” and enters into that concerned person in front of us! We’ve to realize this fact. Especially when we’re getting scolded left and right, we’ve to realize that it is none other than Bhagawan who’s scolding us. If that is the case, will we scold Bhagawan back? Instead, we should avoid that person completely and remain muted! This is the best way to counter that person too.
For instance, imagine we’re standing near a traffic signal on the road and someone comes and dashes on our car! What would be the immediate reaction? The person who had come and dashed upon us would immediately ask us, “Oh! Are you mad? Are you crazy? Don’t you have senses?” Now we’ve to understand why he is asking questions like these! He wants us to react with four more questions similarly with an increased anger! Only if we get angry, he would be able to abuse and insult, isn’t it? What if we do not get angry and avoid him? We should try this once atleast – We would be surprised to see that the other person would start getting insecure! Moreover, if we give an answer to him saying that “Yes! You’re right! I do not have senses and I’m mad!” Indeed, it would make him think that he started a fight with a wrong person and would run away from us!
Thus, we can witness here that controlling anger even for a worldly reason like this yields us good results! We should remember that if we’re trying to react angrily to the person in front of us, we’re right royally falling into his trap! By controlling our instincts, atleast our blood pressure would not rise up, isn’t it? Of course, the spiritual reason is for all of us to think and understand! So for today, let us understand this point well, and let us try to practice this in our daily life! We shall wait till the next episode to witness how Indra pulled King Yayaati into the trap! Stay tuned! 🙂
The Indian Dharma 