We’re amidst an important turning point in the sequence of events that is happening at Hastinapura wherein, Duryodhana is confronting his father, King Dhirdiraashtra with utmost jealousy. He could not resist and tolerate the rise and emergence of Yudishtra as the Yuvaraja of the kingdom. As he does so, Kanika, who is supposed to be a renowned scholar in “Raaja Dharma” walks in, as a coincidence. As both father and son ask Kanika for a solution as to how to defame Yudishtra, Kanika clearly misguides both of them by giving enormous inputs of “Adharma”. He explains to the already wicked Duryodhana as to how one should succeed by creating a “Bedham” (Enmity) and a rift with the enemy. Ultimately with the enmity growing, one can be successful only if he kills the enemy along with all his aides once and for all. Such were the venomous inputs that Kanika gave Duryodhana, who was already looking for ways and means to kill the Paandavas right from his childhood days. We’ve already witnessed earlier how Duryodhana plotted against Bheemasena and how he tried to kill Bheemasena through various ways. Now with Kanika’s words, it was only a reaffirmation of the “Adharmic” path that Duryodhana was already taking to try and achieve his goals.
Thus, the ultimate message from Kanika was that the Paandavas should always be muted and should not be allowed to grow in name and fame, just like how the fox behaved in the story that we had witnessed yesterday. These words from Kanika made King Dhirdiraashtra think! He was thinking within himself thus, “Oh! Yesterday I spoke the same thing with Vidura in some other context. However, Vidura’s words were different isn’t it? Vidura was steadfast in explaining that a king should treat all people equally and there should be no enmity between the people. However, this is in stark contradiction to what this Kanika is explaining! Whom should I believe in?” This is the problem zone now – If we have a predetermined mindset of doing something in some way, and if someone comes and talks extremely in favor of what we want to do, automatically our mind would also lean towards that person who is talking favorable to us, isn’t it? Especially if we’re trying to take the wrong path and if some other person tries to correct and mend our ways, our mind wouldn’t favor those words. This can happen for both men and women. Nowadays most of us are working and if we have problems within our family, automatically we tend to go and talk about the problems to a third person at work, who has no connection with what is happening at our home. This is where the entire problem starts. We never know the intention with which this “third person” or a stranger is striking a conversation with us. Many a time, the intention would be to use our problem and to gain an undue advantage. On the pretext of consoling us, this “third person” might lead us to a wrong path and in turn, he would gain undue advantage over us, isn’t it?
This might be like a bit of story-telling, but these are things that are rampant in our society today. If we have a problem within our family, it is always better to talk about it to Bhagawan directly, rather than to a third person or a stranger. Many a time, we might unconsciously search for a shoulder to lean upon and wipe out our sufferings. In this “Kali Yuga”, we are not going to get a trustable shoulder anywhere else apart from Bhagawan. When our mind is wavering with such things, we must immediately think of what Draupati did. When she was being stripped in public, she did not want a shoulder of consolation from even her husbands who were sitting right next to her. She directly wanted a shoulder from Bhagawan Krishna, isn’t it? This is “Bhakti” at its highest level! To be frank, all of us have problems at varying levels, and we do not have an option to escape out of problems as we’re living amidst the “Samsaara”. But it is in our hands as to how we handle those problems and come out successfully. The only way to succeed without getting trapped further is to lean on Bhagawan’s shoulders and not on anybody else’s. We should be very careful not to be misguided by anyone on the pretext of “finding a solution” to our problems.
This is exactly where King Dhirdiraashtra too got sucked in. Kanika is clearly misguiding him, and he too knows it at the back of his mind. Who can be more scholarly than King Dhiridraashtra? He is an epitome of all aspects of “Raaja Dharma”. Even for such a scholarly person, if someone comes up with a “Dhur-Bodhana” (Misguidance), there is every chance that he falls into the trap. If King Dhirdiraashtra has to fall into this trap, who are we? We are neither as scholarly as King Dhirdiraashtra, nor do we have the requisite experience of seeing how ruthless the world can be. Hence, we’ve to be extremely careful here and this is the important lesson that we should learn from King Dhirdiraashtra. The “Samsaara” is something that is very tempting and is full of worldly desires and pleasures, which are only going to lead us to downfall. It is we who’ve to be careful not to fall prey to these pleasures and desires. Bhagawan Krishna is going to explain this in complete detail later on during His Bhagawad Gita and we’re going to witness it when the time comes. But for now, the lesson that we’ve to learn here is that, we should be extremely careful when it comes to opening up our problems to someone whom we do not know and whom we aren’t much familiar with. This might lead to a potential danger and once we get stuck up, it might be too late to take a step back.
Thus, with these words, Kanika successfully made King Dhirdiraashtra’s mind waver. King Dhirdiraashtra doesn’t know which path to take – Either to favor his son Duryodhana or to favor “Dharma” in the form of Yudishtra! What is King Dhirdiraashtra’s reaction going to be? Let us wait till the next episode to find out! Stay tuned! 🙂
The Indian Dharma 