Episode # 1234 – “The birth-death cycle is extremely treacherous!” – Vidura explains to King Dhritarashtra!!!

In the previous episode, we had witnessed Vidura continuing with a very important accord on how “Dharma” works in this world. Vidura’s accord is brutally honest on the face of King Dhritarashtra, who is still mourning the demise of his entire Kaurava clan. Vidura tries to motivate King Dhritarashtra to come out of this grief and is making him understand certain important facts of life in this world. In this way, Vidura explains how the “Mrithyu Devata” is always waiting to knock doors, so as to take away our life from this world. Vidura explains that anybody who is born in this world is destined to be destroyed. There is no going back on this. The point here is that we never know when our end will come. For some people, the end might come earlier than expected, whereas for some others, the end might come at a later point in time. However, what is constant here is that all living beings taking birth in this world, have to meet destruction at some point. For this, the “Mrithyu Devata” is responsible and depending upon our “Karma” accounts, she swings into action at an appropriate time. 

Saying all these, Vidura continues further thus, “Oh King Dhritarashtra! Just like how we are seeing here that death is extremely painful for living beings, the process of birth is also very painful, but we do not realize it. Once a relationship between a male and a female happens, the female’s womb starts developing the embryo with the combination of the male sperm and the female ovum. Subsequently, the embryo starts growing and it slowly develops the vital human organs like head, hands, legs, etc. This is a very difficult phase for the baby inside the womb because it doesn’t have breathing space, nor light, nor sound! The mother’s womb is a very dark place and the other problem here is that the child does not have adequate space inside the womb, as it starts growing. Especially during the sixth and seventh months of pregnancy, the child starts developing all its organs fully and at this time, it starts kicking inside the mother’s womb, unable to break free. Moreover, with regards to the food, the baby has a tough time. For instance, if the mother consumes more spicy food, the baby will not be able to take it. If the mother doesn’t consume any food, the baby will start feeling hungry and it will be unable to express its hunger to the outside world! Nobody will even know that the baby is in need of food! If the baby stops it’s kicking and rolling inside the womb, the mother thinks that something is wrong with it and she immediately goes to the doctor for checks. The doctor gives some medicines, which are extremely bitter in taste for the baby! Once the medicine goes inside the baby’s body, it feels extremely uneasy with it! Finally during the ninth or tenth month, when the baby is taken out, the head portion of the baby should come out first! This is also not easy! The baby is literally pulled out with some surgical instruments in many cases!” 

Continuing further thus, Vidura says – “Oh King Dhritarashtra! Do you think all these above-mentioned processes are easy? The baby undergoes enormous torture before coming out of the mother’s womb! At this point, the baby’s “Atman” prays to Bhagawan to grant “Moksha” then and there, without even coming into this world! However, Bhagawan pushes it upside down into the world from the mother’s womb, and this is why the head portion of the baby is the first to come out during pregnancy! Thus, the process of taking birth and giving birth is extremely tough for the child and the mother respectively. However, after taking birth, is the child happy? It has to cry and cry for everything in this world, including food and water! As the child grows up, it undergoes enormous suffering because of the mind, “Karma”, etc. This continues until death, without a break in the middle! Oh King Dhritarashtra! All of us undergo all these things, but in the process, we fail to remember the difficulty we faced during those challenging times. We tend to forget things and move forward! Similarly here also, of course, I understand that Duryodhana’s demise is not easy to digest, however, with time, you’ve to move on. You cannot sit here brooding over what has happened in the past. Birth and death is part of the life cycle in this world!” 

Saying thus, Vidura continues further – “Oh King Dhritarashtra! The problem comes here – Once the child grows up, he / she gets educated. As growth happens, the male child starts admiring the female beauty and the female child starts admiring the male charm. Again there is a union and this happens beyond the mind’s control. We start running behind money, name and fame in whatever activities we do! Our “Indriyas” start running here and there without any sort of control. Because of these uncontrollable “Indriyas”, we get into several problems as life progresses and we spend most of our time navigating through these self-made problems! In the middle of all this, if we have the “Vasana” towards Bhagawan, we try to seek “Sharanagati” (Surrender to His divine lotus feet). However, five in a thousand people might have this! The remaining people keep continuing with this process of birth and death for several births together! This is how life functions in this world and you should somehow try and break this cycle!” 

These are very important points that Vidura is explaining here. Some of these might not be in good taste for us also to take in the right meaning. But, whatever Vidura says is the brutal truth! So for today, let us try and understand Vidura’s words in the right sense and let us do whatever possible from our end to make a movement towards “Sharanagati”! We shall continue this discussion in the next episode as well! Stay tuned!