In the previous episode, we had witnessed Vidura once again rendering golden pieces of advice to King Dhritarashtra, but this time after the Kurukshetra war was over. King Dhritarashtra is continuing to brood over the demise of his sons in the war and Vidura is trying to cheer him up with some aspects of “Dharma”. Here he explains the treacherous birth process that all of us undergo – Inside the mother’s womb, the baby suffers with enormous things, right from the inception and formation. The baby suffers without adequate light inside the womb. Obtaining proper food may sometimes be a problem. Coming out of the mother’s womb is a big process in itself. After coming out, we get carried away by the “Maya” of this world by running behind money, name and fame! In due course, we completely forget our roots and deviate so much from Bhagawan, that it becomes extremely difficult to come back to the path of “Dharma” again after that. Only a few people in this world are able to exhibit “Sharanagati” and follow Bhagawan’s words of wisdom to lead a life in this world. Because of this, only these few people are able to break this birth-death cycle and attain “Moksha”. Vidura is telling all this to King Dhritarashtra in a bid to make him realize all these facts of life atleast now.
Moving on further, Vidura now narrates a story – A story which only Vidura would understand! 🙂 I shall tell this story in brief for all our understanding, and then we shall try and make sense out of it. There was once a boy who was walking through a dense forest. Flanked by tall trees all around, he was mesmerised by the beauty of the forest. He started walking along a lone path, which is not taken by many others. As he walks deeper and deeper into the dense forest, he is able to listen to the chirping of birds, sounds of animals roaming around here and there. Attracted by the natural beauty, he keeps walking deeper into the forest. All of a sudden, the sounds of animals start increasing manifold and he slowly starts getting into a fear. The sounds that he’s hearing are those of lions and tigers roaming around here and there. Fearing to advance further, this boy decides to turn around and leave the forest. However, as he does so, a tiger is waiting on the opposite side to pounce on him! Fearing this tiger, the boy starts to run for his life and the tiger gives chase! The boy runs and runs, and finally the path that he is running upon, leads him to a surface well. This well is surrounded by dry leaves fallen from the trees nearby and is completely covered. Nobody will understand from a mere look that this is a deep well inside. Unknowingly, the boy steps on to this well and is not able to take his feet away from it. The well starts to pull him downwards. Exerting a lot of force, the boy catches hold of a long rope-like structure and moves away from there. This rope-like structure is nothing but the hanging root of a huge banyan tree!
Hanging in it thus, the boy thinks that he has escaped the incoming tiger and the deep well! However, with the swing of the hanging root, the boy sees from a small distance, a huge elephant approaching him! This elephant is extremely ferocious in nature and upon seeing this boy hanging for his life, the elephant is very happy that it has obtained its prey for the day! The elephant comes running in from one side, and the tiger is waiting on the other side! Now this boy thinks that he would get down from the hanging root and run away in a different direction, however, beneath the hanging root, the boy spots a huge python waiting to swallow him! Now what does he do? This is what we call in management terms, a “Catch-22 situation”. The boy now has nowhere to go and is hanging by a small distance from all these animals! Having said all this, the boy thinks that this hanging root is his potential savior and he decides to remain like this for a while until all these animals disperse off! However, now here comes the catch – There are two rats on top of the banyan tree, trying to bite off this hanging root! The rats slowly keep biting the root and as time progresses, the root becomes thinner and thinner!
In the meanwhile, there is a huge beehive on top of the banyan tree and from there, several drops of honey are falling onto the ground! A few of those drops of honey fall into the boy’s mouth and he relishes the taste of the sweet honey! As the boy is still hanging for his life, this comes as a pleasant surprise and happiness! However, this boy is getting carried away by the sweetness of the honey and is trying to taste more and more of it. He tries to move in the direction of the honey drops, along with the hanging root, in order to taste them. As he does so, he gradually forgets that he is surviving a great danger in all four directions! In other words, the boy is so engrossed in the honey taste, and he forgets that his life is in danger!
Narrating this story thus, Vidura says – “Oh King Dhritarashtra! You are like this boy in the story!” 🙂 As Vidura concludes the story in this way, King Dhritarashtra did not understand the head or tail of this! He asks Vidura for more explanation and I’m sure all of us are also wanting the same from Vidura! So what does Vidura try to convey through this story? Let us wait till the next episode to find out! Stay tuned! 🙂
The Indian Dharma 