Forgiveness!!!

Forgiveness.


We all have read & are reading or hearing Upanyasams of Indian mythologies such as Mahabharata, Ramayana, Bhagavatham etc at some time of our life. The most important aspect of reading such books is to learn lessons out of it & apply them in our day to day lives. We should bear in mind the story aspect is only to make it interesting to read & remember.

We are all very much caught up in the Maya world, where we fight / quarrel with each other for unworthy reasons & never forget the bad incidents in our life, it gets replayed in our mind again & again. Another aspect is that we tend to forget good things easily. World will be an easy place to live if we develop the habit of "Forgive & Forget".

I am writing this because I came across a piece of incident in Bhagavatham which caught my attention with respect to "Forgiveness", which I would like to share with you all.

The Mahabharata war has ended after 18 days of fierce fighting between Pandavas & Kauravas. Pandavas have won the war. Almost all the Kauravas are killed in the war. Only persons left are Aswathama & Kripachariyar. Aswathama feels that he would revenge Pandavas which would make Duryodana happy, hence he approaches Duryodana & tells his plans to Kill Pandavas five sons, Duryodana pleads with him not to do so, since Pandavas & Kauravas belong to the same Kuruvamsam, at least Pandavas Children will offer tharpanam & other ceremonies due to dead personnel, which will render them moksha. But Aswathama ignores Duryodana & killed all the five children of Draupadhi, wife of Pandavas at night when the children are sleeping. Draupadhi comes wailing & her sorrow is unbounded. Arjuna takes an oath that he would catch the assassin & kill him; he starts his chariot with LORD KRISHNA as Sarathy. They chase Aswathama & catch up with him. In the meantime Aswathama releases Brahmastra to kill Arjuna, which he knows only to apply, but not to retrieve, as his father Acharya Dronachariyar has taught the art of applying & retrieving only to Arjuna. Krishna asked Arjuna to apply Prathi Brahmastra & retract both Brahmastra, otherwise meeting both astras would have ended up in burning of the entire Prabanjam; such is the power of Brahmastra. Krishna could have stopped Brahmastra, but he did not do so since Aswathama would insult that Arjuna sought the help of Krishna in fighting with him, since Krishna did not take Ayudham during Mahabharata war. They caught hold of Aswathama & brought him to Court of Dharmaputhra. All the Pandavas are agitated after seeing Aswathama & pray for his killing.

But Draupadhi, who has lost all her five children, prays for his pardon since she sees him as Acharya Dronacharya's son who has taught Arjuna the art of holding Kandeevam. He is a Brahmin & should not be killed, she does not want Aswathama's mother to suffer the loss of a son at this old age, which she is undergoing now. She prostrates before Aswathama as Guru's son.

But Bheema shouts that at any cost Aswathama should be killed, which he would do. Arjuna looks at KRISHNA for advice. HE tells that Aswathama should be killed since he has killed them in sleep & at the same time he should be spared since he is the son of their Guru. KRISHNA has always been confusing, never gives a direct answer, one will know, while going through these epics. Arjuna knows HIS heart as he is very close to HIM. He understood that HE is not in favor of killing Aswathama.

Dharma knows that he should not praise his wife in presence of one & all, but still praises her noble thinking, appreciates her qualities. It was decided to release after humiliating him by cutting his hair & removing a pendant "Chintamani" embedded in his forehead.

Though Draupadhi has lost all her children through Aswathama, she pardoned him, which goes to show how one should forgive in life. We all feel that this is extreme, how this is possible in real life. Yeah, it is true as common men it may not possible for us to behave like Draupadhi in extreme cases, which may not also happen in our lives, but if we bear this in mind, we should be able to tackle small tussles that we come across in our day to day life.

By forgiving, our mind will be free of worries & peaceful, otherwise we will be always thinking that "he has called us like this. He has done this to us etc". Let us all try to 'Forgive & Forget" & see its effect on us.

Radhe Krishna!