Sunday, February 11, 2007

BG4

Today is the 23rd sloka of chapter1:
yotsyamanan avekse ’ham
ya ete ’tra samagatah
dhartarastrasya durbuddher
yuddhe priya-cikirsavah

Arjuna further tells Sri
Krishna " I want to see who all have assembled desirous of helping the evil minded Duryodhana"
Today's sloka was explained in front of Sri Vedanta Desika sannidhi [ near sri Thayar sannidhi] in Srirangam temple.Sri Desika has done a very notable commentary on Gita called Thathparya Chandrika. The present commentary is based on that work of Sri Desika.
Here the word priya is used as many of Dyryodana's freinds are not real freinds as they are not telling him what is right and what is wrong .In this world we come across two things what we like and what is good. Mostly these two will not be identical. Tender neem leaves are good for health but because of its bitterness we don't take them.[this example is same as our Sri Mukkur Swamy used to tell] Junk foods are liked by us but doctors say keep away from them. Sathyam bruyath;priyam bruyath..so goes ancient sayings which means one should always tell the truth but we will not like to tell nor we would like to listen as they will not be liked. No one wants to listen to HITHAM which is good for us. ruth also should be told and make that pleasant.

A real relative or freind is the one who advises hitham. Prahalada did this to his father and so Vibheeshana did it to his brother. Here Duryodana's freinds are doing the opposite so as to please him..

2 comments:

Raghu Saranathan said...

I am slightly confused here. So the close ones need to tell the truth, the facts as it is but do they then have to package it in a pleasant way? If so, what could Vibhishana or Prahalada have done differently to make sure that Ravana and Kanakakasipu (respectively) understood the message?

TG Saranathan said...

I havetold by Sr Velukkudi was tried to narrate what sri Velukkudi swamy said. But here what i ahve understood is that a real freind or one who cares for the welfare of the persons in question should have advised them in a pleasant way.hat is what they both did. In the case of Vibheeshana, he counseled Ravana in private and when he had to reiterate it in an asssembly he did not hesitate and when Ravana also abused him and banished him from his kingdom, he left Ravana and surrendered to Sri Rama. So here there was no alternative.
In the case of Prahalada also he tried to correct the father and while he obeyed his father to undergo all pnishments.But he could not agree that a mortal can be worshipped as god.He also had no alternative and God could not see His bhaktha being tortured and so He killed him.