I was reading about
sage Vishwamitra recently! As a child I was called Vishwamitra by my parents
because I was short-tempered!! He was quoted for getting distracted and there
were movies to depict him as egoistic person. I was against him for cursing
Meneka for his distraction. So, my views about him were not that high when I
started my recent reading. But interestingly, though most part of his story and
many of the incidents were quite popular & known, there were a number of
aha moments for me. This article
is a compilation of the reflection points and lessons.
He challenged many
traditional thinking. Though there were other kings who were recognized as
sages, he was the one to renounce his kingdom and achieve significant progress
& was recognized as one of the seven chief sages (in today's world he would
have won Nobel prize for the kind of progress he had ;-) ). He was the first to
defy class/caste for merit, consider worth over birth. He proved the power of
determination and single-mindedness. Big personal and social revolution I feel.
He pushed him beyond his limits, broke out of his comfort zone of
being a king. He also proved that achieving wisdom is not necessarily a function
of genes and it can be a function of careful effort! Hmm… I did not realise
that earlier!
He was able to
create a heaven and make someone go there with physical body. I interpret this
as he was able to launch a satellite for
Trishanku and made him travel there. Maybe the technology he used was not ripe enough that Trishanku was not able to stay peacefully there due to some gravitational
issues nor return back to earth!! Despite the technical faults, I would give a
huge credit to Vishwamitra!! He was the first one to think that he can create a
celestial body while others were just worshipping them and thinking that one
can travel to space only after death or without a body. Interestingly his
efforts in this regard were despised and Trishanku swargam is used in a very
negative connotation!! Is it not an irony that people despise(d) him for the
greatness?!?!
Not only that, he
stopped sacrifice of a human being just before he was put in the sacred fire,
took him as a son & disciple and made him as his heir where the tradition
was to get the lineage passed from father to son!! Though he was well known for his short-temper
and anger he was named as Vishwamitra - a friend of the entire world - because
he was ready to go to any extent to save another life!!! Interesting…. And no
one refers to him by his given name Kaushik - of course with just one exception
- Meneka was the only one to address him by his given name after he was named
as Vishwamitra.
There were a few
lessons too! A striking lesson is, all of us need a Meneka to distract us and
test our ability to withstand the pressure of the distraction. The key is to realise that
something is a distraction and withdraw from it effectively (doesn't matter before getting distracted or during the distraction). Interesting point
is, once we are able to prove to ourselves that we could withdraw from the
distraction, our confidence improves and the self-control improves further.
Many times in the past I thought that every time we give in to a distraction a
dent is created on self-control; but now I realised that it is other way around
- once we get distracted / almost get distracted & get out of it, the self-control towards
that type of distraction goes up. Interesting!!
Another lesson is,
both pleasant and unpleasant things can express themselves as distractions and
interestingly, even if you reject a supposedly pleasant distraction in an
unpleasant manner, you are distracted anyways and it reduces your ability to
focus on your goals. When Vishwamitra met Meneka, he gave in to the pleasantness
of the event. Later in the same situation, when he met Rambha, he did not consider that as pleasant, but reacted with
anger and lost his tapas again! There does not seem to be a major difference between the
first and second incident when it comes their effect on the goal. Success lies
in not getting distracted positively or negatively!! Another dimension is about what is a distraction: Anything that does not lift the
spirits and nudge/nurture us towards our goals is a distraction; anything that
makes us feel down in the future or present is a distraction; it is never
about the events or other person or things; it is always about what happens to
us. This was an interesting lesson for me!
Another interesting
reflection point is the difference in his curse on Meneka and Rambha. They both
were planted by Indra to distract Vishwamitra from his penance. He cursed
Meneka to return back to heaven and turned Rambha to a stone!! One can argue
whether going back to heaven is a curse at all :-) The actual curse is not
going back to heaven rather not seeing him again probably. If he had thought
she was just planted by Indra and she never loved him, why would he curse her
not to see him again!!! Did he find it difficult to punish her more or did he
think this was the worst punishment for her? Or was he trying to save her from
the torture of seeing him but not interacting with him as before? From his
perspective, did he try to save him from getting distracted further or did he
try punishing him as well by not seeing her? For someone who could renounce the
kingdom in pursuit of knowledge how would that have mattered? Latter sounds
like a more reasonable explanation. If he only had physical attraction and
never loved her, why would he care to send her back to heaven and be safe &
comfortable ? Human mind and behaviours are complex and strange!! And, in real
life, many times we don’t have the ability to "curse" our Meneka
(whatever distracts us) to be out of our sight. To even make them disappear
physically or mentally what kind of tapas (or focus) one should have?
His story also gave
some consolation to me :-) Sometimes I have wondered why I react more softly on
some people than others, why was I not able to shun them or turn them to stone
completely and whether I am partial & therefore mean. His story made me
feel that I am not alone in this "meanness"; If a great sage like
him, who could create a heaven by himself, reacted differently on different
people for the same action, a very average human being like me can fall into
the trap at times!! All I need to do is just move on, learn how not to repeat
the same mistake again without beating myself up :-)
Having said all
this, I am still wondering
a) how did he feel
when he renounced his kingdom in pursuit of wisdom and brahma rishi
b) how was it like
to renounce something only to get distracted by something else on the way
c) how did he get
over the shameful feeling that would have ensued (I am referring to only his
internal feeling and not about how the world reacted to him) / did he feel shameful at all?
d) how was it like
to give away his daughter to another sage in adoption
e) how did he feel
when he got recognized as brahma rishi - did he feel it was worth the effort or
did he feel he lost many (beautiful?!?!) things in life unnecessarily - after
all he got into the game of being brahma rishi only to compete against or
revenge another rishi!!
e) despite all the
great heights he achieved, why do people refer to him for wrong reasons more
often - being arrogant, egoistic, being distracted, being short tempered and
for making Trishanku stranded
f) why are his
abilities painted differently; how different is Vashista from him - he too
cursed others, used weapons, was judgemental and so on?
Not only that I
don’t have answers to these questions… I am thinking about Meneka as well… may
be another article at a future point in time…