Spiritual World Has Become a Dangerous Jungle

We have seen three aspects of the Guru Shishya relationship in the Paushya Parva of Mahabharata. Let us try to summarize what we learned so far.

Dhaumya’s three shishyas — Aaruni, Upamanyu, and Veda. He was focused on the development of their character rather than teaching them Vedas and Shastras. Vedas and Shastras he transferred to them just like that when he realized that they were mature enough.

There are three things that he tested them for:

Aaruni — he tested whether he blindly obeyed the Guruji’s instruction instead of applying his own mind into it.

Upamanyu — he tested whether he would violate the system. He didn’t blatantly violate any command that Dhaumya had given him, but Dhaumya had to take him through a series of instructions to ensure that he never violated the Guru’s intentions.

To Veda — Dhaumya gave back-breaking tasks, one after the other, which he went about doing happily, sincerely.

These three are very important in the Gurukula system of the past.

Now, today — we don’t have Gurujis, except a very, very few who would be with you 24x7 to mould you like this.

The spiritual world is like a big jungle. Compared to the spiritual world, the regular world is simple, straightforward — especially today, with the system of statutory warnings and disclaimers. You invest in mutual funds — they will tell you this is subject to market risk. You buy a pack of cigarettes — they will tell you, if you smoke this you are going to die.

In the spiritual world, there are no such statutory warnings or disclaimers. But the spiritual world is more dangerous. Anything can happen in there. You can get lost, and never find your way back from that jungle. You can get killed and eaten by beasts in there.

But without a guide, you cannot manage either. It is a very tricky situation. What to do? Whom to trust?

I know the case of a chartered accountant. He was working as an auditor in a nationalised bank. Then the spiritual bug bit him. He started going to satsangs, Gita classes. Spent lakhs on books and CDs and courses. The ashramas he went to, they kept on motivating him — 'You don’t belong to the ordinary class.'

He started spending more time in ashrams. One of the ashrama chiefs promised that he would make him his uttaradhikari. He sold his house, which was worth about 80 lakhs, and donated to the ashrama. Soon, they kicked him out. By that time, he had already resigned from his job. He went into depression — elderly parents, wife, and a young girl. He wouldn’t come out of his room.

At last, at the age of 85, the father started working again to feed the family — including him. This is the danger in today’s spiritual world. There was nothing left in him even to make a complaint. Even if he complained, what would happen? He donated, that’s all. How are they to blame?

So, the stories in Paushya Parva are not for today’s world. But then Mahabharata is written for the people of Kaliyuga. Why did Sage Vyasa keep Paushya Parva right at the beginning of Mahabharata? To caution us.

This is how it should be.

If what you are seeing is different —

• Gurus giving you darshan after standing in queue for hours

• Gurus charging you fees for spiritual courses

• Gurus opening retreats for spiritual emancipation with five-star facilities

• Gurus impressing you with their chartered flights and BMWs and horses

• Gurus with their inner circle of shishyas who are business tycoons and billionaires

Sage Vyasa is pointing out that this is not the Guru Shishya relationship that I am talking about.

Use this discretion throughout Mahabharata, not just in Guru Shishya relationships. Understand the context, and then take it ahead.

Hereafter, Paushya Parva proceeds with the story of one of the shishyas of Veda — Uttanka — who was instrumental in the conduct of Sarpa Yajna of Janamejaya. He only instigated Janamejaya because Uttanka had enmity with Takshaka.

We will see how this happened next.

Ramaswamy Sastry and Vighnesh Ghanapaathi