Mahabharata!!

From a past few days, I'm hooked to Mahabharata - The TV series, which had charmed the whole nation in the 90s. Since I was a li'l kid then, I hadn't watched the series from the beginning and had watched it only in bits and pieces. Recently, I got to know that a friend of mine had the whole series with him, so I persuaded him to lend me that and finally got it. I have been watching it whenever I have free time. Since I fell ill this week, I couldn't go to college either. So I was free through out the day and hence I started watching it continuously! :D


I have come towards the climax now where the turn-of-the-century war in Kurukshetra has Finally begun! All the great warriors have blown their conch and have signalled the start. Now, all of a sudden, the greatest warrior, Arjuna is in a dilemma as to fight the battle or not, because all those warriors who are his opponents are none other than his dearest Grandfather, Guru, and cousins. He feels ashamed of himself as he is there today to kill those people only for the sake of a piece of earth! how selfish is that! and so, he asks his charioteer, Lord Krishna as to what he should do and thus the Great Lord imparts the ever-true message, The Gita!


As I watched this, I remembered reading the Gita sometime ago. So beautiful is the Bhagavad Gita and of course the greatest work - The Mahabharata which contains this holy scripture, which has such simple yet profound values and all those incidents with such truthful messages that, if adopted in life make our lives so meaningful and devoid of sorrows. We have the answer for all our questions in this great work and yet we don't take the effort of reading and understanding it! Arjuna asks all those questions to the Lord which may arise in every man's mind and the Lord answers all of them so well that it leaves behind no doubt in Arjuna's mind. Here as we all know, Arjuna is the one who symbolises of all of us and Lord Krishna states the ultimate truth to us. If you may observe, The Holy Gita is the only holy scripture that was born in such a dramatic scenario! No other holy scripture has had such an interesting start. 


Watching this series had a very wonderful effect on me! It got me thinking about the wonderful way of life, the culture, the protocol, the mannerisms, the system of education, politics and every aspect of life that was so systematic and meaningful! All this conveys to us that the Sanathana Dharma (Hinduism) is not a mere religion, but a Way of Life! So vast and deep is this Dharma that subsumes every aspect of the human life. Today there are various religions in the world. One religion says that God has no form, other says He has a definite form, yet another says God is nothing but Fire or Energy and so on. But in Hinduism there is place for every theory and every form of worship because it believes that ultimately there is only one God and just like the way every river finally merges with the ocean, similarly every soul has to finally reach the God may it follow any stream! How generous is this concept and how tolerant!! 


Today we see many fundamentalists who proclaim themselves to be the Protectors of this vast religion, trying to whittle it down into a narrow minded creed! Real Hindu is the one who  believes in the beautiful concept of "Live and Let Live". Hinduism can proudly say that it is the only religion which has never attempted at "conversion" of people from other religion into it's fold. In fact there is no ritual in this Dharma as such, which signifies "conversion"!! It is a matter of great pride to call myself a "Hindu" today as that term stands for such wonderful and sublime meanings! 


Therefore, I'm glad and proud to be a Hindu! (By saying "proud", I don't mean to be arrogant, but try to be a real Hindu who believes in the noble concept of "Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam") :) And this article is just a tiny and humble tribute to the greatest Dharma!


                                                                    Om Tat Sat