Hatred - Another monster!

Hello all,

Namaste! Hope all of you had a great week where you were able to take control of your life, focus, and inch closer towards your life path. Last week we discussed jealousy. This week how about we discuss hate, a sibling of jealousy? Jealousy is the emotion which captures someone when they perceive, the other person is having something they don't have. Now, what is hate? Hate is a very deep dislike that is created by emotions. The emotions can be based on jealousy, racial, social, class, caste divide towards others. According to Wikipedia, 'Hatred or hate is a deep and extreme emotion-based dislike, especially invoking feelings of anger or resentment. It can be directed against individuals, groups, entities, objects, behaviors, or ideas. Hatred is often associated with feelings of anger, disgust and a disposition towards hostility.'

In today's society, we can see deep elements of hate between ethnic groups, religious groups, class divides, racial divides and more. The jealous scenario we described last week, in the long run, can turn into a deep dislike for the other person that becomes hate or hatred. Here again, the person's emotions are turned towards another person and absolutely no progress comes towards their own life.

As human beings, it is high time we realize that our own progress comes only when our intentions are towards our own life. Then our focus becomes our life. We become aware of the very limited time we have as humans to work on our own negative belief systems, perspectives, and notions about our Self, personality and inner values.

But jealousy, hatred, and other emotions take our focus away from us to others. Then the focus is removed from our own evolution and soul progress. So what happens? Our Soul sits patiently waiting for us to come back and start investigating the treasure chest we each have inside us waiting to be opened. But the sad part is we sometimes never even realize such a treasure chest is indeed there. Such a miserable state of affairs.

Hatred, jealousy, anger, monster, Sishupala, Krishna
Hatred, another monster like jealousy!
See page for author [CC BY 4.0] , via Wikimedia Commons

As discussed before Mythology always provides ample examples for every type of scenario a human can come across in life. Only we have to find the story, relate it to the human experience and find the hidden gems of wisdom. Here also mythology provides such a story of hatred. The stories I relate here are from Hindu mythology as those are the stories I know and talk to me. But this blog is never about Hinduism, or the stories associated with it. But this blog is about the underlying wisdom of 'Sanatana Dharma' ('Eternal Principles', the real name of Hinduism) and how anyone can use it to work towards their life, living, and authenticity.

Now to the character in mythology who embodied hate against the divine itself, and how the divine forgave him hundred times and how on the 101 time had to destroy that person.

Sishupala: The literal meaning of 'Sishupala' is the 'protector of child'. As many of you know 'Bhagavad Gita' was narrated by Krishna, who was an avatar of divine who comes in the epic Mahabharatha. Krishna's mother was Devaki and father was Vasudeva. He had two sisters, Kunti and Shruthasrava. Kunti was the mothere of Pandavas, who are the main characters of Mahabharatha. The other sister, Shruthasrava was married to the king of Chedi, Damaghosha. Sisupala was born as the son to Damaghosha and Shruthasrava.

When Shishupala was born he had three eyes and four arms. The parents were planning to discard the child. But a celestial voice asked them not to do so as the child was supposed to survive. It also warned the extra limbs would disappear when the baby gets placed in a certain person's lap and eventually he will be killed by that person. Later Krishna came to visit his newly born cousin brother. The second the baby was placed in Krishna's lap the superfluous limbs disappeared.

Seeing this, the baby's mother Sruthasrava asked Krishna for a boon. As Sruthasrava was his aunt, Krishna could not resist. She asked Krishna to forgive Sishupala 100 times. Krishna accepted. There is a back story to the birth of Sishupala.Let us tackle that.

The curse: Krishna in his true form is the god of preservation called 'Vishnu'. Vishnu stays in his abode of 'Vaikunta'. The gate keepers for Vaikunta were Jaya and Vijaya. Once to see Vishnu, four enlightened sages called 'Sanat kumaras' came to the gate of Vaikunta. As the sages were fully enlightened beings, they appeared as toddlers before the gate keepers. So thinking that they are children, Jaya and Vijaya, didn't allow the sages to enter Vaikunta. Even though the sages insisted they were sages, the gate keepers were adamant.
 
Jaya,Vijaya, Sishupala, Dantavaktra, hatred, jealousy
Jaya, the dwarapalaka (gate-keeper)!
By Chennakesava_Temple_sanctum_Door.jpg:
Charles Haynesderivative work: Redtigerxyz
Jaya,Vijaya, Sishupala, Dantavaktra, hatred, jealousy
Vijaya, the dwarapalaka (gate-keeper)!
By Chennakesava_Temple_sanctum_Door.jpg:
Charles Haynesderivative work: Redtigerxyz

They became angry and cursed Jaya and Vijaya that they would become demons and go to Earth to spend eons upon eons of time. The gate keepers realized their mistake and went and asked the grace of Vishnu. Vishnu said the curse could not be reversed as the Sanat Kumaras are his devotees and he is a slave to his devotees. Then he gave two options. Either the gate keepers could take seven lives as Vishnu's devotees or three lives as his enemies. 

Jaya and Vijaya could not digest the thought of being away from Vishnu for seven lives and chose to be his enemies for three lives. In the first life they became Hiranyakha and Hiranyakashipu, who were killed by Narasimha, an avatar of Vishnu. In the second life they became Ravana and Kumbhakarna, who was killed by Srirama, again another avatar of Vishnu. In the third life they were born as Sishupala and Dantavaktra. So here Sishupala was one of the gate keepers in his third rendezvous of Earthly life.

Insult and hate: Sishupala hated everything about Krishna. The respect Krishna had among his people, the guidance he was able to give others, the larger than life image he had-every thing. His anger towards Krishna grew in other ways as well. Sishupala had a very close friend called Rukmi, who was the son of Bhishmaka, king of Vidharbha. He had a sister Rukmini, whom he wanted to marry off to Sishupala. Rukmi had promised Sishupala, he would grant his sister's hand in marriage. But Rukmini secretly admired and loved Krishna. She wanted to be Krishna's wife. Even Bhishmaka and his wife wanted Rukmini to marry Krishna. But Rukmi was adamant that Rukmini should marry only Sishupala. (No value for the girl's opinion? Ahem!)

Now Rukmini was smart! (Of course, bold and beautiful!) She send a secret message to Krishna that she wanted to be his wife. According to Rukmi's command, the marriage arrangements were happening for Rukmini and Shishupala's wedding. Rukmi was on guard that the marriage should happen without any hitch. On the morning of the wedding day, the bride was supposed to go to the temple to pray. Raukmini went with her maids to the temple. There Krishna came flying in his chariot, kidnapped Rukmini and took her to his palace. (A prince coming in white horse to save the damsel in distress? ;-)))

Kidnapping, Raukmini, Krishna, Raukmi, Sishupala, jealousy, hatred
Kidnapping of Rukmini by Krishna!
By Chore Bagan Art Studio [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Hearing this news, Rukmi and Sishupala went to save and bring back Rukmini. Alas! Krishna and his brother Balarama's army destroyed them. Thus Rukmini married Krishna. This was like adding insult to injury. Already Sishupala hated Krishna and now he has become successful in marrying the bride who was supposed to be married to Sishupala. He burned with hatred for Krishna. He had so much dislike for Krishna, he went to war with Krishna several times.

Ashwamedha and death: Remember the Aswamedha yaga we discussed in the last post, where Yudhishtira was inviting all the kings for the yaga (fire ritual ceremony)? Krishna as well as Sishupala were invited for the ceremony. Once the yaga was done, at the end of the ceremony a great person had to be honored by the person conducting the ceremony, who was Yudhishtira here. According to the advice of Bhisma (grand father), Yudhishtira decided to honor Krishna.

This made Sishupala totally angry. He got up in the hall, started insulting and abusing Krishna with his words. Krishna kept quiet, as he had given his word to Sishupala's mother that he would pardon Sishupala a hundred times. Till the hundredth time he kept totally quiet. When the 101 abuse came into existence, Krishna got up, became extremely angry, called on his Sudarshana Chakra (the weapon like a disc, which appears, when Krishna/Vishnu meditates on it) and cut Sishupala's head. Thus the third Earthly incarnation of one of the gate-keepers came to an end and he returned back to be Dwarapalaka (gate-keeper) of Vaikunta (Vishnu's abode).
Krishna, Sishupala, hatred, jealousy, Jaya, Vijaya
Krishna kills Sishupala, with Sudarshana Chakra!
By Unknown Unknown author [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Analysis:
Here, Sishupala is a great example for hate. May be due to his jealousy for Krishna getting all the respect, anger at Krishna kidnapping his bride and rage at Krishna getting the honors during the Ashwamedha ceremony, Sishupala had pure hate towards Krishna.


Let us come to us humans. Can't we see people in the society who are totally focused on someone else. Most probably someone among their friends or family is getting the accolades, career success or money. Now this particular person starts feeling jealousy and anger. They are wasting their focus on another person. But the successful person's focus is on themselves. That person is putting in the efforts, heart, mind, thoughts and actions towards their own life. What happens now? The successful person becomes even more successful.

Look at the jealous person whose jealousy/anger gets transformed to hate. What about them? Are they focused on their own life? No! Their focus is somewhere else. So their life stagnates. They are not putting any effort towards bringing up their own life. The successful person's energy as well as their energy is on the life of the successful person.

Sishupala could have realized Krishna is another form of divine and could have shown him respects.That would have allowed Krishna to guide him properly and Sishupala could have had a great life doing his Dharma (duty) for his own life. There is a spiritual tenet. 'What we focus on increases in our life'. Here Sishupala was focused on the hate. So it started increasing in his life. 

Same way with humans. As we have discussed before, the energy of the Universe is very neutral. It just sends back the same energy, whatever we put out into the Universe. If we put out hate, hate is what we are going to get, in the form of our friend becoming successful, and we hating it, in the form of our family member getting a new car, and we hating it, or in the form of our neighbor building a new house , and we hating it. The other people are not doing anything to us. It is us because of our very small mind and perspectives, inviting and bringing hate into our lives. So, the total accountability lies squarely on our own shoulders.

Now in some cases, humans even go and act on their hate, like terrorism, religious or social intolerance. Here we have to note whether the other group, person or people are destroyed or not, the hateful person definitely would get destroyed. Either they lose their life, the constant energy of hate brings stress and later diseases, or family and friends become estranged from them. But the sad part is the hater never realizes that in their chase to get revenge they themselves are destroying their own life, which could have blossomed.

Esoteric analysis: Here in the Sishupala story we can even take Krishna as the divine within. The person or conscious mind, Sishupala was doing atrocious things without listening to the guidance of Krishna, the inner divine. In every person there are seeds of good and evil. It is up to the person/soul to nurture the seeds of good to bring the good into their life. Sishupala was nurturing the seeds of jealousy, hatred and anger. The divine (inner Self) was nudging or reminding him again and again to go the Dharma way.

But Sishupala was not ready to listen. He kept on watering the seeds of evil and taking actions towards them. After the hundredth time, his time was up and the divine cut his head. Here the head in an esoteric sense can be taken as his ego or arrogance. So in a human's life, if the person keeps on inviting hate into his/her life, the very low energy of hate increases in their life. Once it accumulates to a level, some bad or unfortunate experiences (as accidents, chronic disease, death, or hospitalizations- cutting off the head), appear in the person's life. 

A person becomes more aware when they become tied up to a place like a hospital, prison or another facility where their movements become restricted. As they are tied down, the only thing they can do is to think and become aware. So here that experience makes them humble and cut the head of their ego, so that they can become the gatekeeper of the Soul or Vishnu or the divine within.

The point to note is the Soul/divine is very patient in guiding. But once our time to become aware runs out, the soul itself can take matters into it's own hands and bring experiences into the life so that the person is forced to change, look at his/her ways, attitudes, and perceptions. It can happen in this life itself or if the life is not being useful to the soul, the soul can even take the intention of moving out of the current life.

So, all of us have to become aware of what we are truly putting into our life. Are we growing good seeds or bad seeds? Are they useful towards our Dharma (Principles of duty) or not. Are we wasting our life by bringing up seeds of hatred, jealousy, or anger? Because ultimately the divine can give us a nudge, bring out the sword or take out the Sudarshana Chakra. Once the Sudarshana Chakra come out as a calamity, disease, accident, or a natural disaster, the human person cannot do anything about it.

Mythology is filled with stories that are pure guidance towards how to live a true, authentic, inspirational life. It is up to us to separate the grain from the chaff and use it towards bringing up our own awareness and wisdom. But then, it is always our free will and choice, till the Soul takes the matters into it's own hands as in Sishupala story!

I wish you a good weekend and I'll see you next Friday! 😉

Next week: Saraswathi -The Goddess of wisdom!

Note: Images from Wikimedia Commons.

Ralph Waldo Emerson writes, "There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance ; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried".  

 
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