Dharma, Artha, Kāma, Mokṣa – XIV

What’s the equivalent of demon?  Several words spring to mind – asura, daitya, danava, rakshasa, pishacha.  In our texts, these words are often used synonymously.  They shouldn’t be.  The meanings are quite different.  The sage Kashyapa was married to several of Daksha’s daughters.  Aditi, Diti, Danu were three of these.  Kashyapa and Aditi had the Adityas as their children, Kashyapa and Diti had the daityas, while Kashyapa and Danu had the danavas. Daityas and danavas on one side, and adityas as gods on the other, were cousins.  The gods were younger cousins. Asuras were antithesis of the gods, defined as suras.  Rakshasas represented almost a different kind of civilization and pishachas were flesh-eaters.  But forget that taxonomy about demons.  As I said, those terms were often used synonymously.  

“When it is time to sorrow, don’t grieve.  When it is time to be delighted, don’t be happy.  Forget the past and the future.  Be concerned only with the present.”  Who do you think said this?  You will probably think it is a subhashitam and indeed, there is a famous subhashitam that sounds similar.  If I add a few more quotes from the same passage, they will vaguely remind you of the Bhagavad Gita.  The quote I gave you is from the Mahabharata, from the Shanti Parva, from the Moksha Dharma section of the Shanti Parva.  Let me use the word asura as a general synonym for demons.  Not all asuras were bad.  As I told you, towards the end of the last blog, asuras like Bali, Namuchi and Prahlada/Prahrada were dislodged from their prosperity.  Indra went to visit them, expecting them to grieve and sorrow.  Instead, Indra found that they were cheerful enough and was puzzled.  The Mahabharata thus has extensive sections where these asuras teach Indra.

What is an asura?  In Buddhism, we have stories of Mara.  When Buddha meditated, Mara and/or his daughters came and tempted him.  When sages meditated, Indra would send celestial nymphs to dislodge them from their meditations.  Yogis and tantriks talk of demons that come and seduce them from their path to enlightenment.  I think these demons are no more than metaphors.  There was no asura whom the goddess killed.  We shouldn’t look at these asuras that way.  Just as the gods are inside us, the asuras are inside us too.  That’s what yoga, or any form of meditation, is trying to accomplish.  The intention is to get rid of attachment, get rid of vices like desire, anger, greed, delusion, ego and jealousy.  What will I obtain through the pursuit of dharma?  That’s probably the wrong question to ask.  Getting something comes later, losing something comes first.  I lose these vices, I lose these attachments, I lose these asuras.  What I then get is a proper sense of who I am.  That getting is hardly to be interpreted in the sense of material objects, riches, cars, passing in the exams, or whatever else it is that I am hankering for.  I have said it before, I dislike the word happiness.  I don’t know what it means.  Happiness is too often equated with these material objects. Once I have got what I am immediately hankering for, there is something else to be sought.  There is no end to that pursuit of happiness.  Instead, the pursuit of peace and tranquility is a more plausible one.

Our texts talk about the qualities or gunas of sattva, rajas and tamas.  Sattva is the quality of the good, rajas is the quality of passion and tamas is the quality of darkness.  The gods, not necessarily Indra, have qualities of sattva. The demons have the quality of tamas.  These qualities exist in us in different combinations.  For normal humans, it is rare to find someone completely devoid of tamas, certainly not of rajas.  With a complete absence of rajas, normal daily livelihood would be impossible.  But the point is simple enough, one of reducing tamas (and rajas) and increasing sattva.  I have now come to believe that there are some people who are good for us and some people who are bad for us.  In a man/woman kind of relationship, think of when you are in love.  Stating the obvious, that tends to bring out the best in us.  All too often, it does not last. 

 In a similar way, when our mind turns towards tamas, we seem to be attracted to such people and they are bad for us.  When our mind turns away from tamas, we seem to be attracted towards better people and they are good for us.  There are positive and negative feedback loops and synergies.  Have I said something very obvious?  I am not sure.  I am not talking about the very obvious recommendation of satsang, association with good and virtuous people.  I am talking about something that is a little more than that.  Obviously, association with good people tends to bring out the best in us, as long as it lasts for more than that temporary association.  I am making a slightly different point.  Our lives are rarely on a steady path.  There are ups and downs, there are cycles.  At some points, we are worse (in that sense of dharma) than at others.  Why does that happen?  In the broader scheme of things, that gets into questions of destiny.  What happens because of destiny?  What happens because of human action?  What happens because of pure chance, separate from preordained destiny and human action?  Not just Hinduism, but all kinds of sacred texts have grappled with this free will problem.  At some point, we need to revisit this again.  We need to talk about karma and what it means.

For the moment, let me make only one limited point about astrology.  In general, sticking to that framework of astrology and accepting it, I think we have the causation wrong.  I said, accepting that framework of the rashis/nakshatras for the moment.  It is not that those rashis/nakshatras influence our destiny and behavior.  There is a reason for being born, upliftment of the atman.  We accordingly choose a context for birth that is best suited for this and also choose an appropriate rashi/nakshtra.  It’s in that sense that the causation is the other way round.  I realize this is likely to start a debate.  So let me clarify.  This isn’t my view.  This is what I have gathered from reading some of our texts.  Incidentally, “Autobiography of a Yogi” also says something similar.

The Gerundive: अनीयर् तव्यत् (& य)

The gerundive in Sanskrit grammar is also called the prescriptive passive participle, and indicates something that should be done, or is worth doing. It has the force of the विधि लिङ् (optative mode) and is formed by adding the suffixes य, तव्य and अनीय​ to the root of the verbal action. 

Examples:

ज्ञा >>ज्ञेय to be known
पा >>पेय to be drunk
भू >>भव्य​ to be

भू >>भवितव्य to be, to happen
कृ >>कर्तव्य to be done
पठ् >>पठितव्य​ to be read/studied

कृ >>करणीय worth doing, to be done
पठ् >>पठनीय to be read 
पूज्  >>पूजनीय​ worthy of being worshiped

The meaning remains pretty much the same, though one root can have many gerundives:
कृ >>कृत्य, कार्य, कर्तव्य, करणीय

In terms of usage in a sentence, like the कर्मणि and भावे  prayoga, the कर्तृ or the 'doer' of the action​ is expressed in तृतीया or the instrumental case (though often it is found in षष्ठी or the genitive case e.g. सः मे मान्यः =he is respected by me.) However the participle/gerundive itself will be formed in two ways - depending on whether the verbal root is सकर्मक (transitive) अकर्मक (intransitive). Let is see how*.

सकर्मक (transitive)

Notice that the gerundive agrees with the कर्मन् (object) in gender, number and case. And that like the कर्मणि (passive) prayoga, the object is in the nominative, or प्रथमा vibhakti.

न केनपि ब्राह्मण: हन्तव्यः
A brahmin should not be killed by anyone
नारी अपि न कदापि हन्तव्या
A woman too is never to be killed

रामेण राज्यम् करणीयम्
RAma should rule the kingdom (राज्यम् nominative, neuter प्रथमा नपुंसक​)
मया पाठ: पठनीय​:
I should study this lesson

मया ग्रन्थः पठितव्य:
I should study this text (lit. this text is worthy of being studied by me)


अकर्मक (intransitive)

The gerundive of the intransitive is equivalent to भावे prayoga. So the कर्तृ doer is in तृतीया or the instrumental case or in षष्ठी or the genitive case. However since there is no कर्मन् (object) with which it has to agree (see above), it is nominative, singular, neuter प्रथमा एक नपुंसकलिन्ङ्ग.

अत्र मया स्थातव्यम्

Lit. It is to be stayed here by me = I ought to stay here. 
______________________________________________________
Note:
भू is used idiomatically sometimes in the sense of probability or likelihood. In which case, the subject and predicate will be in the same case:

तेन राज्ञा भवितव्यम्
(he must be/become king)
_______________________________________________________
*The formation is different for आत्मने पद​ verbs, but we'll deal with them in a separate write-up.
​

Dharma, Artha, Kāma, Mokṣa – XIII

Bibek Debroy challenges preconceived notions of what a mantra is and what it can do for you in this no punches pulled blog post of Dharma, Artha, Kāma, Mokṣa. Do they need to be pronounced properly to be effective? Do you need to understand the meaning? What does the mantra do to your mind? How does it change you? Where does the word derive from etymologically - and what are the implications of that? Read on for a candid airing, and do share your views. You can leave a comment, or connect with Bibek on Twitter @bibekdebroy

ॐ जयन्ती मङ्गला काली भद्रकाली कपालिनी। दुर्गा क्षमा शिवा धात्री स्वाहा स्वधा नमोऽस्तुते॥  It’s that time of the year, when the goddess is worshipped in many parts.  We have a family friend, who has faced some personal problems.  She came to visit us recently and told us she went a met a “guru”.  The “guru” advised her to recite this “mantra” before she went to sleep and that the “mantra” was remarkably successful. 

I tend to think of any “guru” in the following way.  Suppose a student comes to me and wants a reading list in Economics.  Before I can give a reading list, I need to figure out how much the student knows, what his/her capacity is.  My “instructions”, so to speak, will be a function of that knowledge.  Whether it’s Economics, or whether it is spirituality and religion, that’s a good guru’s role.  Having said this, I was extremely puzzled by the guru’s choice of the mantra.  I don’t need to translate the shloka.  Those are different names for the goddess.  I am not even very sure the guru knows where this “mantra” is from.  It is something called the अर्गला स्तोत्रम्.  अर्गल or अर्गला is a bolt or latch on a door.  So this “mantra” is a bit like opening the bolt on the door.  It is not the main mantra.  You are supposed to move on to the main mantra.  Just so that you have the facts, this stotram is taken from something called “Durga Saptashati”, which is taken from something called “Chandi”, which is taken from the Markandeya Purana.  And though stated by the sage Markandeya, this stotram was composed by the sage Vishnu.

What’s my problem with this mantra?  The argala stotram has 25 shlokas.  And once the two preliminary shlokas are out of the way, there is the familiar and constant refrain, occurring in every shloka. रुपं देहि जयं देहि यशो देहि द्विषो जहि. “Give me beauty.  Give me victory.  Give me fame.  Slay my enemies.”  Give, give, give.  I don’t think this is especially conducive to peace and tranquility of mind.  If you ask for all those things and don’t get them, you are likely to be extremely miserable.  Right towards the end of the argala stotram, you also have पत्नीं मनोरमां देहि मनोवृत्तानुसारिणीम्.  Translated a bit loosely, “Give me a beautiful wife, whose conduct will be such as to follow my inclinations.”  Therefore, feminism apart, I am not even very sure a lady should be reciting this.  I told our friend to recite Adi Shankaracharya’s भवान्यष्टकम् instead, the one that has the refrain गतिस्त्वं गतिस्त्वं त्वमेका भवानि.  I am sure she won’t listen.  Why should she?  I am not a “guru” and she has found peace.  She goes to sleep easily.  The fact of the matter is that I think she would have gone to sleep even if she had recited “Baa Baa Black Sheep” 108 times instead.

There is a story about a holy man who came to a village.  An aged brahmana couple lived in that village and husband and wife kept on quarreling, as they had for decades.  There was poverty to reckon with.  Every morning, the husband would venture out, to work as a priest and find something to eat.  He would return in the evening, often with nothing.  And a quarrel would break out.  Finally, in desperation, the wife went to the holy man.  He gave her some magic water in a bottle and told her, as soon as she heard her husband’s footsteps in the evening, to put three drops of that magic water on her tongue and recite a mantra.  Lo and behold.  The quarrels stopped.  After a month, the magic water ran out and the wife went in haste to the holy man, to ask for some more.  The holy man refused.  There was no more magic water.  As you will have guessed, there was no magic in that water at all.  When the wife placed three drops of water on her tongue and recited a mantra, her instinctive angry words were checked.  

There is a Sanskrit verse that begins, अमन्त्रं अक्षरं नास्ति.  अक्षर can be both letter and syllable, the purport being that there is no letter/syllable that cannot be a mantra.  What does the word mantra mean?  Depending on what I do with the etymology, it means something that frees the mind (contrived from trayate), or something that is a tool (from tra) or instrument for focusing the mind.  Some mantras are believed to have special mystical properties.  Even if they do, and I have no particular view on that, this is presumably a function of correct pronunciation, which we rarely do.  For most of us, mantras, whether it is the gayatri mantra or the maha mrityunjay mantra or something else, the mantra is a tool and no more.  And thus, any letter or syllable is good enough.  However, I also think that before we recite a mantra, we should at least know the meaning, without necessarily being a Sanskrit pandit.

This time of the year is not only about the goddess, it is also about asuras.  Our sacred texts use the words asura, daita and danava synonymously.  Daityas are descended from Diti (married to the sage Kashyapa), danavas are descended from Danu (also married to the sage Kashyapa) and asuras are antitheses of suras or gods.  But let’s use the words synonymously.  Not all asuras were bad and some of them were deceived and lost their kingdoms and riches.  Did you know that Shanti Parva (the Moksha Dharma part) has instructions given by such asuras (Bali, Namuchi, Prahlada/Prahrada) to Indra?  Indra essentially wanted to laugh at these asuras, given their loss of prosperity and his gain of prosperity and kingdom.  He was extremely surprised to find that they were perfectly cheerful.  Next time, I will tell you a little bit about what these asuras told him.

Sanskrit Appreciation Hour on Twitter invites Guest Lecturers

Sanskrit Appreciation Hour has fast become the definitive platform to appreciate, learn and teach Sanskrit on Twitter. In just a year, the platform has attracted over 3,300 followers without any publicity or media coverage. Purely by word of mouth. 

Focusing exclusively on language learning, Sanskrit Hour aims to give a leg up to any one who wants to learn, or refresh their knowledge Sanskrit. It also helps aspiring teachers reach the largest Sanskrit focused audience on Twitter, which includes enthusiasts as well as experts. In the last couple of months, five outstanding Sanskritists have joined the teaching ranks, enriching the platform greatly. You too can be part of this process.

If you want to help people learn Sanskrit, you can volunteer to be a 'Guest Lecturer' and take a regular slot, or do it on an ad hoc basis. You are completely free to chose content but there are certain guidelines:

You must be able to answer grammatical and lexical queries to the satisfaction of the student 

Demonstrate an ability to be inclusive, and attract diverse audiences

Share material (text and tweets) with me at least 48 hours before the session

Follow pedagogic practices which are innate to Sanskrit Appreciation Hour. (However I'm open to suggestions to improve the platform)

NO political messages during the hour 

During the session, your personal beliefs remain exactly that - personal. Nothing must supersede teaching Sanskrit.

If you are interested, get in touch with me via my Twitter handle @RohiniBakshi or leave a comment on this blog with your Twitter handle or email address.

Thanks,

Rohini 

Dharma, Artha, Kāma, Mokṣa – XII

Dr. Bibek Debroy

Let me begin with two shlokas from the Bhagavad Gita again.  2.28 states, अव्यक्तादीनि भूतानि व्यक्तमध्यानि भारत​। अव्यक्तनिधनान्येव तत्र का परिदेवना॥ “O descendant of the Bharata lineage!  A being is not manifest at the beginning and is manifest in the middle.  After death, the being is not manifest again.  What is there to sorrow about?” That’s the आत्मन्, which is not destroyed.  For the sake of completeness, let me mention the concept of लिङगशरीरम्, the subtle body.  Depending on the school of belief, this subtle body is a vehicle of consciousness, from one life to another, and is attached to the atman.  But for the moment, let us not complicate matters unnecessarily.  Here is the second shloka from Bhagavad Gita, 4.5. बहूनि मे व्यतीतानि जन्मानि तव चार्जुन। तान्य्हं वेद सर्वाणि न त्वं वेत्थ परंतप​॥  “O Arjuna!  Both you and I have passed through several lives.  O scorcher of enemies!  I know all of them, but you do not.”  That’s precisely the problem.  We don’t know.  We don’t remember.  Hence, we don’t realize why we have been born.

There is a friend of mine who is a senior bureaucrat.  He lives in one of the Delhi localities that is a “bureaucrat colony”, meaning that there are houses for senior civil servants there.  Recently, he related to me a trivial incident that shook him up and changed his life.  Right outside his quarters, there is a taxi stand.  He was returning home after a day of meetings.  It was just before lunch and he was hungry.  It was one of those hot Delhi days.  As he was about to walk in, he was stopped by one of those taxi drivers, tall, hefty and burly.  The taxi driver said, “Get me some water to drink.”  He wasn’t polite and my bureaucrat friend was annoyed.  “Am I your servant?” he retorted.  The taxi driver smiled and replied, “Someone who gives water to drink is God, not a servant.”  This shook up my friend.  He went to his house and got a bottle of water.  But the taxi driver said, “I don’t want it now.”  According to my friend, this changed his attitude towards life, forever. 

This was a relatively trivial incident.  My attitude changed because of an incident that was relatively less trivial.  So that you relate better, I am going to reveal an aspect of my life that is extremely personal.  Beyond the intimate, few people know about this.  In January 2004, I had a heart attack and am lucky to be alive today.  As I lay down on the operating table in Escorts, to use the clichéd expression, my entire life seemed to flash past me.  There were huge glass windows and I could see the sun shining on the green leaves outside.  Despite the searing pain inside, I could hear (or thought I could hear) the birds chirping outside.  “What have I done with my life?” I wondered.  If I survive and get out alive, no more of what I have been doing.  What’s this rat race?  Why am I in it?  What’s the purpose of publishing like mad?  Why and for whom?  “If I survive, in this calendar year, 2004, I will publish 12 books.  That’s it.  After that, I will only do what I wish to do.”  

That grueling publication schedule included both authored and edited books.  For the record, I actually did 15.  You will find them listed in my resume.  And you will also find, since 2005, publication has dried up, deliberately, unless I want to actually write something, not because someone else is asking me to.  Once I was back home, other than writing those books, I decided to paint the house.  Not get it painted mind you, paint it myself.  That gave me the opportunity to think and to reflect.  I am not going to bore you with further personal details.  The point is a simple one.  Why should one wait for shocks, trivial or non-trivial?  This is a question one should ask regardless.

Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920) needs no introduction.  He was deeply religious and attributed all his inspiration to the family goddess Namagiri or Namakkal.  Ramanujan was no exception.  Many other geniuses have believed in the existence of a supreme force.  Ronald Dworkin (1931-2013) was a philosopher and law academic.  His last book, “Religion without God” will be published posthumously.  Here is a quote from that book. “The familiar stark divide between people of religion and without religion is too crude. Many millions of people who count themselves atheists have convictions and experiences very like and just as profound as those that believers count as religious. They say that though they do not believe in a “personal” god, they nevertheless believe in a “force” in the universe “greater than we are.” They feel an inescapable responsibility to live their lives well, with due respect for the lives of others; they take pride in a life they think well lived and suffer sometimes inconsolable regret at a life they think, in retrospect, wasted…But Einstein meant much more than that the universe is organized around fundamental physical laws; indeed his view I quoted is, in one important sense, an endorsement of the supernatural. The beauty and sublimity he said we could reach only as a feeble reflection are not part of nature; they are something beyond nature that cannot be grasped even by finally understanding the most fundamental of physical laws. It was Einstein’s faith that some transcendental and objective value permeates the universe, value that is neither a natural phenomenon nor a subjective reaction to natural phenomena. That is what led him to insist on his own religiosity. No other description, he thought, could better capture the character of his faith.” 

A Hindu may use slightly different words.  But will agree with the general thrust.  I have earlier said that words like देव, देवी, देवत, देवता mean “shining”.  By the way, देव and देवत are masculine and देवी and देवता are feminine.  If “god” is interpreted as these terms, how can I not believe in “god”?  There is “god” in you and in me.  There is divinity in each of us.  There is the brahman in each of us.  The purpose of life is to uplift the atman and realize this.  That’s the reason we are born.  That’s also the purpose of yoga, something I will leave for the next blog.

Dharma, Artha, Kāma, Mokṣa – XI

Dr. Bibek Debroy

There is something that has tangentially cropped up and needs to be explicitly mentioned now.  This is a critical element in Hinduism and thousands of shlokas, from thousands of texts, can be cited.  Here, for example, is 2.12-13 of the Bhagavad Gita.  न त्वेवाहं जातु नासं न् त्वं नेमे जनाधिपाः। न चैव न भविष्यामः सर्वे वयमतः परम्॥देहिनोऽस्मिन् यथा देहे कौमारं यौवनं जरा। तथा देहान्तरप्राप्तिर्धीरस्तत्र न मुह्यति॥ “It is not the case that I, or you, or these kings, did not exist before this.  Nor is it the case that we won’t exist in the future, all of us will be there. The soul passes through childhood, youth and age in this body, and like that, attains another body. The wise don’t get bewildered by this.”  

How will you translate the word संसार​?  If you say world or life, that’s not quite wrong.  But it doesn’t capture the entire nuance.  It’s a cycle and the passage of the atman through that cycle of existence.  Birth is not a beginning.  Nor is death the end.  The cycle goes on, from one life to another.  As long as one is tied down in that cycle, one is not freed.  One has not attained emancipation or liberation, मोक्ष.  Dharma, artha and kama, described as the three objectives (trivarga) of life, don’t get you that moksha.  That’s the reason something like the Mahabharata has an entire section on moksha dharma, as opposed to ordinary dharma.

I am somewhat bemused when I hear expressions like स्वर्ग, नरक, heaven and hell respectively, and descriptions about these.  Apsaras (actually the plural should be apsarases) will dance around you and gandharvas will sing to you in heaven.  You will ride on celestial vehicles, vimanas.  In hell, Yama’s messengers will boil you in red-hot oil and impale you with stakes.  For a start, even in the sacred texts, there isn’t a single heaven, or a single hell. There are layers.  For instance, even in the worlds above (heaven say), there are supposed to be seven lokas or worlds – bhurloka, kharloka, svarloka (svarga), mahaloka, janarloka, taparloka and satyaloka (or brahmaloka).  Similarly, even in the worlds below (hell say), there are supposed to be seven – atala, vitala, sutala, rasatala, talatala, mahatala and patala.  

The more important point is the following.  We cannot comprehend the atman through the standard senses and physical experiences.  How can we comprehend what the atman goes through, beyond death, through these physical analogies?  There is no Chitragupta who sits there with a ledger and determines where the atman will go.  Those are all simplifications.  Yes, the atman goes through karma in this life.  This leads to the balance sheet I mentioned earlier. Ideally, the debits and the credits should be settled in this life itself.  


I think that is the original idea behind प्रायश्चित्त, atonement or expiation.  This doesn’t mean that I have visited a temple and have sacrificed a goat and thereby, all my sins have been cleansed.  The cleansing and the purification is entirely internal.​  The net balance that remains, after death, carries forward to whatever the atman experiences after death.  However, unless one has attained moksha, those experiences are temporary and transitory.  One has to be reborn again, into this cycle of life.  Beyond death, there are thus multiple exit options for the atman, not a single one.  The rare person obtains moksha.  Most of us have to be born again.

Dharma, Artha, Kāma, Mokṣa – X

Dr. Bibek Debroy

A few years ago, I addressed a group of young people – students.  I said, “When you are 20, you want to take on the world.  When you are 40, you find that the world has taken you on.  When you are 60, you realize that it doesn’t matter one way or the other.  And when you are 80, if you survive that long, you realize that you and the world are both illusions.”  It was a clever thing to say.  I don’t know if it struck a chord, but it got me some applause.  

There is a profound truth in that, though not quite in the way I said it.  I think most of our miseries are because we want to change the world and because we want to change other people.  We are actually insignificant and irrelevant.  The world is impervious to whatever change we might want to bring.  It has existed before we were born and it will exist after we are dead.  We matter nothing to the world.  As for other people, it’s not that they don’t change.  But they change because of their own internal reasons and compulsions, not because we want them to change.  Realizing my insignificance, at least in the sense I understand myself, is one of the first steps towards finding peace.  अहंकार​ is ego, egotism, a sense of one’s importance.  It’s a false sense of importance.  As I said, I can’t change other people either.  The only person I can change is myself.

I have mentioned Adi Shankaracharya earlier. He wrote a stotram called चर्पटपञ्जरिकास्तोत्रम्, often known as the bhaja govindam stotram.  चर्पट means tattered pieces of cloth and पञ्जरिका is a cage.  This stotram is thus about the tattered pieces of cloth this cage of a body is covered in.  There are many shlokas in this stotram that are worth quoting, but I will only focus on 1 and a ½.  Here is the ½ bit first. कस्त्वं कोऽहं कुत आयातः का मे जननी को मे तातः  “Who are you? Who am I?  Where have I come from?  Who is my mother?  Who is my father?”  Here is the full shloka now. यावद्वित्तोपार्जनशक्तस्तावन्न्निजपरिवारो रक्तः। पश्चाद्धावति जर्जरदेहे वार्तां पृच्छति कोऽपि न गेहे॥  For our purposes, a word for word translation isn’t necessary.  The broad translation is as follows.  “As long as one is capable of earning riches, till then, one’s family is devoted.  Thereafter, when one is advancing (towards death) with a decayed body, no one at home asks about one’s welfare.”

We have two categories of other people – friends (or acquaintances) and relatives.  There is the clichéd statement that you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your relatives.  You are stuck with your relatives.  In Shanti Parva of the Mahabharata, there is an image of logs floating around on the ocean, coming together for a while, and then drifting apart.  In the Shanti Parva, the immediate context is of family and relatives, who come together in one life and drift apart in a subsequent one.  Let’s ignore subsequent lives for the moment.  In the same life, you come close to someone as a friend.  You remain close for some time and then you drift apart.  It’s not necessarily the case that you have had a fight or quarrel.  You just drift apart.  It’s not that you have lost the quality of becoming friends with someone.  Instead, friendship with someone terminates, last for a certain period, and then you become friends with someone else instead.  Something, destiny for want of a better word, brought you together and made you drift apart. 

Why are you suddenly attracted to someone, the male-female relationship being the most obvious one?  Love, infatuation, good vibes are just words.  What do they mean?  Destiny is just as good a word and we will probe this later.  Relatives are not quite the same, since there is no choice involved there, at least seemingly.  We have clichéd expressions like blood being thicker than water and a big deal is made of family ties.  But think about it.  As in the Adi Shankaracharya stotram, filial relationships are about quid pro quo.  We shouldn’t unnecessarily be sentimental about them, as in films.  Family members fight, quarrel, kill each other and drift apart.  It’s just that the drifting and severance can never be as neat as friends or acquaintances.

Like dharma, there is another use that is heavily over-used and that is कर्म​.  On the face of it, the word means nothing more than work or action.  But in the context of Hinduism, it has a deeper meaning.  Yes, there are problems in absolutely defining “good” and “bad”.  But nevertheless, in a given context, there are good deeds and bad deeds.  It’s like my bank balance.  Good deeds are credit accounts.  Bad deeds are debit accounts.  I repeat, I am not yet using the word कर्म​ in the sense of a next life, parodied for instance, in characterizations of bad people being born as cockroaches or insects or whatever.  My experience is that there is something like a law of conservation of कर्म​.  If you do good deeds, good deeds will be done to you.  

Don’t get me wrong.  If you do a good deed to someone, there is no necessary quid pro quo with that person. The quid pro quo will instead come from someone else, unexpectedly.  You bestow affection. Affection will come to you from somewhere else.  You are generous. Generosity will flow back to you.  Sounds a bit like Dale Carnegie. You don’t have to wait to become a cockroach or whatever in your next life. The balance sheet of life pays you back in this life itself.  Not entirely, but very substantially.  What brings us close to friends/acquaintances seems to be a bit like a debt to be paid to someone, or a debt to be paid back by someone.  That takes us to karma in the next life.  We will save that for later.