Brahma tells a story

After hearing Chitragupta’s word-by-word account, on his one-to-one meeting with Yama, Brahma sensed an opportunity, after many eons. He decided to seize it and lay on the table, the missing pieces of the heavenly puzzle concerning Yama. Brahma decided to have his own one-to-one with Yamadharmaraj. He had a long story to tell, about Yama and his family tree. Though Chitragupta had not revealed the role he had played, Brahma wanted to balance the accounts – how Yama dimension-hopped and portal crashed to land in his current abode. How his exemplary dedication to service in righteousness qualified him for quasi-naturalisation and leadership in Yam Lok.

Yamadharmaraj was shocked and surprised, to receive a call for an audience. He hurriedly assembled a universal dossier, to fall back upon, in case Bramha asks some unexpected question. Chitragupta's words echoed in his ears– “information clears doubts and questions get information”, though he did not understand the paradox, “when doubts get cleared with information, then why ask questions?” 

His intelligence sources assured him that Brahma appeared in good spirits and Chitragupta had left a long time ago. “Might be one of my lucky days”, Yama chuckled to himself. As soon as he entered the abode, he was guided to the meeting chamber. Brahma looked at Yama with a radiant, bright, permeating smile, flooding him with a sense of oneness with the Cosmos. Yam stood speechless, fighting hard the urge to float away, not out of fear but in ecstasy!

“Yama, before I start, let me lay a proper foundation. It would, then be easy to comprehend the perspectives. For the Creator, the infinite Cosmos is a safety vault. It housed a population of super immortals, immortals and semi-immortals, as a functional hierarchy, in the heavens. Likewise, the vault sheltered a population of super mortals, mortals and semi-mortals. Though wide open, the vault is protected by barriers of complicated dimensions, portals and wormholes, restricting free access. Under certain special circumstances, highly developed mortals, were allowed a rare access for a brief stay in the higher dimensions. Designated portals and wormholes were the entry and exit points.  After gaining advanced knowledge and wisdom, these chosen ones, propagated it, among the other earthlings.

From here on, my “hear and forget' rule comes into play. You know, Chitragupta likes to play pranks, now and then, but harmless in intent. Though, I had difficulty in understanding the ‘why’ part of his actions, at those times. 

Would it surprise you to know that it was due one such prank, many interesting developments were set in motion! At that time, the level of intelligence of most of the primitive earthlings, was not, very much different from that of animals. They badly needed an upgrade, to survive. Using this as a pretext, he cleverly chose the time to play the prank - he let in a few gifted with above average intelligence and imaginative beings through the wormholes, he was guarding.

After committing the prank, he convinced each one of us to believe- as that one Divine entity, invested in the upgrading and bonding with earthlings! He explained, individually to each of us, that by this 'sleight of opening the gate’, he had delivered the perfect glue, to bind mortals with the Divine. It took me long eons, to understand the ‘why’, I mentioned earlier. But by that time, the developments have already been underway. The Cosmos  had no choice but to smile and exonerate Chitragupta! He escaped by the skin of his prank.

Back to earth from the higher dimensions, the enlightened ones authored colourful stories, to test the extent to which they could stretch their imagination. Not sparing anyone in the Cosmos – the Creator, gods and demi-gods, as avatars in human forms and the celestial objects assigned to do astrological tasks. To immortalise themselves and their narratives, characters born on earth, out of boons granted to mortals, walked into the scripts of epics, Vedas and puranas. As times rolled by, different versions emerged and all were skillfully woven back into the scriptures, as meta-physical explorations.  In effect, we all had a colourful presence in the scriptures.

Are you wondering, what is this background information about?  As I said earlier, this would help to you understand the story of your family tree. Don’t feel bad, they have a similar story for me too!

The Sun, their local star, kept the life forms alive on earth. To keep this process ticking, he had to discharge hot and harmful, but essential particles, in the form of intense and potent flares. His periodic venting did not escape the attention of the gifted narrators. Without carefully weighing the good and not so good aspects, they saddled him with a chariot-load of negativities and painted him as a malevolent. Later on, a hoard of individuals, who became astrologers, began exploiting this characterisation.

Now, back to your family tree. The Sun had his hands full with lighting up earth to breathe life into everything and shepherding planets and other objects and warding off intruders, from his domain. Focusing his full attention on these responsibilities, he devoted less time to family matters. It is not due to complacency or ego. He had no other go but to abide by the Divine will and Cosmic laws. But the imaginative narrators had other ideas!  They sowed seeds of discord, to spin a few stories.

You became the first progeny of Sun. Not forgetting to give credit where it is due, they vested in you the characteristics of righteousness and benevolence of your father. As a reward, the story tellers created a chance for you to escape from earth. Here, they conveniently remembered the prank played by Chitragupta and used that breach and the portal hopping technique, to teleport you to Yam Lok, but not before adding a logical twist. Here is how, they did it.

Unable to bear the intense heat and insufficient attention, your mother went incommunicado, leaving a shadow of herself at home. As time rolled on, you began to feel neglected, after the arrival of your half-brother, who got all the motherly attention.  Sensing the under current running in the family. you brought your father into the picture, who was unaware of these developments. A domestic fight ensued, and the shadow woman spilled the secret of deceit, behind the disappearance of your biological mother. Even in this agitated state of mind, your innate righteousness took charge, washing away the guilt of your actions over the dark secret. At this opportune moment, the inspired story tellers engineered your escape from earth by teleportation.

They placed Saturn, your half-brother, under the same roof, for a radically different motive. The same undercurrent flowing in the family, affected him differently. Besides the stigma of illegitimacy being born to a mother who existed as a shadow, he resented the ill-treatment he and his mother suffered, at the hands of his father. He fought and left home to become cold and distant. To further embellish the story, the narrators depicted Saturn as a rebel and an arch enemy of his father. Angry, yet righteous.  Thy turned him into a stern task master, with a ‘suffer, struggle and get rewarded’ attitude. A crime and punishment entity or the astrologers to exploit

There is some more to come. After placing you and Saturn in an exalted position, the earthlings wanted a hero for themselves. To venerate and admire. They devised a clever strategy - made your father to grant a boon to an innocent mortal, on earth. She fell into the trap, invoking the boon with childish ignorance or innocence.  The invocation brought a child came into existence. That child is your unseen and earthly half-brother, named Karna.

They reserved the best, for this boon-born-baby. Karna was loyal to a fault. Laid down his life in gratitude, for a friend who brought him honour and recognition, as a person and warrior. Integrity and unrestrained generosity were second to his nature. He suffered with the stigma of illegitimacy but was not vindicative and forgave his parents for deserting him as an orphan. He honoured and fulfilled his mother’s wish, unmindful of its cost on his life. He gifted away everything, even his life protections, without questioning about the guise, guile and ulterior motives employed by that person. Even on the battlefield, he did not waver. Willingly donated all of his accumulated virtues, knowing fully well that this act would certainly bring him death.

He was a haunted soul, weighed down with complex emotional and moral dilemmas. Is he not truly a tragic hero, a martyr, par excellence, to attain immortality and the exalted status of a karma yogi?  The story tellers excelled themselves by literally writing Karna’s greatness, literally, in his own blood! Would anything less do for their own hero!

Yama, did you not get the honour to assign Karna, a worthy place in heaven? Be proud of your sense of duty and his greatness. Cheer up! Your family tree is respected and envied by all, in the Cosmos.

The narrators started to feel guilty for portraying the Sun, in poor light. Realising that their very existence depended on his munificence, they wanted to make amends. And how they did it? All of you were made to suffer neglect, in varying degrees. Unable to tolerate, your biological mother chose to abandon. You, citing step-motherly treatment left home, in indignation. Aghast and in defiance, at the ill-treatment of him and his mother your half-brother walked out. Whereas, your earthly-half-brother, walked into glory with acts of magnanimity and liberal generosity. Thus, all of you ended up mirroring Sun’s multifaceted personality. Cleverly done, is it not!

These earthlings knew how to spin yarns, from woven cloth. A hoard of astrologers found a way to use these fascinating stories about the Sun and Saturn. To leverage the advantage, they roped in the other planets and the moon to assist. To further complicate the process of prediction, they created imaginary plots and houses in the sky, delineating rulership, friendly and enemy territories. Tightening further control, they devised exalted and debilitated status, using the planetary positions or transits. A predetermined cyclic order allowed each celestial body a fixed tenure of influence. Unaware of these gravity-traps and tempted by the lure, the celestial bodies fell in line and took stance of a friend or enemy to act as benefic or malefic - to each other and the subject of interest to the astrologer.

With complex calculations and doomsday predictions, the astrologers took a strangle hold to wage a proxy war, on the life of humans and nations. They did not forget to leave an escape door for themselves. The golden key? Blame their failed predictions on divine will or fate or whatever excuse that could be marketed!

Burdened with Cosmic duties and the knowledge that he was one insignificant star among the countless, your father did not want to spend energy to fight with these narrators. He might have even thought, if these fictious narratives bring some benefits to humanity, why not sit back and enjoy it!

I see the rays of confusion spreading rapidly across your face. Have you ever wondered, how I gather information from all over the Cosmos? Would you be surprised to know that Chitragupta and Narad are my offsprings and care to know where from all these relationships are coming? Thanks to those story tellers, my family tree also has a colourful story! Why am I telling you this now? Thinking wisely, Chitragupta left this task to me, as it is not merely your story or my story - but something much more and beyond that.

Don’t you think that we would have had a dull existence, without these fine narratives? Do you now grudge these enlightened human beings for their inspired narrations?"

During the entire narration, Yama’s face reflected conflicting emotions of hate, regret, kinship, respect, awe and wonder. In the end, the same powerful euphoria experienced at the start of the meeting, engulfed over, leaving him speechless.