Participant: Sadhguru, Karna is hailed as a warrior par excellence who had the ability to defeat Arjuna and kill Krishna. But, nowhere in the whole epic does he win any battle, whether it is with the Gandharvas who tie him up, or when he fights for the Virata kingdom and Arjuna defeats him. Why is it so?
Sadhguru: Right from his birth, Karna neither had grace nor luck with him. Out of his own terrible longing to be someone, before he matured, he made wrong alliances that he could not get out of. He was in too much of a hurry. It is like some of the choices you made as a teenager. Looking back, you probably regret some of them. Fortunately for most of you, you have grown out of such things.
When someone offered him a hand, Karna took it because he was so desperate. After that, there was no turning back. He did not choose to have grace – he chose to have arrogance as his company. For this reason, all his talents went to waste. This is a truth of life: Whatever competence and capability you may have will be crippled and not bear fruit when you are arrogant. If competence is accompanied by grace, it will help you become much larger than you are by yourself. That is how life should be. That means you are living well.
This happened to me: I used to wander in the forest in Karnataka, all by myself. There, it is misty almost four months of the year. As I walked, I suddenly saw a huge forest fire burning far away. I wanted to see it up close and started running toward it. I ran about 4–5 kilometers, but when I reached the spot, I found two men sitting near a small hut with a little fire in front of them. The millions of particles of mist in the air had multiplied that small fire so that it seemed like a mountain of fire that lit up the whole sky.
Your life should become like this. If the mist of grace falls upon you, this is how it will become: You are a little fire, but you will rage like a big fire. But, you must never forget that you are a little fire.
To be continued…
