“No one achieves complete success in life; but even partial fulfillment is attained by but a few. Unfulfillment, the Mahabharata tells us again and again, is the normal condition of man.”
My fascination with Mahabharat and its characters led me to reading of the book ‘Yuganta: The end of an epoch’ by Irawati Karve last week. What an experience it has been. The book humanizes the demigod characters of the epic (Indian tradition actually considers Mahabharata a history). Each having their own anxieties, fears, struggles, moments of joy. Just like us they all had shades of Grey and were not all Black or White. The book provides a link to relate ourselves with the characters of Mahabharata.
One of the characters in Mahabharata that always intrigued me is that of Karna. I always felt pity for him. He was one of the best warriors, was big-hearted, apparently did not do anything wrong in his life, why then did he suffer so much, why was life so unfair to him, why was he not celebrated as other heroes. Why?
At least, this is what I thought until I read the book. The essay on Karna clarifies the whats and whys of his situation.
“He struggled all his life to gain what he thought was his rightful status and his bitterness lay in not having got it.”
As I understand, Karna was a classic case of ‘Backwards Law’ - as explained by philosopher Alan Watts:
“When you try to stay on the surface of the water, you sink; but when you try to sink, you float’ and that ‘insecurity is the result of trying to be secure.”
The Karna Syndrome
Karna spent all his life living in the ‘insecurity of trying to be secure’. He would have been able to achieve more significance had he come to peace with his situation - his own individual self.
Karna was caught in the vicious grip of the question “Who Am I?”. The question that Karna struggled with 3000 yrs ago still is the one all of us struggle in today’s times. In many ways, I feel majority of us today constantly undergo the same feelings (me of course). We are all Karna’s of the 21st century.
In the book, Irawati Karve beautifully articulates it below:
“All through life one is constantly asking, and answering the question: ‘Who am I?’ This ‘I’ remains dynamic and changeful; and so at no given moment is a final answer possible. Small children, to start with, often refer to themselves in the third person. The awareness of ‘me’ is linked with the awareness of ‘mine’. This is my mother, my father, my toys, my house,, and ultimately the ‘I’ emerges as the centre of all these possessions. This awareness becomes sharpened through families and social relationships. As the boundaries of the ‘I’ broaden, the ‘I’ comes in contact with the ‘not I’, the ‘you’ or the ‘he’, and also their expectations regarding the ‘I’. And these are the expectations which shape the various manifestations of the ‘I’.”
As I see, the answer to ‘Who am I’ can be achieved by developing self-awareness. Organizational psychologist, Tasha Eurich explains in her book ‘Insight’ that self-awareness is the meta-skill for the 21st century.
“Self-awareness is, at its core, the ability to see ourselves clearly - to understand who we are, how others see us, and how we fit into the world around us.”
Key to self-awareness is to have a clear understanding of the principles by which we want to lead our lives - the Values. Values provide the yardstick to measure ourselves and others, guide our actions, help make decisions…
This is where Karna missed the plot. All through his life he is a confused person. He also tended to go to extremes both in evil deeds as well as his good ones. This all could be attributed to him lacking in understanding of right set of values and hence self-awareness and in turn the un-answered question - Who am I?
I call it the ‘Karna syndrome’.
Note to myself
To all of us - Karna’s of the 21st century, wanting to come out of the shackles of the Karna syndrome - go ahead and do this immediately - understand, prioritize and adopt the right values**. These would act as the guiding principles - the yard stick to measure ourselves - creating self-awareness. Thereby getting close to answering the question ‘Who Am I?’.
**Refer to the book Insight and The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck to help you get started with the right values.
Reference
Yuganta: The end of an epoch by Iravati Karve
Insight by Tasha Eurich
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson
http://www.brooklyntherapist.net/blog/2018/6/12/alan-watts-backwards-law