DRONACHARYA FROM MAHABHARAT

      Many of us who are Indians in origin have heard the stories from Mahabharata. This is the largest poetry and in India couple of serials have been made from this epic .I have heard that when the first one came out and was shown on TV, there was n traffic on roads as EVERYONE was watching it even in big cities. The story has many characters  and the stories of these characters are colorful. One of the characters is DRONACHARYA. He was the teacher appointed to teach Pandava and Kaurava . Theses were the children of KURU DYNASTY . The Pandavas were 5 and Kauravas were 100 . 

    The story that I want to tell today has to do with DRONACHARYA . The name was derived from his birth. He was born in a DRONA , which is a small bowl made of dry leaves .The sperms were dropped in the drona  and he was born from those sperms. This really does not make much sense . He was teacher to Pandava  and Kaurava prince , but he was still not very rich. His son ASTHVATTHAMA  was immortal We all accepted these things as a matter of fact ,but never gave any thought to any of theses absurd looking things . Then there is a story that in which Dronacharya goes to a king Drupada, who was his childhood friend and asks for help and the Drpada declines . So then Dronacharya withe help of Pandava, defeats Drupada  and then gives him back 'southerner half of the kingdom' . The king Drupada does a Yadnya and gets a son named DRUSTADYUMNA . He kills the Dronacharya in the war. So this is good as a story, but does not make much sense. So the symbolism in this story is that the Dronacharya represents the Saunskara or the effects of out previous Karmas. Since we continue to do Karma in every life and the karma have effects , we will never be without the effects . So the SON of Drna - effects of our karma - ASTVATTHAMA is immortal. The origin of Drona is with karma that we add to the POT or the Drona.  and so Dronacharya was born in drona.The fact that our previous karma and their effects GUIDE US in out future actions. So Drona is teaching both sets of prince Pandavas  and Kauravas - good and bad. When one tries to shun the effects of our karma , he is not successful in first attempt and the effects of Karma will defeat us  and so the DRONACHARYA defeats the DRUPADA who shuns him . But the effects of our efforts to get away from karma that have effects  are never wasted . So the mastery over LOWER CENTERS is there but the mastery over HIGHER centers is lost . So Drupada gets back control of SOUTHERN part of the kingdom (lower half of our body that has lower centers ) and we have to work on getting control over higher centers . When we are successful in doing that , we ill KILL the effects of our KARMA , so the son of DRUPADA kills DRONACHARYA. 

  The moral of this to me other than symbolism is that we may not be successful at first attempt, but the effects of our study will never be lost.