Longish thread, feel free to mute: Often in SocMe and in Mass Media, we see some people living/re-living the worst moment of their lives. The latest is this Air India Urinator, who has invited universal ridicule, has been fired from his job and is on the run from the police.
His father, forced to give interviews to the media, defending his son, but ashamed enough to wear a mask when doing so.
What kind of past karma could have caused such humiliation?
What kind of past karma could have caused such humiliation?
The answer is simple: One lives under the protection of the gods. One must do one's nithyakarmas, offer tharpanams to one's pithrus, live a straight & narrow life and not invite the wrath of the gods. It is easy to stray, to give in to temptation, to drink, and destroy oneself.
βEnter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: βBecause strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.β (Matt. 7:13β14.)
The Air India Urinator's tribulations reminded me of possibly the greatest greek tragedy: The Bacchae of Euripedes. Pentheus is the King of Thebes and he & the people of Thebes mock Dionysus, the God of wine as not being a God at all.
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
Dionysus vows revenge. He drives the women of Thebes mad - Pentheus mother Agave among them and in her drunken, mad state, she ends up thinking that her son, King Pentheus is a mountain lion and tears him from limb to limb with her bare hands.
Then she puts his head on a pike and brings it to show it to her father, Cadmus. Cadmus talks her out of her drunkenness & madness and makes her recognize what she has done. The treatment in the play is masterly:
Slowly Cadmus talks to her, trying to talk her out of her trance, her drunken, mad state:
Reminding her of her life & history:
And finally, the instruction to "Look Carefully" and the recognition:
Loading suggestions...