Divine Grace & Mortification

It is curious to note that the above two commonly go together. In "Mahabharata", the tribulations of the Pandavas, the beloveds of Lord Krishna, were endless. Even their lineage came perilously close to extinction. Krishna's sister Subhadra's son Abhimanyu, was unfairly killed in battle, even with the Lord present in the vicinity. Later all five sons of the Pandavas were wiped out in one fell swoop by their Guru's son, a Brahmana to boot!

The same holds true in other religions also. Saint Julian of Norwich, took the bull by the horns, by praying to experience the agonies of Christ on the cross & supposedly obtaining it. Chandanbala, the first female disciple of Lord Mahavira, was a slave in a rich man's house as was Rabia of Basra, the greatest Muslim saint. Rabia went with a pail of water to douse the fires of hell & a flaming torch to burn the rewards of paradise.

The most curious thing is that humans worship & crave worldly boons like wealth & progeny from these saints, who themselves had spurned them. Even among the Holy Trinity of Hinduism, only Lord Shiva had children but his two sons remained celibate & in a purely worldly way, His line came to an end. Goddesses Lakshmi & Saraswathi, to put it in a crudely worldly way, remained biologically barren! As for Lakshmi, even though "it is a truth universally acknowledged" (to quote Jane Austen), that she is fickle, she is the most popular Goddess nowadays, Saraswathi being relegated to the sidelines. Even Lord Ganesh is only worshipped because it is hoped that he will remove obstacles in our mad rush for wealth & progeny! As far as another goal of human life, Fame is concerned, no less a person than Marcus Aurelius, a Roman Emperor, has said "Fame, in a world like this, is worthless."

Going by our mentality nowadays, Kubera (the mythical rich man) & Indra (king of heaven of worldly delights) should be our role models & objects of worship!