Shikhandi: and Other Tales They Don't Tell You

by Devdutt Pattanaik

As long as we let the mind be controlled by fear and transformed into aham (ego), the march of yuga will continue; this is samsara, the wheel of rebirth. As soon as we unknot the mind with wisdom, then atma (soul) reveals itself and the march of yuga stops; this is moksha, liberation.

Mythology is the study of these stories, symbols and rituals. When these stories, symbols and rituals become rigid, enforced by a body that claims access to a supernatural authority, they constitute a religion.

Feminism, the idea that men and women are equal is, however, discovered in Hinduism as the scriptures point to the difference between the soul and the flesh. The soul has no gender. Gender comes from the flesh.

Life is not a problem to be solved. It is a sight to be seen, and contemplated upon, so that we see ourselves truly and eventually open ourselves to joy without seeking change in the world.

Fear crumples our mind and narrows our view of the world as we invent predators, and create structures and hierarchies to exclude them rationally.

Read this somewhere too. Goal of yoga is to uncrumple. Chitta vrithi nirodha.

Mythology is the study of people’s subjective truth expressed in stories, symbols and rituals. Subjective truth is indifferent to rationality.

Modern academic discourse, rooted in Greek mythology, taught in universities around the world is shaped by doubt and argument, vi-vaad, where the truth shall prevail. Traditional Indian academic discourse, now completely sidelined even by ‘nationalists’, is shaped by faith and discussion, sam-vaad, where your truth shall inform my truth and my truth shall inform your truth, and thus both our truths shall expand towards infinity.

In popular culture, the best way to humiliate a man is to make him wear female attire. ‘Wear bangles and sit at home,’ is a common phrase to insult men. But Krishna turns the insult into praise. Thus, a patriarchal gaze is affectionately transformed into a feminist one using queer vocabulary.

This is maya, delusion produced by desire, that makes you forget everything except the pursuit of self-gratification.’

The words hijra, transgender, cross-dresser and transsexual are often confused. Hijra is a community of male-to-female transgendered people into which one has to be granted entry by a guru. A transgender is a man or woman who has a deep desire to live in society as a member of the opposite sex. A cross- dresser may wear the clothes of the opposite sex for fun or sexual pleasure. A transexual is a person who feels trapped in his/her own body and wants to change to the opposite sex.