Jayadratha, the fear of death

Jayadratha was the king of Sindhu and the husband of Dussala, sister of Duryodhana. Jayadratha tried to adduct Draupadi during the Pandavas exile in Kamyaka Vana. The Pandavas caught up with him but being Dussala’s husband, Yudhisthira asked the others to spare him. They spared his life but shaved his head and then released him.

Jayadratha wanted to avenge this insult and he prayed to Mahadeva and was granted a boon by him that for one day during the Great War, he would be victorious against all the Pandavas but Arjuna. During the Great War when Dronacharya formed the Chakravyuha and Arjuna was drawn astray from the main battlefield, Jayadratha held off the Pandavas and their army from entering the formation behind Abhimanyu. Hence, Abhimanyu went into the Chakravyuha alone and met his death inside.

When Arjuna heard of this, he vowed to kill Jayadratha before sunset the following day or perish himself. The Kauravas protected Jayadratha with their whole army by placing him right behind the entire army with the intention of forcing Arjuna to give up his life if he was unsuccessful in killing Jayadratha by sunset. Arjuna had to make his way through the whole army to get to Jayadratha. Sunset approached but Arjuna was still far from striking distance of Jayadratha. Sri Krishna then created the illusion that the sun had set by covering it with clouds. Thinking that the sun had actually set, Jayadratha came out of his safety formation. At this moment, Sri Krishna lifted the clouds covering the sun, exposing Jayadratha to Arjuna. Arjuna then struck an arrow cutting Jayadratha’s head off and killing him.

Before he aimed for Jayadratha’s head, Sri Krishna told Arjuna that Jayadratha’s head should not fall on the ground but instead fall in his father’s lap, who was meditating in an ashram. Jayadratha’s father had a boon from Mahadeva (as Pasupata) that whosoever fell Jayadratha’s head on the ground, his head would explode into a thousand pieces. Arjuna sent Jayadratha’s head into his father’s lap; his father in a state of shock threw Jayadratha’s head on the ground and immediately his own head exploded into a thousand pieces.

Jayadratha comes from the word ‘jayat’ meaning victorious and ‘ratha’ meaning chariots – the one with the victorious chariots. The chariots represents the body-brain system and Jayadratha signifies the victory of the body-brain system over the power of attention, done by seducing attention in sensual matters of the world such as objects, people, and events. Hence, deep attachment or hypnosis of our own bodies is Jayadratha. Patanjali calls this attachment to the body as ‘abhinivesa’ or the deep desire for sentient existence, which manifests as fear of death. The largest industry in today’s world is ‘the body’ – whether it is in form of medicine, vitamins, life enhancing tonics, clothes, perfumes, or any other products that enhances the feeling or sensuality of one’s body.

The state when our attention is totally seduced by an object of the senses is called Jayadratha. When our attention is free from the pull of the senses then that state is Arjuna. In both these states, the attention is one-pointed. In the state of Jayadratha, the one-pointedness attention is external and a result of hypnosis whereas in the state of Arjuna, the one-pointedness attention is internal and a result of being free of any hypnosis.

We have seen in expositions in previous articles that Draupadi is the sex energy, which when it rises up the chakras becomes ‘Kundalini Shakti’. She is in the Kamyaka Vana or the forest of desire. We have seen that Jayadratha represents usage of the power of seduction for fulfilment of sensual desires. These desires are vibrating in our unconscious mind and in the Kamyaka Vana (the forest of desire) they manifest and within our thoughts we keep on abducting this vital sex energy by becoming seduced to beautiful objects or persons.

Abhimanyu going into the chakravyuha and being blocked off by Jayadratha to come out reveals to us that whenever ‘abhiman’ or ego leads us into a difficult situation in life, it is our own fear of the unknown or the desire for sentient existence that clouds our vision and does not allow us to see a way out of the situation. If only we can remain detached, the solution becomes visible.

The Kauravas represent the hundred inclinations that seduce our attention all the time through the five sense organs. These are desires that keep on manifesting from our sub-conscious and our unconscious mind. These desires block the actual feeling of the real instinctive fear of death – our eluded psychological fear of death is that if death was to occur now all our desires will remain unfulfilled. Because of this covering of desires, we cannot feel the fear of death in an instinctive way that animals feel.

Yoga says that in the right nostril is the ‘suryanadi’ which gives a positive charge and heats the prana that flows through and in the left nostril is the ‘chandranadi’ which gives a negative charge and cools the prana that flows through. All negative emotions, especially anger and fear, need the support of suryanadi to seduce our attention and take away our energy, making us victims of negative emotions. When the yogi wants to free his psyche of negative emotions, specially the fear of death, he artificially blocks the right nostril or suryanadi, represented by Sri Krishna covering the sun with clouds. At this point, any negative emotion that manifests does not have a firm foundation; that is it does not get the heat from the suryanadi to explode, rendering it weak and unable to seduce the attention of the yogi. It is then that the yogi is able to kill the negative emotion that had come out of the subconscious or the unconscious by the arrow of his attention (or self-observation), represented by Arjuna’s killing of Jayadratha.

Jayadratha’s is the fear of death and his father represents the instinctive desire for self-preservation. The yogi wants to be free of the fear of death but unless he also kills the instinctive desire for self-preservation, this fear of death will manifest again and again. By surrendering to the divine, represented by Sri Krishna, the yogi (or Arjuna) no longer needs the natural instinct of self-preservation because his life is now in the hands of the divine and he does not need nature to protect it. This is shown by Arjuna obeying Sri Krishna in sending Jayadratha’s head into his father’s lap, killing both of them.

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