14. Listen to Heart – Thin Line is thicker than ….

Hari Bol....

14. Listen to Heart – Thin Line is thicker than …. 

Right from our childhood we are trying to read and learn Line. If you ask any child he will say when we connect two or more than two dots it forms a line. He may have thick line, thin line, dotted line, center line, outside line, inside line, cross line, any colorful line and so on and on. During school days we were asked to walk in straight line and not in a curved lines or zigzag line. So we were asked to stand in queue. Even a symbol is designated to it as ‘Q’, which is not straight but it means a straight line. This is even applicable in our day to day life. In Hindi it is called ‘Rekha’. As a student I also learnt the same. While studying B.E., I learnt the importance of center line. It was important because there is a dimension to which it is drawn. If the dimension ratio is not to the specification we were not awarded any marks for it. Even in professional life, line is used for designing and drawing.

Here is this phrase, ‘there is a fine line between love and hate’.
My understanding and the standard definition of "fine line" is that "they are so similar that one can easily become the other." If there is a fine line between one thing and another, they are very similar although the second thing is bad. Based on this definition, I understood "a fine line" is different from a "thin line" and that people don't say "there is a thin line between, say, love and hate and there's a thin line between courage and foolishness”. People use this thin line for emotions, relationship, responsibilities, roles, etc.

I was going through an article about Lakshman Rekha (Line) about an incidence from our great Hindu Epic ‘Ramayana’ which I would like to share with you all. Lakshman Rekha (Sanskrit: लक्ष्मण रेखा), in some later versions of Ramayana, is a line drawn by Lakshmana around the dwelling he shares with his brother Rama and Rama's wife Sita at Panchavati in the forest of Dandakaranya which now part of the city of Nashik in Maharashtra. The line is meant to protect Sita, while he is away searching for Rama. Mandodari rebukes Ravana on his boisterous claims of valour by hinting that his claim of strength and valour is shallow for he could not even cross a small line drawn by Shri Rama's younger brother Lakshmana. In the story, Rama goes chasing a golden deer (which actually is the Rakshasa Maricha in disguise), and does not return for a long time. When Sita forces Lakshmana to leave in search of his brother, Lakshmana who cannot bear to see Sita cry in grief, reluctantly decides to go and search for Rama, subject to his condition that Sita not cross the protective line he draws. Anybody other than Rama, Sita and himself attempting to cross the line would be signed by flames erupting from the line. Once Lakshmana leaves in search of Rama, the Rakshasa king Ravana comes in the form of a mendicant and asks Sita for alms. Not expecting a trick, she unsuspectingly crosses the Lakshman Rekha to provide alms to him and Ravana kidnaps her in his Pushpaka Vimana. Radhey Shyam Ramayan mentions that the crossing of Lakshaman Rekha by Sita was done absent-mindedly by an anxious Sita only to honor the great Indian tradition of "अतिथि देवो भवः" (Atithi Devo Bhava): the guest is embodiment of a Deva (divine entity). Sita crosses the boundary line only to give alms to Ravana once he insists that alms cannot be accepted across a barrier as having a boundary in between was against the principle of free will of the donor. Lakshman Rekha.

In modern Indian society it refers to a strict convention or a rule, never to be broken. It often refers to the ethical limits of an action, traversing which may lead to undesirable consequences. In Indian tradition it is still believed that women are supposed to take care of the family members – father, mother, father in law, mother in law, children, husband and all related to the family. She is known as “Home maker and not a House wife”. Men are supposed to take care of all the activities outside the house. He is supposed to earn and feed the family members. As a rule; dress codes and timings were defined. If one deviates, he or she had to take permission from the head of the family. But in today’s modern world it is diminishing. This could be one of the reasons for various unfortunate happening taking place in the society. This is the reason it is said, “We should build a Home and not a House”.

Arjuna was also confused when he refused to Krishna for fighting the battle of Mahabharatha. The battle was to start when he surrendered to Krishna. He saw all opponent soldiers as his relatives on the battlefield. He started thinking about the consequences of the battle and he did not want take sin. He was confused between his role of dharma i.e. Kula Dharma and Kashtriya Dharma. The imminent fratricidal war set one piece of his life, his professional duty (kshatriya-dharma), for a head-on collision with another piece, his dynastic duty (kula-dharma). As a warrior, he had to protect law and order by punishing wrongdoers, whereas as a member of the respectable Kuru dynasty, he had to protect his relatives. What to do when the wrongdoers were his relatives? The conflict tore at his heart, threatening to throw the pieces of his life far apart. He forgot that he had already reached the battlefield and the battle was to start so he was there in the role of a soldier as Kashtriya. If he wanted to follow the Kula Dharma, he should have not accepted the challenges of Duryodhana. In despair, he turned to Krishna for help as he was not able to listen to his heart.

I am not competent enough to say anything more. I would leave up to you all intelligent to decide if so called thin line is thin or thin line is thicker than thick line.

All Glories to Lord Krishna & All His Loving Devotees….. Hari Bol……

Courtesy : Ramayana, Bhagavad-Gita As It Is (by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada ) ,  Srimad Bhagavad-Gita ( by A. Parthasarathy  & www.gitadaily.com ) Chapter 1 : Text 36