Guru Gyan is our attempt to share learning within the organization which

benefits all of us professionally as well as personally. Our core objective through

these sessions is to help you understand and apply simple business practices derived
through stories, ideas and beliefs from Mythological & Management Books for the
betterment of your work & process.

Today’s lesson is derived from the Life Lessons of Kunti from Mahabharata
Today’s Session focuses on “Log Kya Kahenge”

One of the best Management books written so far is Mahabharata & there are many life lessons to be
learnt from every episode and every character from the Epic. Let’s see what lesson we can learn from
the greatest legend in the book, Kunti.

Kunti had 6 sons, the five Pandavas and Karna & there was not much spoken about her blessings & her
life, let’s look at a few major episodes of her life.

Durvasa Rishi was known to be of very high temper and anger, his stories of cursing people when
displeased were famous everywhere but Kunti as a young princess served him well & took good care of
him as their guest. He was pleased with the hospitality & gave a boon to Kunti for her genuine
hospitality & gave her a mantra & upon reciting the mantra, she can summon any God and have sons
from them with the same qualities as the God.

One day, she recited the mantra and accidentally summons Lord
Sun & Karna was born. Scared and frightened what her parents &
others will say, she immediately abandoned her son & hoped that
he gets a better life. She decides never to use the same mantra
again in her life, but destiny had other plans for her

Life moves on and she gets married to King Pandu & everything was
supposed to be normal but one day King Pandu gets cursed and he cannot father a child or he will die if
he touches any women.

Upset over the curse, King Pandu abandons his kingdom and starts staying the Jungle, his wives Kunti &
Madri followed him to the Jungle.

Kunti finds the solution to her husband’s grief, she shares how she can recite the mantra and invokes
gods, and Pandu is extremely happy and asks Kunti to use the mantra and also asks her to share the
mantra with Madri, so that she can also mother her own kids & hastinapur will have legal heir’s to
Pandu’s throne.

That is how all the Pandava’s were born. Kunti was a mother of 3 pandava son’s Yudhistra. Bheema &
Arjuna born to lord Yama, Vayu & Indra respectively & Madri was the son of 2 Nakula & Sahdeva born to
Indra Kumar.
Post the death of Pandu & Madri in an unfortunate event, Kunti returns to
Hastinapur with the 5 kids and life moves on.

During the episode of Draupadi’s marriage, Kunti recognizes her son Karna,
but keeps quiet, because she is worried on how her kids will react, how
others in the palace and the kingdom will react. “What will People Say?”

She does meet Karna but one day before the fight between Karna and Arjuna, tells him to change sides
as she doesn’t want to lose any of her son, but upon Karna asking her that why did she abandon him
earlier and not able to answer him, she walks away quietly.

Upon Karna’s death, she cries insolubly & everyone is shocked on her behavior & it’s only when Lord
Krishna gives her the confidence to reveal the truth to everyone, she explains she is the mother of the
Karna and explains how he & others were born & how she feared what others will say has made her life
so miserable.

She regretted her decision to let go Karna as a child & says, only if she was not worried on what others
would say, Life would have been completely different. Her last advice to Draupadi before she left for
heavenly abode was also the same, Focus on what you can do & not on what others say about you.

Most of us spend our life like the way Kunti did, blessed with ability & skills that are unique to us and
able to achieve the best in our life, but stop ourselves by this one killing sentence:

“What will others say?”

In the process of wanting to be accepted by others, we turn out to be the slave of a fickle mindset that
tames us and doesn’t allow us to expand our horizon & go beyond the limitations that we have set for
ourselves.

Kunti had a choice of accepting Karna as her son and she could have explained any one of the blessing
she received and if needed could have experimented again and could have mothered a child and proved
herself right but she choose to succumb to Society & family pressure & led a mediocre life, she infact
used her skill but only for someone else’s benefit & yet hide the secret of the first son because of the
same fear of getting abandoned

Isn’t the story same with us as well, should we focus on what great we can achieve & how we can
contribute to make our life better we can achieve milestones, however we succumb to peer pressure,
family pressure & sometimes the fear of unknown & this leads us to a life of disappointments & failures.

We request you to allow yourself to get the fear off & focus on what is your blessing & how can you use
that for yourself instead of focusing on what could go wrong.
For suggestions/ feedback please write to us at hr@choiceindia.com.

Thank you for your time.

Keep Learning, Keep Growing!

Team HR- Choice Group