Speak The Truth And Never Get Angry – Sathyam Vad Krodham Maakuroo – Story told by J P Vaswani
An incident in the life of the eldest of the Pandava brothers explains the true meaning of Sathyam Vad Krodham Maakuroo. As boys, Pandavas went to an ashram and the very first teaching passed on to them by their guru was – “Sathyam Vad Krodham maakuroo!” which means “speak the truth and never get angry!”
An incident in the life of the eldest of the Pandava brothers explains the true meaning of Sathyam Vad Krodham Maakuroo. As boys, Pandavas went to an ashram and the very first teaching passed on to them by their guru was – “Sathyam Vad Krodham maakuroo!” which means “speak the truth and never get angry!”
The next day the teacher asked the Pandava brothers if they
had learnt the lesson. All of them, expect Yudhishtira, the eldest, said they
had remembered the lesson. Yudhisthira said, “Sir, I have learnt only the first
half of the lesson. The latter half I have not yet been able to learn!” So, the
teacher very patiently made him repeat the words, “Krodham maakuroo! Krodham
maakuroo!”
But again, on the following, day when the teacher asked his
students if they had remembered the teaching, Yudhisthira said he had not been
able to memorize the second half of the lesson.
So the Guru again made him repeat the words. This continued
for a week.
After a week when Yudhisthira insisted that he had no yet
learnt the latter part of the teaching, the Guru lost his temper and shouted at
him – “How can you be so stupid? Your younger brothers learnt the lesson on the
very first day. Why is it that you cannot remember two simple words, Krodham
Maakuroo?”
Then suddenly Yudhisthira clapped his hands in joy and said
– “Sir, I can say now that I have learnt the lesson!”
“How is it that a moment ago, you could not recall the words
and you assert that you have learnt them?” asked the Guru, greatly surprise.
Yudhisthira said – “The first half of the lesson
was easy to remember, because I always speak the truth. The latter half, viz.,
never yield to anger, I could not be sure if I had mastered, unless someone got
angry at me, and in return, I remained calm. Today, I found that in the face of
anger I was unruffled and so I can truthfully say that I have remembered the
teaching.”