"Become Yourself"

“Resist what resists within you.

Become yourself.”

When I heard that quote in the Mahabharata, I got to thinking. There are always those things in movies in stories that get to me. A wise person finds themselves within the pages of a story, looking at another, and altering their lives with just a few simple words. I have several of these quotes up on the wall of my dorm room. The elderly doctor telling his young apprentice that despite all else, even if others claim there is nothing to find, “There is always something.” Then a more notable, powerful quote, that even if something is within your mind, “Why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” Yet the Mahabharata was getting at something much deeper with that statement.

We have heard all about dharma and adharma from Guru, the good and evil balancing within ourselves as well the universe. When one is greater than the other, there is resistance and evil in the world. When the brother stepped up to be king, he took hold of his own fate to restore the balance in the world. If people believe that fate or God has a plan, and we are all part of it, then the simple statement to “become yourself” holds very heavy. The brother stepped up into his fate, and though greeting it with hesitation, he placed dharma and adharma back within their balance. Throughout the story, the Mahabharata shows the theme of sacrificing your own thoughts and desires to do what is right. A wife gave up her vision to be on the same level as her husband, while another took her own life for being the cause of her husband’s death. They saw what they needed to do, what the right thing was for them to do. Though they doubted themselves, their abilities, and were frightened at the thought, they became themselves.

I still feel like some of the power of the statement is lost on me, a Westerner with a different mindset from the East. However, I notice the power of “[becoming] yourself,” the fate and destiny the characters threw themselves towards for the law or the greater good. And they were very noble acts, indeed.