0:00 / 1:46

Weakness · Part 1 — No One Is Defeated by Their Weakness

No One Is Defeated by Their Weakness

1:46·1080p·Part 1 of 2·Hindi audio, English subtitles

“One cannot run very fast; another cannot lift a heavy load; one is afflicted with an incurable illness; another cannot hold his lessons in memory.”

Krishna, in this teaching

About this teaching

Drawn from the teaching's own words — auto-transcribed and translated. The full transcript is further down.

Chapter 5 — Weakness

Chapter 5 of 35 — 2 parts, 4 min in total.

Weakness, and what pressure reveals rather than creates.

Characters in the Mahabharata are undone less by enemies than by a single soft place in themselves. Yudhishthira cannot refuse a game of dice. Karna cannot refuse a friend who was kind to him once. Bhishma cannot break a vow he made as a young man to a father who never asked for it.

The epic treats these not as flaws to be sneered at but as the ordinary shape of a person. What it examines is the moment when the weakness meets a situation built to exploit it — and whether the person has done the work beforehand to recognise it.

What the Mahabharata counsels

On this theme in general — not a summary of this clip.

✓Know your one soft place before someone else finds it — Yudhishthira never examined his taste for the dice.
✓Treat a moment of crisis as a test of preparation already done, not a thing to improvise.

→Assuming strength elsewhere covers for the weakness you won't look at.
→Mistaking a loyalty or habit for a virtue when it is the exact lever against you.

Background on the theme of this chapter, not a summary of this particular clip. Watch it for what Krishna actually says.

Transcript

English translation

In this world every single person surely carries some weakness or another. One cannot run very fast; another cannot lift a heavy load; one is afflicted with an incurable illness; another cannot hold his lessons in memory. But a person is not defeated by his weakness: whoever keeps in his heart the courage to strive (purushartha) crosses beyond it. And so, weakness is indeed given by God (Ishwar) — but the limit? The limit is fashioned by nothing other than the mind of man himself. Reflect on that.

हिन्दी — as spoken

जगत में प्रतेक वेक्ति को किसी ना किसी प्रकार की निर्बलता अवश्चे होती है। जैसे कोई बहुत तेजी से दौर नहीं पाता तो कोई अधिक भार नहीं उठा पाता। कोई आसाध्य रोग से पीड़ित रहता है तो कोई बड़े हुए पाठों को स्मरण में नहीं रख पाता। जैसे कोई बहुत तेजी से दौर नहीं पाता तो कोई बड़े हुए पाठों को स्मरण में नहीं रख पाता। व्यक्ति निर्बलता से पराज़ित नहीं होता, जो पुरुषात करने का साहस रखता है रुदय में, वो निर्बलता को पार कर जाता है। अतपात, निर्बलता अवश्य इश्वर देता है, किंतु मर्यादा? मर्यादा मनुष्य का मन ही निर्मित करता है। वह विचार कीजिए

Auto-transcribed from the audio; lightly imperfect on Sanskrit names and terms.

What this chapter covers

2 teachings, 3:54 in total. The titles are the topics.

Keyboard shortcuts

Space / K: Play or pause
← / →: Back or forward 10s
J / L: Back or forward 30s
↑ / ↓: Volume
M: Mute
F: Fullscreen
, / .: Speed
N: Next teaching

Related teachingsclosest in what they explore