The Palace of Illusions

“A problem becomes a problem only if you believe it to be so

ure of happiness. But the comfort that duty proffers is luke-

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warm at best.

Just as we cast off worn clothes and wear new ones, when the time arrives, the soul casts off the body and finds a new one to work out its karma. Therefore the wise grieve neither for the living nor the dead.

Distance is a great promoter of harmony

Try to remember that you are the instrument and I the doer. If you can hold on to this, no sin can touch you.

Can I really change history? I asked. What about the sins I'll incur, being the cause of so much devastation?

The voice

She was the only consort that dared accompany the Pandavas on this final, fearsome adventure. When she fell, she did not weep, but only raised her hand in brave farewell. How could I resist it?

The more people dissuaded me, the more determined I became. Perhaps that has always been my problem, to rebel against the boundaries society has prescribed for women.

You call them mine, and you call the others theirs. For shame! Hasn't this been the cause of your troubles ever since the fatherless sons of Pandu arrived at Hastinapur? If you'd seen them all as yours to love, this war would never have occurred.

Who had congregated here to do what nature never required of bird or beast—for it is only we humans that create such tragic duties for ourselves: to identify their dead and perform their final rites.