Gamblers Anonymous

“Hello, everyone.  Tonight we have two new members in our group.  Please make Yudhisthira and Nala feel right at home.  Yudhisthira, why don’t you start us off with a little introduction about yourself and how you came to be in this group.”

 
“Hi.”  [Chorus of typical replies.]  “My name is Yudhisthira and I was a king.  I gambled away my entire kingdom.  I even staked my wife and lost her.”  [Sympathetic winces all around.  Nala can definitely relate.]

 
“Nala, what about you?  How do you come to be here?”

 
“Well, I was a king too, actually.  And I did the same foolhardy thing that Yudhisthira here just admitted to.  I gambled my kingdom away.  I was possessed though, so it wasn’t really my fault.”  [Lots of rolled eyes around the group.  They’ve all said the same at one time or another.  I’m sure that’s the first thing one of them will point out.]

 
“Now Nala, you might have been possessed, but it wasn’t coercion.  Kali took advantage of your known weakness,”  Maya drawled.  [Maya doesn’t have a gambling problem, but he likes to come to group for reasons he keeps to himself.  Personally, I think he likes the bad-boy image. He has a bit of an unfair advantage, he knows Kali pretty well and probably already heard the story.]

 
“What do the rest of you think?”

 
“Well, I guess you could say the same about me.”  Yudhisthira replied.  “True, it’s the convention of my caste that we must accept a challenge, but no one made me lose the whole kingdom.  No one made me stake my wife.  Plus, I know Duryodhana was taking care of my known weakness.  Everyone knows I like to dice.  The only part that wasn’t really fair was that Duryodhana himself wouldn’t play.”  [Good observations!  I’m impressed at so much insight from him, considering he wanted to slink off into the forest alone after he won back his kingdom.]

 
“Nala?”

 
“Yes, I guess that’s about right.  I suppose that even if Kali hadn't been there, I would have lost my head over the dice.”  [Reluctant admission, but admission all the same.]

 
“So, we know what went wrong, but can any of you tell me why it’s wrong?” [Maybe I’m overreaching with this question; everyone’s looking away.]

 
“Well, is it because we got carried away and went past betting possessions, and onto things that we had no business gambling?  Nala finally ventured.  [This idea is worth pursuing.]

 
“For instance?”

 
“Well, if we gamble away our kingdoms, aren’t we breaking promises to the people go govern wisely and take care of them?”

 
“Yes, and?”

 
“It’s against one of the Vedic Restraints to gamble, isn’t it?”  Yudhisthira chimed in.  [They’re on the right track.]

 
“Right,”  Maya jumped in. “You’re thinking Yama 3, but the one about breaking promises is Yama 2.  Yama 3 says you should refrain from gambling.  It talks about it in the same context as thieving.  Actually – ”

 
“Yes, Maya, that’s a good point.” [He dominates the group if I don’t manage him.]  “Can any of you tell me why gambling would be one of the ten restraints?  After all, some practitioners gamble ritually on the new year just to inspire luck.”

 
“Is it because it makes you forget the other Yamas?  I mean, when I’m in the moment with the dice in my hand, I’m not thinking of anything else.  All I know is the rush of the bet and the contest.  It isn’t even so much about what I’m winning as the contest itself.  I certainly don’t remember vows or responsibilities.”   [Yudhisthira makes a great observation here.]

 
“Oh, yeah.  Yeah, because it’s not really stealing if it was a wager; it awakens desire - for the challenge, if not the wealth.  If it got bad enough, you might covet belongings just so you could wager them,”  Nala responded. 

 
“What are the effects on those around you?”

 
“Well, I know that I subjected Draupadi to horrible humiliations as a result.”  [Yudhisthira is reluctant to acknowledge how much pain he caused her, but he knows what a terrible thing it was to bet her.]

 
“And I left my wife because I was embarrassed – and possessed.”  [I don’t think Nala will get over that for a long time, but in all fairness, he was manipulated on a level he couldn’t control.]

 
“I think we’ve done good work today. None of you are evil people, but you must keep in mind the high price you and your loved ones paid for you to play the game. “

 

Author’s note:  I couldn’t seem to narrow my selection to one king for the last story, so I tried some group therapy.  It was fun to write, but now that I’ve read it, I’m not sure how I feel about having split the narrative up across so many characters.  Nala and Yudhisthira were both good kings, and overall they were very good men too.  They both had a gambling problem though.  Considering what upstanding moral citizens these men showed themselves to be, it seems a little strange that they had such weaknesses for gambling.  It seemed almost out-of-place for both of them.  I responded to it the same way I would if I witnessed any reasonably intelligent person make a monumental blunder like that.  It’s completely preventable, and the consequences are fairly predictable, yet people make those kinds of mistakes every day.  I suppose humans just hope and believe that they can beat the odds.  I put Maya in the mix for fun.  I’m not sure why, but joining a group as a hobby seemed like a totally Maya thing to do.  It adds another layer of mystery to his already complex being.  After all, being the Lord of Illusion, maybe he does have issues that he needs to take care of, but lucks out because everyone assumes his motivation can’t possibly be straightforward and they don’t take it seriously.