Delving deep into Karna: Search of self of a divine solitude

The indispensable impulse of human being is to search a meaning of ‘self’ and it is quite confusing to live a life with an uncertain identity because people cannot live without an solid self or the identity of a person ties him up closely with a meaningful system in which he can spend his life contentedly. Identity is the source of familial and social recognition. When it is questioned, the root of existence starts shuddering; the unidentified or unnamed self is excluded from the social periphery and the consequence is only conflict with society, anguish for recognition and a fight with oneself with an excruciating ache inside for having nameless origin. A handful of people can have the realization about the identity of ‘true self’ which is ‘avidya’ but the rest is confined to the limited reign of ‘world consciousness’. It is time which merely can liberate mundane from the delusion and establishes the truth that the true identity of a self is actually beyond body. True identity of a being reflects through stages like, Cosmic Consciousness (Kshara, the Cosmic Self), Pure-Consciousness, (Akshara, the Immortal Self) and Supreme Consciousness (Purushottama, the Supreme Self, the whole unified universe). As ‘self-realization’ is quite rare and as human beings belong to society, so to get the societal acknowledgment, identity is inevitable. This paper is an earnest attempt to explore and analyze the destined and ‘karmik’ causes of the crisis of the identity of Karna, the deserted hero of great Indian epic, the Mahabharata.