Source: TW
The historical narrative is riveting but ultimately means nothing if you can’t tie it back to what really matters. For those who follow Sampradāyas, the historical adventures of the Ṛṣis become aids for soteriological & metaphysical lessons.
If one reads the Veda as a whole together with the tradition that has been passed with it, one will understand that even Ṛṣi Vasiṣṭha went through serious tribulations & felt guilt for lapses on his part - lapses which are hinted in the Śruti as arising from a desire for more. Vasiṣṭha’s rāgā (desire) for Rājapaurohityam under the dominant Sudāsa was realized through his son Śakti. However, someone else had to pay a price for the competitive streak of these lofty men of great ritual & spiritual caliber—Viśvāmitra.
Vasiṣṭha & his clan are rewarded with immense glory & success in this world by the Devas,
including the great Daśarājñya war.
But while the rāgā of the Vāsiṣṭhas became fulfilled,
dveṣa started to churn in the heart of the ousted Viśvāmitra,
as tradition clearly tells us.
This eventually culminated in the death of Vasiṣṭha’s son, Śakti, who, before being consumed by the flames
set up by the clansmen of the very patron he had won for his father,
Sudāsa,
asks Indra to grant him Kratu
(a very unique, difficult-to-translate word that combines connotations of both ritual/spiritual knowledge & action;
a word that appears to prefigure the later concept of dṛk-kriyā—the powers of knowledge & action—in the Śaiva tradition).
That leads us to understand that even Ṛṣis,
though they were the vessels through which hoary mantras have come down to us,
were subject to Rāgā & Dveṣa Doṣas
as Śrīkaṇṭharudra pointedly castigates them in the Skāndapurāṇa.
The Jagadguru of the Brahmāṇḍa reprimands them even thus, as only he could.
This then ought to lead you down a line of inquiry as to why Rāgādi-Doṣas are able to control
even such exalted souls in the first place.
The answer to that will eventually lead you to the truest & highest meaning of the Mṛtyuñjaya-mantra
that Vasiṣṭha received from Īśvara.
The factual background of the stories in the Veda is hair-raising & exciting—the wars, betrayals, conspiracies, jealousies, resentment, ritual power & supernatural magic.
However, when you read them together with the insights of our Śāstras as a whole,
with the realizations of our later sages who gave us the Āgamas & Purāṇas, it becomes priceless.