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"One
Little Story"
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| Râma
is the bee that sucks the honey of devotion from
the lotus of the heart. The bee loosens the
petals of the flower it sits upon; bur
Râma adds to its beauty and
fragrance. He is like the Sun, which draws the
water to itself by its rays and accumulating it
as cloud, sends it back as rain to quench the
thirst of earth. Râma, the mystic
potent sound, is born in the navel and it rises
up to the tongue and dances gladly thereon.
The Vedic
declaration 'thath-thvam-asi'
(That-thou-art) is enshrined in the word
Râma, which consists of three sounds:
'Raa' - 'aa' and 'ma'. Of these 'Ra' is the
symbol of 'Thath' (That; Brahman, God); 'Ma' is
the symbol of 'Thvam' (Thou;
jîvî, individual) and 'aa' that
connects the two is the symbol of the identity
of the two. Rukminikalyana
is not simply the story of a marriage. It is the
union of Purusha (the male principle)
with Prakriti (the material nature)
itself. The brahmin intermediary is the
symbol of vedic authority through which
the merging of the two is known. Rukminî
is the Jîva (the individual soul)
and Krishna is the
Paramâtmâ (the supersoul).
She is suffering from the rules and restrictions
imposed by prakriti,
ahamkâra (false ego derived from being
identified with the body) is her brother and
worldliness is her father. But on account of her
sadâchâra (good conduct), her
mind rested on God. So she was able to plan a
method of reaching God. Her prayers, repentance,
yearning and steadfastness were rewarded. Her
observance of the age-old code of good conduct
at last saved her, for, she went out for the
Girijâ (Ambikâ) puja,
before the marriage rite. In that temple she was
immersed in the worship of God and so she was
liberated from the bonds by the God who was
lying in wait! The parents and the brother and
all the relatives objected but, an individual is
born to work out its destiny, not to live out
the days according to the plans laid down by
others, however dear or near they may be
[see for this story S.B. 10.52
& 10.53] The next day,
the same actor came to the palace as a female
artist of dance, very orthodox and restrained.
The king appreciated it highly and the Minister
brought forth the plate full of gold coins. The
dancer refused to accept it, because it was too
small a recompense for the skill exhibited. The
King suspected from the voice that it was the
sannyâsî of the day previous
that was standing before him as the female
artist. Finding that his surmise was correct, he
asked him why he was asking for more today, when
he had refused to take the same gift the
previous day. The actor replied, "Yesterday, I
was a sannyâsî and so, it was
my dharma to refuse. Today I am a dancer
and so it is my dharma to earn as much
remuneration as I can from my fans." A husband may
not be aware of the excellence of his wife's
spiritual attainments. There is the case of a
couple who were proceeding through a thick
jungle on pilgrimage to an inaccessible shrine.
The husband saw on the footpath a precious
stone, shining brilliantly when the rays of the
sun fell upon it from between leaves. He hastily
threw some sand over it with a movement of his
foot so that his wife may not be tempted to pick
it up and become a slave to the tinsel. The wife
saw the gesture and chided the husband for still
retaining in his mind a distinction between sand
and diamond. For her, both were the same.
174.
The
Daughter in law's Dictum There was a
beggar who once wailed before a rich house for a
mouthful. The master, reclining in an easy
chair, drove him away with harsh words. But, the
beggar persisted. He asked for some stale food,
at least! At this, the daughter-in-law who was
at her meals in the inner apartments, replied:
"My dear fellow! We are at present eating stale
food. The fresh dishes are now being cooked".
The beggar knew what she meant; he understood
that the woman was pointing out that the
father-in-law by his insolence and cruelty was
preparing for a miserable future, while his
present high standard of living was made
possible by the merit he acquired through
charity in previous lives! We eat stale food,
that is to say, the result of the acts in past
lives. We are also cooking our future meals.
There was a
cowherd called Mâladâsa who was
determined to see the Lord the way He was
described in the sacred texts he had heard
expounding in the village temple by a pundit. So
he prayed and prayed to the 'Dark Lord riding
on the white bird' all the time his cows
were pasturing in the fields. Eleven days
passed, but there was no sign of the 'Dark
Lord riding on the white bird'. He had
forgotten to take food and drink during all
those days and so had become weak, too weak to
walk or talk. At last, the Lord melted at his
entreaties and presented Himself before him as
an old brahmin. But the brahmin was not riding a
white bird, nor was he dark, beautifully dark,
as the pundit had described. So, he asked the
brahmin to come the next day at seven in the
morning so that he may bring the pundit and
verify whether He was the Lord Himself.
The pundit
laughed at the whole affair and refused to take
part in it; but, Mâladâsa was so
importunate that he agreed. The entire village
turned out on the river bank the next day, long
before seven o'clock. The brahmin was there,
exactly as he had promised and
Mâladâsa showed Him to all. But they
could not see him. They began to laugh at the
cowherd's antics and threatened him with severe
beating, for bringing them all along as butts
for his joke. Mâladâsa could see the
brahmin clearly but no one else could. At last,
Mâladâsa got so enraged that he
walked up to the old brahmin and gave him a
whacking blow on the cheek, saying: "Why don't
you show Yourself to all?" That blow
changed the entire scene. The brahmin
disappeared. Krishna appeared in resplendent
robes, with a smiling face, in a captivating
form on the white bird. As the astounded
villagers were recovering from the amazement, a
heavenly chariot, the vimâna,
floated down from the sky and Lord Krishna asked
Mâladâsa to sit inside. Then with
the Lord by his side, Mâladâsa rose
up and soon was out of sight. Then, there
was Suguna another gopî. One
day, when Krishna was with
Satyâbhâma, He pretended to
have severe ache in the stomach and in spite of
all the remedies that she tried she could not
afford relief. Of course, it was all acting,
superb acting, such as the paralytic stroke I
had for a week previous to Guru Pournima
recently! Even Rukminî was not
admitted into the house by her to inquire about
Krishna's health. But,
Rukminî found Suguna pining
outside the door in great agony at the illness
of the Lord. Rukminî gave her the
articles and asked her to go in. Krishna
welcomed Suguna and made her sit at His
Feet and ate the fruits she had picked up from
Satyâbhâma's own garden and
suddenly, the ache had gone. It was her agony at
the Lord's condition, her simple sincere
devotion that was so effective. There should
be no artificiality in your attachment to the
Lord, no affectation, no pride, no egoism left
to soil the freshness of the flower you offer.
Satyâbhâma protested when
Krishna accepted the fruits, for,
Krishna had brushed it aside as tasteless
when she had herself offered them as the
precious product of her assiduous gardening
effort. They were tasteless, since her pride had
entered into it. Now, when the simple rustic
gopî picked them from the ground
and saturated them with her devotion, they
became tasty and attractive, for the Lord, cares
for the bhâva (affection) not the
bâhya (outer, exterior)!
In the
Kuchela (Sudâmâ) episode, the
wife of Kuchela plays a more important
role than Kuchela himself. She has much
more bhakti; in fact, women are more
devotional than men, they can master their minds
better. It was her maternal love that prompted
her to send Kuchela to the Lord so that her
children might get a full meal. She had faith in
the Lord. Kuchela hesitated and argued that
Krishna might not recognise him or invite
him in or accept his homage [see for this
story S.B. 10.80
- An Old Brahmin Friend Visits
Krishna]. A
young man got married one morning at 9 0'clock.
In the evening the newly wedded couple left for
a walk. On the first day of their wedded life,
the mind of the young man was engrossed in the
welfare of his wife. They walked side by side.
The young man saw a thorn on the way. He did not
want his wife to tread over it. So he pulled his
wife away from the thorn well in time. Six
months went by. While they were walking again,
he saw another thorn on the way. In a very
casual manner, the husband said: "There is a
thorn in your way; try to avoid it." He was not
as anxious as he was on the first day of their
wedded life. One whole year went by. They were
walking to some place again and he saw a thorn
on the way. His wife was walking without
noticing. He angrily reprimanded his wife
saying: "There is a thorn, are you blind, can
you not see?" Notice how within one year, the
love of a husband to his wife has undergone
transformation. The
influence of the divine is such that while you
are contemplating it, all trace of envy and
greed will disappear from the mind. The boy
Krishna had entered a gopî's house and was
just standing beneath the milk pot hung above
when she discovered Him; Krishna ran out into
the street and the gopî pursued Him, and
wanted to catch Him. She wanted to catch Him
fast, for she was so pained that the boy was
running in the hot sun. She never worried about
the loss of curds or milk or butter, but, the
thought of Krishna's tender feet walking over
the hard stones in the sun was something she
could not bear. Painting
of Mother with Child by Frank
Wesley. |
There
is a story in the Classics to illustrate the
worth of the name Râma. Sage
Prachetas once composed a text with
verses numbering hundred crores! The three
worlds competed among themselves to take the
entire text. The struggle assumed calamitous
proportions and so God brought them together and
persuaded them to accept a third each, that is
to say, each world (Heaven, Earth and the
Underworld) received thirty-three crores,
thirty-three lakhs, thirty-three-thousand and
three-hundred-thirty-three verses each. One
verse remained undivided. It had thirty-two
syllables in all. So, when it too was allotted
among three co-sharers, at the rate of ten
syllables each, two syllables were left over.
How could two be divided among three? So, God
decided that they be adored and received by all
three worlds equally -- the syllables were
'Ra' and 'Ma', making up the
priceless key to salvation:
Râma!
