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"One
Little Story"
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| One
young man resolved that if he eats the skins
first, the sweet soft fruit inside can be no
problem later; the other youth decided that once
the soft portions were eaten fast he would have
enough time to chew the skins. But, after
finishing the skins the first young man had no
stomach to swallow the kernel; he was too full.
The other man had to stop as soon as he had
finished the soft insides, for he had no more
space inside him for the skins! Both failed in
the competition; but, what a difference they had
in their experiences! The first had a surfeit of
bitter; the other, a surfeit of sweet!
People
resolve to experience God and godly company only
after going through most of life. They eat skins
and have no appetite for the kernel. The first
place must be accorded to God; then, joy and
peace will be the lot. He
said: "The eye that sees cannot speak. The
tongue that speaks cannot see. I cannot compel
the eye to speak nor the tongue to see". The
hunters went away quietly and the deer was
saved. The monk had not uttered
falsehood. At last, the
daughter hit upon a plan to escape punishment.
She told her father to tell the palace officers
that she would like to meet the prince face to
face eight days later and if the prince still
wanted to marry her, she was willing to do so.
Then, she swallowed strong purgatives every day
and collected the excreta each day in a separate
vessel. On the eighth day, she was taken in a
royal palanquin to see the prince. She took with
her the eight vessels well covered up and
insisted that they too be placed in the Audience
Hall, where she was to meet the prince. None
knew what they contained. The prince was shocked
to find before him a living skeleton of a girl,
ghastly, with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. He
asked her: "Where is all that beauty
gone?" She pointed to the eight vessels of
excreta. The prince, it need [not] be
said, declined the marriage and the girl was
happy she had taught him a lesson on the
evanescence of physical charm. Someone
had a hundred acres in the south; but he had an
itching for more, at least a 1000. So he went in
all directions seeking regions where he could
get vast areas of uncultivated but cultivable
land. At last, he came to a Himalayan kingdom
and the King gladly offered to give him all the
land he hungered for. The only limit he placed
was his endurance. He said the man should start
walking without tarrying; he should return to
the starting point before the sun had set. All
the land enclosed by his route, traced by his
steps from start to finish, would be his. That
was the generous offer the King made. The greedy
migrant waited anxiously for the first rays of
the rising sun and he started off on the
circumference of a very wide circle, running in
fact, until evening fell. He was so exhausted
when he neared the starting point that within
three yards of the starting spot, he dropped
dead! His heart stopped beating. He had
overworked it in his mad race to appropriate as
many acres as he possibly could, before sunset.
When
Krishna appeared at one time on one side,
on the other side at another time and some times
all around him, Kamsa scorned Krishna and
said: "You fellow! Krishna! Put
a stop to your magic tricks!" He did not
stop with that. He boasted: "Face to face
with the might of my shoulders, the might of
your magic, how much is it? Only a tiny
drop!" When the same Krishna, a seven
year old youngster vaulted over him and felled
him to the ground and sitting on his chest,
squeezed his neck in a mortal hold, Kamsa wailed
piteously: "Oh! Oh! I am dying!" Then,
Krishna retorted: "Uncle, this is magic!
Magic, only magic!" [see also for
example S.B.
10.4
etc.] God
told a certain sannyâsî:
"Do not worry, I am always behind you."
One day, the sannyâsî wanted
to test whether God spoke the truth. So, acting
out of doubt, he quickly turned his head and
naturally, did not see God. He asked God why He
wasn't there and God said: "As you turned
your head, I moved around to the back of your
head! Naturally, you were unable to see Me".
God
is Truth. Truth is His Nature. Truth is His
sign, His breath. But,
that does not end the story of the craving for
the fruit. Since so many instruments cooperated
in the fulfillment, gratitude has to be
rendered to each of them. So, the stomach sends
strength and satisfaction to every limb that
shared in the adventure of securing the fruit
and eating it - the eyes, the feet, the hands,
the fingers, the shoulder, the tongue, the
teeth, the gullet. No one of them is neglected
or discriminated against. While
life lasts, use every moment for the
sâdhana which will lead you
Godwards. Pundaleek,
a great devotee of Panduranga
was one day massaging the feet of his mother.
Then, his Panduranga, the form of God he
had installed in his heart and shrine, came in
all His splendor and stood before him. What a
temptation to give up the service to the mother
and rush towards the Feet of his God! But,
Pundaleeka said: "Please wait a few moments, I
shall finish this service and then offer homage
to You". He threw a brick for Panduranga to
stand upon, for it is the first step in
hospitality, to offer a seat for the guest.
Pundaleeka's
guru, Kabir, told him that one does
service to the mother so that the grace of God
can be won. But, even then, he did not give up
the service in the middle. Such was his
steadfastness and his faith.
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Two
young men studying in the same college
challenged eachother - who can eat faster than
the other, a prescribed number of bananas. They
decided upon impartial umpires and stood before
the banana baskets. 
There
was a monk once who as the first two steps in
ascetic practice decided on two vows: 1. not to
injure any living thing and 2. not to speak
falsehood. While he was engaged in meditation
under a tree in the thick jungle, invoking the
aid of God to confirm him in these two vows, he
saw a beautiful deer running in terror from some
hunters and taking refuge in a bower behind his
hermitage. The hunters came to him seconds
later. They asked him about the whereabouts of
the deer. The poor monk was in a fix. If he told
them that he saw it entering the bower they
would catch it and kill it. That would go
against his first vow. If he told them that he
did not know its whereabouts, it would be
against his second vow. He avoided breaking both
his vows in a very clever way. 
While
Râma, Sîtâ and
Lakshmâna were moving among the
hills and dales of Dandakaranya, one day
Râma moved towards the bank of a
clear blue lake. While stepping down the bank,
Râma put His foot on a little frog,
which suffered great pain but remained mute.
Râma felt pity at the poor
creature's plight and asked the frog, why it did
not cry out in protest. The frog replied:
"Whenever I get into trouble or have fear from
foes, I cry out 'Râma!
Râma!' but, when Râma
Himself is causing me pain, whom am I to
appeal to?"
An
ant was caught on a dry leaf that was being
carried down a flooded river and it called out
from its tiny heart to God for succor.
God prompted a kite (a long-winged bird of prey
that typically has a forked tail and frequently
soars on updrafts of air) that was flying over
the river to dive and rise up, with the leaf in
its beak; for He made the bird mistake it for a
fish or frog! The bird was sorely disappointed,
but, the ant was delighted to land on hard
ground! God came as a kite and rescued
me, it felt. I must be grateful to the bird, to
all birds it resolved. One day, while on its
morning round, it saw a hunter aim an arrow at a
bird. Remembering how its own life was given by
a bird, it bit the heel of the hunter, when he
was about to release the mortal shaft; the aim
failed, the bird flew off and was saved. The ant
had paid its debt. 
