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"One
Little Story"
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| 19.
The Unique Treasures of Mankind Vyâsa
hung his head and moved on in silence, muttering
the line, Saamaanyam ethath pasubhir
naraani; for man and beast and insect and
worm, these things are common, but, he told
himself, "Inquiry into the Ultimate, yearning
for Beauty, Truth and Goodness, Awareness of the
underlying Unity, these attributes of Wisdom are
the unique treasures of mankind", and went
his way. 20.
Adi Sankara's Pithru Bhakti brings Divine
Grace He thought
that his father would certainly ask for the
naiveidya of the God after his return. He
feared that the father may thought that he drank
away all the milk and may be angry with him.
Therefore he prayed to the Goddess. "Goddess,
give me at least one drop of milk so that I may
be able to give it to my father". But the
goddess did not come. He again sincerely
continued to pray; the goddess was moved and she
appeared. Because she was not able to give the
milk that she drank, she gave her own milk and
filled the cup. There is a belief that because
Sankara tasted the divine milk, he was able to
attain the highest learning, knowledge and
wisdom that are ever possible. So the essence of
the grace of the goddess became the essence of
learning of Sankara. In order to please his
father, he tried hard and was able to get the
Goddess of the Universe to manifest Herself
before him. From this story, we must learn to
revere and obey the orders of our fathers
implicitly and sincerely. 21.
The blanket of Mâyâ and the
bear So in this
river of life, mâyâ plays
like the bear and we mistake it to be a bundle
of blankets. Hoping that it would offer us
solace, comfort and happiness, we jump into the
river and try to catch it. At a later stage when
we want to extricate ourselves from it, we find
it impossible to do so. This illusion is created
by mâyâ but the divine
principle is always one. Visistadvaita
has been teaching from time immemorial that
though the forms are different, there is only
one Purusha,
which is the unity in the diversity and
multiplicity of forms. 22.
Tenali Râmakrishna's Tanesha
Bharatam When day
dawned, Sabari's parents as well as the groom's
party were plunged in grief and anxiety; they
combed the area, even amidst the thick bushes,
but they went back, saying among themselves,
"she could not have gone to the hermitage, for
no woman would be given asylum there". Sabari
heard those words and so she concluded that the
hermitage was the safest place for her. She felt
that some monk would take pity on her, and not
send her back. Mathanga rishi espied her
and gave her permission to be in his habitation.
He told her that God in the form of
S'rî Râma was coming to the
hermitage some day, since He had been exiled
into the forests for 14 years and He is eager to
save the monks and the seekers doing
tapas in the forests, from the ravage of
the demonic enemies of peace! Râma, he
said, was proceeding from one region to another,
with His consort Sîtâ and His
brother Lakshmana. Sabari was so
immersed in Râma that the ascetics
lost all awareness of her sex; they allowed her
to remain in the hermitage, after Mathanga
related to them her high level of
sâdhana. Mathanga left his body and
gave up his hermitage to Sabari, saying, you
alone deserve to be here when Râma
arrives! The
sâdhana that Sabari did to earn the bliss
of serving Râma, you can do, when
you serve Sai Râma in the poor. By this
service, you realize the Self of
Râma. 24.
The World Conference of
Animals
The Lion
presided over the deliberation. The tiger
questioned the claims of man; the leopard
seconded the resolution of emphatic protest. It
made a devastating speech, condemning man: "He
is a standing disgrace to animals everywhere. He
manufactures and drinks merrily fatal poisons
and is proud of his utter foolishness. He cheats
his own kind and spends all his energies and
resources in devising diabolic weapons to wipe
out his sisters and brothers; he prods horses
and dogs to run in desperate haste and gambles
his earnings away, while they gallop along the
track; he is cruel, greedy, immortal, insatiable
and unashamed. He sets a bad example to the
animal world. Though endowed with superior
emotions and intelligence, his behavior is
disgusting and demeaning", he said. "We do not
know if and where we will get our next meal; we
have no sure place to rest. We have nothing to
wrap round ourselves, except the skin. But, yet
the least of us is far worthier child of God
than this monster called man." He
concluded. The fox rose
and added: "We have a reason when we mate, but,
man, I am ashamed to say, has broken all
regulations and cares for no restraint. He is a
law unto himself and a disaster to the
rest". The lion rose,
to sum up the arguments. He agreed with the
general trend of the tirade against man,
provoked by his undeserved claim to supremacy.
But, he refused to tar all with the same brush.
He distinguished between men who are bestial and
worse, and men who have transcended their
bestial past by the proper use of the special
gifts of discrimination and detachment. The
latter, he said, ought to be received by all
beasts as masters, while the former deserved
severe reprisals and condemnation. 25.
Seek the point of view of
God
The matter
went to the court and after hearing arguments on
both sides, the judge said: "The injured leg has
no responsibility, for it was taken into the
godown with the trail of fire by the three
healthy feet. So, damages have to be paid by the
owners of the healthy feet to the owner of the
limping foot". What may thus appear correct at
first sight might prove wrong on second
thoughts. There is a correctness from the wordly
point of view and a correctness from God's. Find
out what the point of view of God would be, by
association with godly men; they can give you
proper advice. You must seek and not avoid good
men. 26.
Atma Thathwa is one and the same in
all 27.
The one basis and different
containers Then
the teacher felt that what he said came back to
him as a boomerang and he wanted to teach the
student a good lesson. He went to the board and
wrote 'Guru Brahma' as two different
words. He also wrote 'S'ishya Brahma',
and 'Sarvam Brahma'. When you look at
theses three, though Brahma is occurring as the
same in all the three, the Guru,
S'ishya and Sarvam are different.
Only when these three words also become one, you
can say that all are one. Thus, until you are
able to experience this oneness of all in
practice, the student will remain a student and
a teacher will remain a teacher and there is no
escape from the need for the student having to
respect the teacher. The basis is one but the
containers are different. 28.
The right path to liberation 29.
Every act of the Lord has a
significance It
was a great piece of good luck for
Hanumân, for it entailed Hanumân's
constant attendance on his Master, for how could
anyone predict when the yawn would come? And, he
had to be ready with a snap, as soon as the yawn
was on! He could not be away for a minute nor
could he relax for a moment. You must be happy
that the seva of the Lord keeps you always in
His presence and ever vigilant to carry out His
behests [see for example also:
S.B.
5:19,
& RRV:12a]. 32.
Vairagya - The story of Mohajith She
told the sage that this earth is a caravanserai,
where men come and stay for the night and when
dawn breaks, one by one, they tramp their
different ways. Kith and kin are the words we
use for the attachment to the travelers
cultivated in the caravanserai during the short
term of acquaintance. The wife of the "dead"
Prince was also unaffected; she said, "Husband
and wife are like two pieces of wood drifting
down a flooded river; they float near each other
for some time and when some current comes
between, they part; each must move on to the sea
at its own rate and its own time. There is no
need to grieve over the parting of the two; it
is in the very nature of Nature that it should
be so." The sage was overjoyed to see this
steady and sincere vairagya in the rulers
and the ruled. He came back to the forest and
told the Prince that while he was away, a
hostile army had invaded his kingdom and
enslaved his subject. He took the news calmly
and said, "All this is a bubble, impermanent,
flimsy. Let it go the way of the bubble. Guide
me to reach this Infinite, the
Imperishable". 33.
Never judge another's devotion There
is the case of a couple who was proceeding
through thick jungle on pilgrimage to an
inaccessible shrine. The husband saw on the
footpath a precious stone, shining brilliantly
when the sun's rays fell upon it from between
the 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. The
Raja who spoke in his sleep the sacred name of
Râma felt very sorry, according to the
story, that he let Râma Nâma out of
his mouth, for he believed that no one should
know of his 'love' for Râma. There are
many who will not shout about their guru
or their favorite nama and
rûpa but, whether you declare them
to others or not, keep them ever in your
consciousness. Râma Nâma or any
other name must be as constant as breathing. For
this, practice is essential. A
person once told Dr. Johnson, the famous English
thinker, that he could seldom get time to recite
the name of God, with the hundreds of things he
had to do from morning till nightfall and even
far into the night. Dr. Johnson replied whit
another question. He asked how millions of
people found space to live upon the face of the
earth, which is two thirds water and the rest
too full of mountains, deserts, forests, icy
regions, river-beds, marshes and similar
impossible areas. The questioner said that man
somehow struggled to find living space. So too,
said Dr. Johnson, man must somehow find a few
minutes a day for prayer to the Lord. 34.
God
on your side - world in your hold If God is on
your side, you have the world in your hold. This
is the lesson driven home by the Hindu
scriptures. "Give up all bonds of right and
duty; surrender unreservedly to Me! I shall
guard you from sin and liberate you from that
sad cycle of 'entrances' and 'exits' on the
stage of life. You can remain ever in your own
reality of eternal calm", the Lord has
assured. [see also Bhagavad
Gîtâ,
ch. 7
& ch.
18] 35.
Dharmaraja's
grief over Karna's death 36.
Krishna
is the visualization of the
Âtmâ Yas'odâ
traces Krishna to the place He hides in, by the
footprints He leaves, when He has broken the
curdpot, which she was churning. This is a
symbolic story to illustrate how the Lord breaks
our identification with the body and leads us on
to Himself, by signs and signals that He
provides all-round us. These signs are ever
present in the nature around each one of us, in
the beauty of the rising sun, the ecstasy of the
rainbow, the melody of the birds, the lotus-
spangled surface of lakes, the silence of
snow-crowned peaks - in fact, since god is
rasa, sweetness, ecstasy, all nature,
which is but Himself in action, is sweet and
ecstatic. With or without form, it is
ananda. Welcome it into the heart as
Râma - He who is joy and grants
joy, or as Krishna - He who draws you by
means of the joy He imparts - and, live all your
moments with it, offering your dhyana,
your puja, your japa. That will
open the doors of jñâna and
of liberation. This is the mark of the wise,
while those who are otherwise wander in the
wilderness, filling their moments with
meaningless trifles, toys and
gew-gaws. Purusha:
the male principle; the Absolute Truth in
its original form (mahâ-purusha). The lord
as the purusha assumed the original form of the
material world with her sixteen principles of
material action (S.B.
1.3:1). Painting
of Lakshmî by
Johannes Ptok |
It
is said that during the Kurukshetra
battle which lasted for 18 days, Vyâsa
had his mind torn with contrition, for, the
contestants were both of his lineage. So, he
could not cast his eyes on the fratricidal
carnage! One day, he was so overcome by remorse
that he hastened beyond the blood-soaked plain,
where another day's holocaust was about to
begin. Hurrying along, he saw a spider scurrying
forward on the ground! "Why so fast?" inquired
the sage; the spider ran off the road, climbed
up an ant hill by its side and from that
eminence, it replied, "Know you not that the war
chariot of Arjuna is about to pass this
way! If I am caught under its wheels, I am
done". Vyâsa laughed at this reply,
he said, "No eye gets wet when you die! The
world suffers no loss when you are killed! You
leave no vacuum when you disappear".
The
spider was touched to the quick by this insult.
It was shaking with rage. It ejaculated, "How is
that? You are a bloated sage! You feel that if
you die, it will be a great loss, whereas I will
not be missed at all. I too have a wife and
children whom I love. I too have a home and a
store of food. I too cling to life with as much
tenacity as you folk. I have hunger, thirst,
grief, pain, joy, delight and the agony of
separation from kith and kin. The world is as
much in me and for me, as in and for human
beings and other."
From
that day Sabari had no other thoughts than of
Râma, no other desire than the desire to
have the darshan of Râma, the chance to
touch His Feet and the opportunity to speak with
Him. Her heart was saturated with the
Râmarasa, the sweetness of the
Râma principle. She had no other
japam or dhyana or spiritual
exercise. She spent her time, preparing for the
visit of Râma to the hermitage; just as
she cleaned the paths, she cleaned her heart,
too. Pebbles and thorns disappeared from both
through her efforts. She walked through the
under growth and removed overhanging creepers
and briars, for she imagined Râma would
not have combed His hair and it might get
caught. She broke the lumps of earth, for she
feared the tender soles of Sîtâ
would be hurt when she walked over them. She
gathered fruits and tubers from the jungle trees
and plants and kept them by every day, for no
one knew when Râma would arrive! And she
took no risks. She tasted every fruit, whether
it was bitter, sour or sweet, so that Râma
could eat the best. She smoothed the surface of
all stones that lay by the side of the tracks in
the jungle for, she expected Râma,
Lakshmana or Sîtâ to sit upon one of
them when they got tired of walking. She hoped
that one of them would rest awhile on one of the
rocks she polished with great care. Thus, her
heart became Râma Hridaya! (Lord
Râma became the resident of
Sabari's heart).
Man
is the noblest of all animals, the final product
of untold ages of progressive evolution; but he
is not consciously striving to live up to his
heritage. The beasts held a World Conference, to
confabulate on the authenticity of man's claim
to be the acme of creation and the monarch of
all that walks the earth.
After
the coronation, one day, Sîtâ and
the three brothers of Râma met and planned
to exclude Hanumân from the seva of
Râma and wanted that all the various
services for Râma should be divided only
among themselves. They felt that Hanumân
had enough chances already. So, they drew up a
list, as exhaustive as they could remember, of
the services from dawn till dusk, down to the
smallest minutiae and assigned each item to one
among themselves. They presented the list of
items and assignees to the Lord, while
Hanumân was present. Râma heard
about the new procedure, read the list and gave
His approval, with a smile. He told
Hanumân that all the tasks had been
assigned to others and that he could now take
rest. Hanumân prayed that the list might
be read and when it was done, he noticed a task
of omission - the task of 'snapping fingers when
one yawns'. Of course, being an emperor,
Râma should not be allowed to do it
himself. It has to be done by a servant, he
pleaded. Râma agreed to allot that task to
Hanumân!
There
is a fine story about Karna. He was applying oil
to his head, preliminary to his bath, from a
jeweled cup. Karna had taken the oil in his
right hand and rubbed it well into his hair,
when Krishna appeared and Karna rose to revere
Him. He said He had come to demand the cup from
him as a gift! "I am surprised that You, the
Master of the Universe, have a desire for this
paltry thing but who am I to ask you questions?
Here is the cup, I gift it to You", he said, and
placed it in the Lord's right hand with his left
hand. Krishna took him to ask for that error in
dharma, offering a gift with the left
hand. But Karna said, "Pardon me, o Lord! My
right hand is smeared with oil; I was afraid,
that if I take time to wash the hand and make it
fit to give the cup, my wayward mind which now
had agreed to the gift, might discover some
argument not to accede to Your request; I might
therefore be deprived of the unique fortune, by
the fickle mind with which I am burdened. This
is the reason why I acted immediately and passed
it on to You, regardless of the breach of a rule
of etiquette; please sympathize with me and
pardon me", Karna pleaded. Karna knew that the
mind is unsteady, but, as Krishna advised
Arjuna, detachment and discipline can tame it.
[photo of Krishna and Karna by
