"One
Little Story"
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| 1o9.
When the Lord Decides on Something it has to
Happen Ambarisha
performed a yaga, but at the crucial
moment, the animal intended for the sacrifice
escaped. Now the priests ordained that to make
amends for this sinful neglect, a human being
should be offered as a substitute to the gods.
The King promised 1.000 cows in exchange for a
son, but which father will send a son to death,
even when 1.000 cows are given in exchange?
There were also other conditions; the King's
messengers should not ask any one for the son;
they should not commit the sin of equating 1.000
cows as equal to a human being; the father too
should not bring the sad offer to the son; the
offer to immolate himself must come unasked from
the son, without any prompting or persuasion; it
is only such a son that will be accepted by the
Gods. Now, S'unahs'epha
heard the news by himself and approaching his
father he said he would go and gladly too. For,
what greater good fortune can a mortal expect
than ascending to heaven through the sacrificial
flame? S'unahs'epha
persuaded his father that his wish to proceed to
the yajña and offer himself was
legitimate and approvable, and left for the
capital. On the way, he went to his maternal
uncle, Vis'vâmitra, who tried to
keep the boy away from the sacrifice. "This is
all just foolish superstition; can any one
substitute a man for a cow",
Vis'vâmitra asked?
S'unahs'epha replied that all men are
cattle, for until viveka and
vairagya dawn, they are but animals. So,
in spite of his uncle's arguments - arguments
like the ones used by some to dissuade persons
from coming to Puttaparthi, - S'unahs'epha
managed to reach the yagasala.
In the same
way as the lights before us are lit when a
switch is moved up at Penukonda, when the Lord
decides on some thing, it has to happen so.
Well, the Lord is not a rock or a stone; His
heart melted at the plight of the boy.
Indra appeared in the sacrificial fire
and departed showering blessings on his head. It
was Indra who had carried away the
original Cow and elaborated all this
plot, to bring S'unahs'epha and his
greatness to light and to bless him. 110.
All
Names are His, all Forms are His Let
me tell you an incident which happened while in
the previous body at Shirdi. There was a
lady from Pahalgaon, a simple, illiterate
devotee. She stored water in her kitchen in
three clean, brightly polished brass pots from
three separate wells and she had named the
pots, Ganga, Yamunâ and
Sarasvatî. She always referred to
them by those names. Whenever any thirsty
wayfarer called at her door, she mixed water
from all three and offered it to the person as
Triveni Tirtha. Neighbors used to laugh
at her faith, but her belief that the three
wells were connected underground with the three
rivers that joined at Prayag, was
unshakable. Her husband
started on a pilgrimage to
Kâs'î (Benares). His mother
while blessing his departure, put on his finger
her own golden ring and directed him to take
good care of it, for it would be a talisman for
him. When he was taking the ceremonial bath at
the Manikarnika Ghat, the ring slipped into the
waters and could not be retrieved. When he
returned and related this story, he said, "Ganga
wanted it, she took it", just to console his
mother. When the wife heard this, she said, "No,
no, Mother Ganga will not hanker after the
property of a poor old lady. She will accept
only what is offered out of love. She will give
us back the ring, I am sure. I shall ask Ganga,
she is in our kitchen". So saying, she went in
and with folded hands, she prayed before the
particular pot named by her as Ganga. Putting
her hand in it she searched the bottom and ...
sure enough, she got the ring back. She had come
to Dwarakamayi with her husband and
mother-in-law. It is faith that matters; the
form and the name on which it is fixed do not
matter. For all names are His; all forms are
His. 111.
Love
All Whom the Lord Loves The
gopîs had no other goal, no other
ideal, no other wish. It was a surrender of the
self - complete, unquestioned, unwavering. Let
me tell you of a devotee, a woman in a small
Maharashtra village, who lived in the last
century. She went through even the little
details of life in this spirit of dedication.
Walking was to her a pilgrimage, talking
japam. Even when she threw off a ball of
cowdung after applying it over the floor used by
her husband to keep his dining plate on while
eating, she said and felt "Krishnaarpanam
- May this be an offering to Krishna!"
Her tapas was so sincere that the cowdung
reached Krishna and stuck to Krishna's
idol in the village temple every day! The priest
saw the mysterious defilement; he was amazed and
was lost in terror. He cursed himself that he
had lived to see that sacrilege. Daily, about
noon, the same size of cowdung! He hung his head
in shame as he walked along, keeping the
disturbing phenomenon all to himself. One day he
heard that particular lady exclaim
"Krishnaarpanam" as she, like many other
house-wives, threw the tell-tale cowdung ball.
He suspected; he noted the timings, the
quantity, the material etc., until he was
convinced that she was the culprit for the
disfiguration of Krishna, the defilement
of that loveliness. Then he beat her so severely
that her arm that threw the dung was fractured.
When he
returned triumphantly to the temple expecting to
be profusely blessed by the Lord for punishing
the wicked woman, he was shocked to find
Krishna's right arm fractured and bleeding,
exactly like the woman's arm! The poor fellow
wept in his agony and said, "I beat her only
through love of You; she spoilt Your charm, oh
Lord." Krishna replied, "You must love all whom
I love, remember". Here too, I
want that you should so behave ... or at least
love yourself, that is to say, love your own
better self and 'best interests'. I will not
tolerate envy or malice or hatred among devotees
nor will I allow you to hate yourselves or think
of yourselves as mean or weak. Here
is a small story. An individual who was living
and being educated according to the ancient
traditions of India, wanted to go abroad for
higher education. His father took the son to the
Goddess and prayed that his son should be kept
safe and should return safe to India. The son,
seeing the father worship the Goddess, also
prayed to her in the same way. He was out of
India for two years. The boy who had lived in
India for 24 years was abroad only for two
years. After completing his education, he wrote
to his parents that he would be returning home.
The parents
were overjoyed and met him at the airport. They
wanted to take their son to the room where the
Goddess was and make him offer worship. As soon
as the boy alighted from the plane, they noticed
that he was in Western clothes. Without bowing
to them he asked, "How are you, mummy?" The
mother did not mind it, she was very
affectionate and blessed her son. They took him
home and he consented to visit the Goddess. On
entering the main gate, he refused to take off
his shoes and became impatient. He thought his
parents were uncivilized. While praying, they
asked him also to pray to the Goddess but he
just put his hands in his pockets and refused to
do so. When they asked him to do namaskar
to the Goddess, he asked instead "How are you,
mummy?" The father was so annoyed that he
slapped his son in the face and said: "You went
to the West with the grace of the Goddess and
after returning home, you have forgotten her.
You have become ungrateful and you are not fit
to be my son. The traditions you learnt in 24
years have been forgotten by you and the manners
and the way of life you learnt in another
country in two years are now with you. Will they
live with you permanently? It is foolish to
imitate. Even ruin is better than to follow
another's habits. If we follow our own habits,
it will give us joy, happiness and sacredness".
113.
Which
Water Bag is Cleaner? Because
your eyes are directed outward, you will be able
to find the faults in others only, but you will
not be able to find the fault in your own
nature. Here is a small story. During the
summer season, in places round about
Nagpur, water will be very scarce. Things
might have improved now, but in old days things
were very bad. An orthodox old brahmin
lady set out on a pilgrimage. She was so
orthodox that she did not touch anything or
anyone and she did not permit anyone to touch
her. She started on a pilgrimage with such an
orthodox mentality. By the time
she reached Nagpur, she felt that the
weather was very hot. She turned on the water
taps but not a drop of water came out of them.
Her thirst increased. The Government made some
arrangement in that station for supply of water.
The skin of an animal was used to make a bag.
They filled water in such bags and supplied that
water to the thirsty people. When several people
were drinking the water that was served from
that bag 0f leather, this lady, though she was
thirsty, was hesitating in her mind whether the
man who was serving the water may belong to a
low caste; the bag may not be pure and may not
have been cleaned well and so on. She was
hesitating to take water. After much hesitation,
the lady who could not suppress her thirst, went
forward. She questioned
the man who was serving the water. "My dear Sir,
is this bag pure? Is it clear?" The man who was
serving the water was clever. He said, "The bag
of leather from which water is being served, is
cleaner than the bag into which that water will
be poured after service, namely, your body. This
bag is cleaner than your interior." Today we are
cultivating this undesirable tendency of looking
at the impurity of the bag but not caring to
remove the impurity from within our own
body. 114.
The
Three Fishes - Sattva, Rajas en
Tamas There
were three fishes in a pond. As
anticipated, the fisherman came and trapped
them, cooked and ate them. Our life may be
compared to a pond and the length of our life to
the water. The three fishes are the three
gunas, tamas, rajas and
sattva. The sattvic tendency
always decides to follow the path of good and
fixes its attention on things which are
permanent. It decides that before the level of
water runs down, it should save itself and it
always thinks of noble things. Water has been
compared to the length of life and day by day it
recedes and at any time death may overcome it.
The fisherman
is the emblem of death. Tamas and
rajas are antagonistic to sattva and
therefore even the merit of sattva is
counteracted by the other two. These two
gunas, tamas and rajas,
mislead our senses and send them along the wrong
path. We should first try to control
tamas and rajas and thereby attain
mastery over our senses. If we follow good
methods even rajas and tamas may
be conquered by close association with
sattva. 115.
A
Divine Example for Leaders Today
people who call themselves leaders are not doing
good service and as a consequence, the world
around us is becoming very confusing. In this
context, a story relating to the Krishna
avatâra has to be mentioned.
One day
Krishna approached Yas'odâ and
told her that all his cowherd friends had
invited him to go with them and tend the cows
and that he was planning to go. The mother
explained to him that to go to the forest would
mean that he would have to walk on thorns, that
he might have to meet snakes and that he might
get close to bushes. She said that his tender
feet might not be able to put up with the
troubles and she said that it would be better if
he put on foot-wear before going to the forest.
She said that shoes for him would be ready only
the next day and he could go to the forest only
the next day. Immediately
Krishna asked the mother to tell him how she
addressed him. She said that his name was
Gopal and that she addressed him by this
name. The word Gopal stands for one who
tends the cows. He said that he had acquired
that name because he could tend the cows and be
the leader of the cows. Since the cows would
follow him as their leader, he said that he
would have to do something which the cows would
also do. The cows do not have shoes to protect
their feet and therefore he said that he also
should not have shoes to protect his feet. He
said that he would do only that which persons
who follow him could also possibly do. He said
that if he wore shoes, the cows would also want
to wear shoes, because their leader was wearing
shoes. He was not going to wear shoes and allow
those whom he had to protect to go without
shoes. This is how he argued with his mother.
This simply means that when God takes a human
form, men will try to imbibe His qualities and
will behave like Him. 116.
God
Never Fails those who Call on Him with
Faith There
was a small temple of Srinath in the town
of Govardhana, some centuries ago. A poor
brahmin of that place had an only son, a
little boy of six, who was always exulting in
the stories and legends of Krishna and
who delighted only in listening to the
lîlâs of the Lord. One day,
he went out into the meadows with the cattle and
when he saw the temple and the image of
Krishna inside the shrine, he took it to
be the Lord Himself. He called out very
piteously asking Krishna to come out and
play with him in the moonlight. Though the doors
were locked by the priest as he went out at
noon, the Lord came and hand in hand the two
walked along the fields in the cool silver
light. Krishna had the flute and he sat
on a boulder and played on it to the extreme
delight of the brahmin lad. After a few
hours, He returned with the friend, whom He
called 'brother' and, quite unnoticed, He
disappeared into the temple shrine, where the
idol could be seen through a slit in the door.
The boy could not bear the pangs of separation
from His divine playmate; he spent the night and
the morning crying outside the door and he was
discovered there by his parents and the priest.
The parents beat the boy for giving them so much
trouble, but, the priest found the idol
bleeding, as a result of the blow. If you call
on Him as a little brother, He responds and
becomes a rollicking playmate for you. Call on
him as a Guru. He will instruct and
inspire. He never fails those who call on Him
sincerely and in faith. A
king once announced that he will honor with a
big gift any brahmin who will agree to do anyone
of the following three evil things; 1) He must
aver that the Vedas are false, or 2) He
must drink liquor, or 3) He must elope with
another's wife. For a long time, no one within
the seven seas came forward to do any of these
atrocious things. When
Jesus Christ entered the precincts of the
temple of Jerusalem, and found people
sacrificing doves and birds and other living
beings to God. He released the birds and
condemned the acts of blood. The priests and
scholars resented His act and argued that the
God in whom they had faith accepted the
sacrifice and was propitiated thereby. They
asked him evidence of his authority to interfere
with the dictates of religion. Christ went on to
tell them a parable. "Once
there was a farmer who had two sons. He asked
his first son to go out to the field so that he
may watch the crops, ready for harvest. The son
refused to obey him. Thereupon, he asked the
second son, and he readily agreed. But, what
really happened was, the second son later
calculated the bother and the
sleeplessness which the watching will
bring to him; so, he did not go. The first son
later repented for his refusal to do what his
father asked; he went and watched the crop. Now,
Christ asked, who among these two pleases the
father more - the son who declared his assent by
word of mouth and disobeyed in action or the son
who disobeyed by word of mouth but obeyed in
action?" "You may
obey in words but disobey in action. My action
reveals that I do acts which God commanded. You
are your own witness, whether you follow the
dictates of the Divine Father. I have greater
authority than you, for, your action shows that
you disobey whereas my action proves that I
follow His commands". There
was a king called Sathyavrata, in ancient
times. He was named so because Truth was his way
of life, his goal and his guide. He derived
great joy through the strict adherence to truth.
One day, a few hours before dawn, during
Brahmâ-muhûrta
(the time dedicated for meditation on God),
he proceeded alone through the lion gate of his
fort, in order to have a holy dip in the sea,
for the day was a holy one marked out in the
calendar as sacred for such ceremonial
baths. While he was
passing through the gate, he saw a fair maiden
with a halo of splendor going out. Curious to
know who she was and why she was making her exit
at that early hour, he accosted her. She replied
that she was the Goddess of Riches,
Dhanalakshmî. "I have been long
here, now I desire a change. I do not stay in
one place long". Sathyavrata told her,
"Go! go! I do not object or obstruct".
After that, a
charming masculine figure was seen quietly going
out through the lion gate. The King asked him
who he was and on what errand he was leaving. He
replied, "I am Charity; when
Dhanalakshmî has left, what do I
stay here for?" The King allowed him to leave
and he moved on. Within a few
minutes, another charming person was going
through. The King found that he was
Sadachara, representing Goodness in
Social Behavior. "How can good social
relations be sustained without riches and the
quality of generosity" he asked. "I am leaving,
because the two here are no more," he explained.
The King agreed; and he moved on. So too, the
next emigrant Fame, lamented the
departure of the other three and himself wanted
to go. The King let him go. He said, "How can
Fame survive the absence of Riches,
Charity and Happy Social Life?" and
the King felt he was right. Meanwhile, a
person with overwhelming splendor came into the
gate from the fort, with the intention to leave
the city. When asked who he was, he said, "I
am Truth". At this, the King pleaded with
him to stay in the city, the Kingdom, the palace
and the homes of the people. He said that if he
would leave, the loss would be irrepairable and
life would not be worthwhile. At this,
Truth decided to stay. And,
Fame returned to the fort in a trice, for
Truth is enough basis for Fame to
flourish. And, Sadachara returned and
grew. So too, Charity and Riches
came back and established themselves in the
Kingdom. All the others were delighted to share
the Glory of Sathya (Truth). [see
also S.B.
8.24: 10] There
was once an old woman in a village. She sold a
patch of land that she owned, and with the
money, she had four gold bangles made, two for
each arm. She wore them with great joy and went
along the streets very proud of her new
acquisition. But, she was disappointed because
no one in the village turned aside and looked at
her bangles; she could as well have not worn
them, for the villagers did not notice any
difference in her. She tried various means to
attract their attention towards the bangles,
but, without success. One night she could not
sleep at all, for, this neglect pained her much.
At last, she got a brilliant idea which, she
decided, must succeed; the villagers must be
drawn to notice the bangles. Next day,
after sunrise, she set fire to her own dwelling
house! When the flames rose, and commotion
ensued, the villagers rushed towards her,
sitting, wailing in front of the burning house.
She shook her hands pathetically at the faces of
the frightened villagers, causing the bangles to
jingle and shine in the red light of the high
flames, crying out, "Alas! My house is on fire,
0, pity my fate, God, don't you see my plight ?"
Every time she shouted a sentence, she put out
her arms vigorously at some one; so that she or
he could not miss sighting the bangles. The pity
of it! She was so anxious to exhibit her bangles
that she did not care for her house itself; the
house was on fire but she was happy her bangles
were noticed. The scholars who are lost in
admiration of their own cleverness are as
foolish as this old woman. You
may be compassionate, but, that emotion must be
regulated and wise. A compassionate man once
brought home a fish he found struggling on the
bank of a river in full flood. He placed it
between the folds of the warm blanket and poured
hot coffee down its throat. He thought it was
suffering from a fit of cold. The hot coffee
killed the poor thing. He could have saved it by
throwing it back into the floods. He lacked the
intelligence which would tell him what to do to
express his compassion. Sibi
was a genuine sadhak, having attained a
high stage in detachment and the spirit of
renunciation. The Gods decided to discover
whether his achievements were deep-rooted and
unshakable. Agni (the God
of Fire) and Indra (the God of the Heavenly
Regions) took on the forms of a dove and
hawk. The hawk
(Indra) pursued the dove (Agni) across the sky,
until the frightened bird fell into the lap of
Sibi sitting on his throne, pleading for
protection from the hawk. As befitted his
dharma, Sibi gave word that he would save
the dove from its enemy and assured full
protection for it. At that moment, the hawk
presented itself before the Emperor and demanded
its meal, its legitimate prey. "I am hungry, I
had secured my food; you have deprived me of my
meal", it complained. "Of what use is all your
vaunted spirituality if you rob me of my meal?",
it lamented. At this, Sibi
said, "Yes, I shall slice off flesh from my body
weighing as much as this dove weighs; you can
appease your hunger with that." The hawk agreed.
A balance was brought; the dove was placed on
one pan, pieces of flesh cut from the body of
Sibi were placed in the other pan. But lo and
behold, however many pieces of flesh were laid
thereon, the pan on which the dove sat, did not
rise at all. It was indeed a mystery how the
bird weighed so heavy. At last, Sibi said,
"Well, you can take all of me. Eat me whole.
Here I am at your disposal". No sooner did
he utter those words than the hawkbecame Indra
and the dove was transformed into Agni - Gods
effulgent in their glory! They were supremely
happy at the depth of Sibi's spirit of
renunciation; they blessed him profusely and
departed. There
was a rich man once who owned a rice mill. He
heard a pundit expound that the service that God
appreciates most, is the gift of food to the
hungry. So, he decided to serve food to the poor
in his village. But he had no mind to use good
varieties of rice for the purpose. He felt that
any rice is good enough for them. So, he got the
rice that was rotting in his godown - he did not
care even to remove the worms that infested it.
He cooked it and served it to the hungry poor,
who ate it and suffered many illnesses as a
consequence. His wife expostulated with him and
told him that good food given to 10 persons
would be more meritorious than bad food given to
hundreds! But the rich man was in no mood to
listen to sound advice from his wife. The wife
therefore hit upon a plan to teach him. She
placed on his plate food that was rotten and
full of worms. When he grew angry and castigated
her, she replied: "The pundit said that every
one has to suffer for the injury he causes
others; you have to eat, in the other world,
rotten food, full of worms. I am giving that
type of food to you even now, so that you may
get used to it. It will help you to eat the
consequence of your evil deed". At this, the
husband realised his iniquity; he repented for
his wrongs and learnt better ways of service to
the poor. A
mother used to carry her son on her shoulder,
when she went to the market. A woman with a
basket of fruits passed by her; the child lifted
a banana from that basket and started eating it.
The mother noticed it, and when she was told
that he had cleverly lifted it from the basket
of a passing fruitseller, she complimented the
son on his smartness. This made the child
indulge in petty thieving and picking pockets,
as it grew into a boy - and in actual
house-breaking and dacoity. Once during a
dacoity, he committed even murder, and when he
was caught and jailed, he expressed a wish to
see his mother before being hanged. The wailing,
weeping desperate mother was brought before him.
She was sobbing at her son's fate. The son asked
her to come closer to him; suddenly, he tried to
strangle her, and the guards separated them. The
son said, "She deserves the punishment; for, it
was she who brought me to this doom. Had she
reprimanded me when I stole a banana, when I was
a child of two years, instead of complimenting
me, I would not have fallen into this, evil
way". There
is a story of Alexander the Great, which
illustrates the glory of Indian culture. It
seems Alexander used to go incognito to the
villages around his camp, in India, in order to
learn the habits and manners of the strange new
land into which fate had brought him. One day,
he found a man pleading with another to accept a
pot of gold, which the other was refusing even
to look at! He came to know that the pot of gold
was discovered under the soil of the field
purchased by the man from the man who refused to
accept it. The buyer argued that he had bought
only the land and was therefore not entitled to
own the pot of gold; the seller said he had no
right to any thing found on or in the plot that
he had sold. Alexander watched this contest for
some time; both did not yield. At last, the
village elders were called in to decide the
issue. And, even as Alexander watched, the
elders found a happy way out; the buyer's son
shall marry the seller's daughter, and the pot
of gold shall be given to the bride as dowry!
Alexander felt elated at the heights to which
human virtue could rise; he was also ashamed at
his own adventurous ambition to conquer
another's property by force of arms. The ideals
underlying the ancient culture of India have to
be studied and practised by every Indian at
least, so that the world might have the benefit
of the great example this can
provide. Once
a district educational officer was inspecting a
school. He asked the teacher to find out from
one of his pupils as to who wrote the
Ramâyana.
The pupil innocently replied, "Sir, I never
wrote it; perhaps you might have written it".
Then the teacher found himself in a miserable
plight and turned to the inspecting officer to
assure him that he had not done so and tried to
enquire if the officer had by chance written the
work. The district educational officer referred
the matter, to be safe, to the vice-chancellor,
who finally observed that some brahmin
must have done it and advised the officer
concerned to close the issue. This means that
the state of affairs in our educational field
today is so pitiable that our students,
teachers, inspecting officers and
vice-chancellors are all sailing in the same
boat. Nobody knows about the author of a work
like Ramâyana. In these
circumstances we are not justified in calling
ourselves educated. Among all the
wondrous adventures that astounded people during
Krishna's childhood, revealing the
divinity that had come among them, the
Kâliya episode is the most
meaningful. The serpent Kâliya was
poisoning the waters of the Yamunâ
and the atmosphere over it with its breath;
all who approached that area, men or cattle,
fell dead. But, Krishna--the divine Boy-jumped
into the depths, forced the foul snake to rise
above the level of the river, and leaping on its
hoods, danced upon them with His tender lotus
feet. The pressure of those soft silken soles
was enough to force the deadly poison out from
the fangs of the monstrous cobra and render it
harmless forever. This is a
great lesson for man. This
lîlâ is quite unlike earlier
incidents which evidenced the child's
super-human strength and wisdom. He was lifted
away by the storm-demon
[Trinâvarta], he was hit by the
calf-demon [Vatsâsura], he was
felled by the cart-demon
[S'akathâsura], he was pecked at
by the stork-demon [Bakâsura], and
he was poisoned by the nurse-demon
[Putâna]. The sceptics can easily
ascribe these miracles to accident or
coincidence or exaggeration. But, the
Kâliya episode is a parable, it is a
valuable lesson in spiritual sâdhana.
[See
SB. 10:16] Ambarîsha
Mahârâja: the story of
Ambarîsha can be read in S.B.
9.4
and 9.5. Painter-artist
of the painting of Sibi: Vladimir
Holst |