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"One
Little Story"
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| There was a
pupil once, who prided himself on his ancestors
and his master; they were great pundits renowned
over the entire realm. His preceptor asked him
one day whether he could answer any question he
might ask. The pupil was stung to the quick! He
said, "Why this hesitation, ask and it will be
answered! I come from a Somayaji family;
my father is a celebrated savant. I have been
learning at your feet for years! Don't I know
the answers to all questions you might ask?"
The teacher
wanted the answer to the question: "What is the
meaning of the word lavana?" The pupil
laughed and said: "O, you surprise me with this
absurd question! Don't I know? Lavana
means cowdung!" Well,
lavana is a word that is in daily
currency in every household and everyone knows,
it means 'common salt'! Even this, the conceited
disciple had not learnt. Unless you brighten
your vision with love, you cannot see the
truth. Who
exactly is this Naraka, the demon
Narakâsura, let us inquire. He is
described as a tyrant, who had no reverence
towards elders and saints, who was afflicted
with a severe type of land hunger, who looted
and plundered unchecked, who carried away
princesses and damsels by the hundreds and threw
them into prison without any compunction, and
who never repented for any of his crimes and
sins. When the good men of the world appealed to
Lord Krishna for succor, He invaded his
kingdom, laid siege to his capital city, and
overwhelming his forces, allowed His queen,
Satya, to slay him on the
battlefield. Egoism
is of earth, earthy; not of heaven, heavenly.
So, Naraka is the son of earth. And, he
is called Nara-ka. Nara means man who
knows his manas (mind), who practises
manana (discriminating reflection on what
he has heard and what he has been taught).
But Naraka which means 'hell' or
Bhauma, is the name appropriate to one
who believes he is the body and toils to cater
to its needs and its clamor. When man grows
in physical strength, economic power, mental
alacrity, intellectual scholarship and political
authority and does not grow in spiritual riches,
he becomes a danger to society and a calamity to
himself. He is a Naraka to his
neighbors and his kin. He sees only the many,
not the one; he is drawn by the scintillating
manifold into the downward path of perdition.
A-suras
have another name in Sanskrit -
Nakthancharas, those who move about in
the dark. This is a fair description of their
pathetic condition. They have no light to guide
them; they do not recognise they are in the
dark; they do not call out for light; they are
unaware of the light. Their intellect has become
the bondslave of their passions and their
senses, instead of establishing itself as their
master. When at last, truth appears before them
and overwhelms them, they recognise the one and
merge happily in it. The
lamp is not merely the symbol of the knowledge
of truth. It is also the symbol of the One, the
Âtmâ that shines in and
through all this multiplicity. Just as with one
lamp, a thousand lamps can be lit, and the one
is as bright as ever in spite of the thousands
deriving light from it, so too, the
âtmâ illumines the
jîvas (individual selves) and
shines in and through them, without undergoing
any diminution in its splendor. The
âtmâ is the cause; all else are
effects. Naraka
sought to act freely as his emotions and
passions dictated. The Upanishads call
upon man to roam about in the jungle of life as
the King of Beasts, the Lion, and not as
panic-stricken cowardly sheep, ashamed to lift
its head. Face the six foes that are ferociously
gnawing the heart of man, lust, anger.
attachment, pride, hatred, greed, and be
MEN, Nara, not Naraka, who cringes
before these foes and tries to propitiate them
by yielding to their demands [see also
S.B.
10.59] There
are two evil sirens that entice youth
into futility and frivolity, diverting them
along the paths of ruin. One of them is called
Dame Cinema and the other is named
Dame Novel. The film contaminates and
corrupts; it pollutes young and innocent minds;
it teaches crime, violence and greed; it
destroys the basic humanness and degrades it
into bestiality. Even ochre-robed monks are
steadily dragged down to sin by its insidious
influence. Dame Novel too corrupts
equally, with salacious pictures of bestiality.
They both lead the young away into the
wilderness of vice. They do not know, nor do
they care to know, how to shape the young into
self-reliant, self-confident, self-knowing
citizens. Education
too has no life-line now; it does not ensure the
skills and attitudes essential to live a life of
peace and contentment. When
Sankara was residing at Varanasi
(Benares city) on the Ganga with his
pupils he used to visit the pundits in their own
houses, and draw them into beneficial
conversation on themes of philosophy. One day,
when he went to a pundit, he found him immersed
in complicated rules of grammar. When asked why
he had taken up the intensive study of grammar,
the pundit replied that it would easily fetch
him a few pieces of silver. "If I am designated
a pundit, I can go to the home of some big
zamindars (landowners), and hope to receive alms
and offerings from them, for the upkeep of my
large family", he said. Sankara advised him in
appropriate terms, and charged him with
self-confidence and courage. "Praise
God, Praise God, Praise God, you fool. Sankara
exhorted his pupils to disseminate the ideal of
this verse, and they too, responded with verses
on the same lines, each of the 14 contributing
one verse. Sankara added another twelve of his
own, as well as four more verses about the
transformation that the teaching would confer.
Thus, there are 31 verses in all, in the text
called "Bhaja Govindam" or "Moha Mudgaram". The
latter name means, "the weapon with which
delusion can be destroyed". Each one is a step
in the ladder which raises man into
God. Just
at that moment, to his immense surprise,
S'iva appeared in His splendor and glory
before the sadhaka! The man was
dumb-founded. He did not know how the
ill-treatment had induced S'iva to give
him darsan. But what had really happened?
The sadhaka for the first time believed
that the S'iva idol was alive, conscious,
chaitanya-full (intelligence, spirit) and
it was that belief which forced him to tie the
bandage on the nose. The moment he realised that
the idol was full of chith
(consciousness), he got the realisation he was
struggling for. But,
the woodcutter suddenly receded, he cleverly
changed the purpose of his appeal to the Angel.
He had no wish to die, though in his despair, he
had called for her help. He said, "No, no, I
have no one here to lift this bundle on to my
head, so I called on You to come to my aid. That
was the only reason behind my prayer. Please
help me to lift this burden and place it on my
head; I have to reach the village soon"!
Since
man is innately immortal, he recoils from the
grasp of death; the will to live is very strong,
much more persistent than the will to
die. Before
the Splendor of Immortality, the darkness of
mortality too would flee in haste. The resident
in the body has no birth and therefore, no
death. But, man is hugging the falsehood that he
is the body and so is subject to birth and
death. A silver cup can be reshaped by the smith
into a plate, or later, into a pan-box; but
though the name, the form and the function vary
it remains the same. There
is a story connected with the construction of
the great temple at Kalahasthi.
It was built according the tradition by sage
Âgastya, helped by
Bharadvaja. Every day when the sun was
about to set, Âgastya called every worker
before him as he sat on the river bed and under
his instruction, two sages poured into the lap
of each worker sand taken from the bed; that was
his wages! Now, that sand changed into gold in
strict proportion to the work that the receiver
had put in that day. If one did more work, he
got more gold; if less, less. If one had wasted
the entire day, it would remain sand, so far as
that worker was concerned. There was no
injustice, no grumbling, no favouritism. All
worked in the presence of the All-seeing and,
all accepted the gold that was vouchsafed by the
Almighty, for it was just his due no more, no
less. It
is work that is done in this spirit, the spirit
of the constant presence of the Lord, that is
honest. The Lord will reward by His Grace the
work that is done sincerely and gladly, not work
that is done for fear of superior officers. If
hearts are pure your work too will be
pure. There
was once a famous scholar who earned great fame
as a Vedic exponent, but no one could guess his
caste. Many suspected that he was not a brahmin,
but there was no means of discovering. At last,
the wife of a pundit said she could easily solve
the problem. The scholar was invited for a feast
at the place and when he was fast asleep after a
full repast, she applied to the sole of his foot
a red-hot brand at which the Vedic scholar
yelled "Allah". Thus it was discovered he
was a Muslim. Faith should not be a matter of
exposition; it should be patent even when you
yell in pain. When a child
dies, ask yourself the question: "Is it for my
sake that he/she was born?" The child had his
own destiny to fulfil, his own history to work
out. Gautama Buddha's father was so
overcome with grief when he saw his son with a
begging bowl in the street that he told him
thus: "Everyone of my ancestors was a King; what
misfortune is this that a beggar was born in
this line". Buddha replied: "Everyone of my
ancestors had a beggar's bowl; I know of no king
in my line." The father and the son walked
different paths, travelled along divergent
routes. Do not jump
to conclusions, abdicating your discrimination.
Don't deny the validity of your own experience.
Stand on your strength. Be unmoved, either by
adulation or denigration. There
was a merchant who was exhorted by his teacher
to repeat the Name of the Lord; he pleaded he
had no time to sit and repeat it; the shop took
up all his time and energy. He had to go a
little away from the village every morning for
answering the calls of nature. He spent about
half an hour for this. So, the guru asked him to
use this time for the daily smarana
[remembering the name of the Lord].
Hanumân, the great
Râmabhakta, was passing through the
sky, when he saw the merchant defecating and
heard him repeat 'Ram Ram Ram' while so
engaged. Hanumân was incensed at
his impertinence, he was desecrating the Name by
pronouncing it while unclean. So, he gave him a
hard blow on the cheek and continued his journey
to Ayodhyâ. When
he reached the Divine Presence and looked at the
splendor-filled face of Râma, he
noticed the swollen red print of a hand upon His
cheek. Hanumân was shocked and his
grief was too deep for words. Râma
told him, "Hanumân! Do not ask Me
the name of the person who dealt this blow. I
always anticipate the moment of a calamity for
my bhakta and I intercede in time to save
them. That poor merchant, sitting outside the
village, who was repeating My Name when you were
coming here, could he withstand the terrible
onslaught of your angry palm? The fellow would
have collapsed on the spot. So, I intercepted
the blow and received it on my own cheek, my
dear Hanumân". There
was an old woman who had two grand-daughters,
one a termagant (harsh-tempered) and the other a
modest girl. When they touched her feet before
departure from her house, she blessed them thus.
The termagant she blessed: "May the festoons and
the auspicious Rangavalli drawings on your
doorstep be ever fresh and untrodden, unwiped;
may your purse be full, ever undisturbed". She
meant of course, to curse her with barrenness.
The other girl she blessed thus: "May your
doorstep be unclean, may your purse be emptying
fast", meaning that she would have a number of
happy boisterous children; a mode of blessing
for a married woman, usually given by a
grandmother. On the face of it, this looks like
a curse and the other statement a blessing. But,
the inner meaning is different. This grannie
blessed unasked; the modest and truthful person
can also receive blessings out of the
spontaneous Grace of the Lord, provided he is
steady in his virtues. Dvârakâ:
(many-gates; for all walks of life) The city
within the sea to which Krishna together with
His loyals retreated after His stay in
Mathurâ, the capital of His region of
birth (see S.B. 10:
50).
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You
may be a master of the Gîtâ
and the Bhâgavatam; you may
claim to have spent decades in the service of
Krishna; but, without the Key of
Love you cannot gain entrance to the
Go-loka where He resides! You may be in
Prasanthi Nilayam since years, claiming
to be with Swami and near Him; but, without
cultivating love expressed in service you cannot
know Me.
This
legend has a profound undercurrent of meaning,
which you should not miss. Naraka is
an âsura, a demonic person. His
city is named, Prâgjyotishapura;
prâg means, the previous;
jyoti, means light; and sha means,
forgetting or ignoring. So the city's name
means: 'The city of those who have laid aside
the previous light.' That is to say, the city of
those who are ignorant of atmic splendor. No
wonder they are demons. No wonder they were
lustful, full of hatred, greed, envy and
egotism. They had become so lost in their sins
that Lord Krishna did not vouchsafe to
give them the honor of being killed by His
hands. He directed Satya to destroy them.
Yes. Ignorance so fundamental and so deep can be
destroyed only by the sword of satya or
truth. 
Returning
to his hermitage, Sankara wrote a verse
summarising the advice he gave to the poor
struggling brahmin householder:
There
was a man once who hired an aged elephant for
the bridal procession on the occasion 0f the
marriage of his daughter. After the ceremony,
when the procession returned home, the bride
descended from the howdah and at that
very moment, the elephant crumpled and died. The
owner of the elephant was shocked at the news;
he refused to take it as an unavoidable
misfortune. He insisted that the identical
animal had to be returned to him alive. He went
to court on this issue. The judge had some mud
pots kept at the back of the door which the
greedy owner had to open for passing through.
When he opened it, the whole lot was broken. The
judge insisted that he had to restore those very
pots! Thus was sense driven into that fellow's
brain.
You
must have heard many stories of
garvabhangam, the suppression of conceit
or egoism by the Lord. One day, Anjaneya
[Hanumân] appeared in a garden on
the outskirts of 
