The following are transliterations of
four stories from Galpe Atma Vidya (Volume 2) by Smt. Mandira Lahiri
Story # 226
Prajnanpurush SriSri Babathakur narrated a
story to make a simple principle, fathomable.
A blind man had been residing in a small
town for a very long time. His misery and hardships were limitless. So, he
tried to escape from the town. The town was surrounded by huge walls. He approached
many people on how to escape from the town, but everyone ignored him. Finally, a person told him that there is a way
out. Move forward while holding on to
the wall; eventually you will arrive at the gate.
The blind man followed his advice and
started moving forward. As he was about to reach the gate, he experienced a
severe bout of itching. Abandoning the wall, he started scratching himself. His
itching only stopped after he had walked pass the gate. Thus, his attempt to find the gate had failed.
Despite repeated efforts, he was unable to escape from the town.
The inner meaning of the story is as
follows: The blind man here is an ignorant person. Those people who live in
this world with a sense of my-ness and pretend to be the doer of everything,
are sightless. They have the knowledge of the objective world which is of no
use. The walls are the eighty-four lakh births. The itching of the body is the
result of the baggage we bear on account of the desires, hankering for wealth,
materialistic inclinations and attraction, delusion and ignorance that we had
harbored in our past lives. A human life/birth is that gate which provides one
with the opportunity to escape from the town of worldly sufferings and attain
liberation. Guru is the instructor of the path of enlightenment. Remembrance of
God is the only way to attain freedom. Human life is sought after by sages too.
Human life should be utilized for spiritual practices; else it becomes an
animal life.
Story # 306
Each and every person should try to do
their work to the best of their capability. To emphasize upon the significance of this
principle, SriSri Babathakur narrated the following story:
A security guard got a good amount of
amount of money for guarding the house of a householder. One day he approached
the head of the family and requested him to not visit a certain place since he
had dreamt that a mishap would take place at that site. The head of the family honored the guard’s
request and cancelled his trip to visit the site. He even rewarded the guard the following
morning for cautioning him and thereby helping him avert a dangerous
situation. The lady of the house however
immediately terminated the services of the guard.
SriSri Babathakur took a pause and then
asked the devotees present there as to why did the lady terminate the services
of the guard. Everybody kept quiet. Then SriSri Babathakur replied, “The head
of the family rewarded the guard because he had saved his life by forewarning
him to not visit a certain place where an accident had actually taken place
(just as had been prophesied in his dream the night before). The lady of the house though discontinued the
guard’s services because he was sleeping at a time when he was supposed to
guard the house. In a patriarchal society, the ladies focus on and are
preoccupied with domestic matters (i.e. what happens within the confines of the
house), whereas the males manage outside activities. At times the mind and
intellect are overworked, and consequently, the life force does not function
properly.
Story # 211
Saccidanandamoyee Maa in the form of Jiva (embodied
being), voluntarily assumes the role of a sufferer of all kinds of pain and
misery, but does not easily reveal the implied meaning of such sportful
dramatic sameside game. That is why the mind cannot comprehend this principle
easily. The biggest reality is this that each and every being is Her
manifestation, and other than Her there is no second entity.
In humans, a different type of imaginary
ego in the form of I causes differentiation and pretends/acts to be in grief or
sorrow. In this context, SriSri
Babathakur narrated the following story:
Once a very devout householder came to a
sage and made him aware of his sorrowful state by saying - Baba, you definitely
know about my plight. You possess so many powers; if you wish, you can easily
take away my grief. Listening to this, the sage responded - You are talking
about your miseries, but I do not see any. I only see these supposed sufferings
as sportful games of the Almighty. The sage was also suffering from a grave
disease; yet no one had any inkling of it.
The householder said - No matter how much
you try to direct my attention to God, I can only see sufferings. However more the householder spoke about his
hardships, the more the sage would direct his attention towards God. This annoyed the man no end, resulting him losing
all patience. He picked up a burning stick from the incense holder and threw it
toward the sage. The impact caused the sage’s body to bleed; however instead of
drawing a negative reaction, it only induced a smile from the sage. After
sometime, both of them noticed that the householder had sustained bleeding
wounds as well. The excruciating pain from the wounds made the householder very
upset and disheartened. Bewildered and confused by not having been able to
solve the mystery of the wounds caused to his own body (despite him having
thrown the burning stick at the sage), he returned home. He struggled with excruciating pain and
discomfort caused by the wounds for the next two-to-three days. After three nights, he had a dream in which he
saw two idols of his own form standing side by side. One was saying - I am
suffering a lot. The other was saying - Where is suffering? I cannot see any suffering.
The conversation which had taken place between him and the sage had manifest
within his dreams as two idols of his own form. The dream intrigued him immensely,
so the next morning, he went back to the sage. There the incense holder was
still burning, but the sage was missing. With his query in mind, he went searching
for the sage. He could never find the sage, but he found his Guru. Everywhere
he could experience the sportful drama of the Lord and eventually, he himself got
established as a realized sage.
SriSri Babathakur explains that in the
inner realms of the human heart, God Himself exists in the form of a query. God
Himself is the sage, and He Himself is the householder who is searching for
God. In this world there is nothing other than God. The outward differences
from person to person which appears to be real, is actually an illusion. The reason for this is that the reflection of
I -Reality is I–Reality itself. No falsity or illusion is possible there. This
is the Sportful dramatic same side game of Self Consciousness.
Story # 237
Mind does not want to accept/acknowledge
things easily because it just does not like doing so. Upon being asked by some
devotees about how to get the mind to accept things easily, SriSri Babathakur
narrated the following story: In his
early life, Sri Nageshwar Baba used to be a high court judge. Once during his
tenure as a judge, he sentenced a convict to be hanged. When he asked the convict if he had anything
to say, the convict replied, “I don’t know anything, I have Narayan, He will
decide what’s appropriate for me.” The convict was hanged according to the
rules. In those days, individuals who were hanged were thrown into a well.
After the hanging had taken place, it was observed that the convict was alive
since the rope wrapped around his neck was not knotted properly. Everyone was
shaken by this incident. Per the rules, a person once hanged cannot be hanged
again.
When the convict was questioned about this,
he replied that he knew nothing, he had Narayan and Narayan knew everything.
The words of the convict were eye-opening for the judge. He realized that he
wasn’t qualified to pass a judgement given that the world was being run by God.
The convict had taught him a very important lesson. This incident prompted him
to consider all the instances where he may have ordered the hanging of an innocent
person; who would judge him for that? This made him abandon the clothes which
he wore to the court. Donning just a loin cloth, he left his home and headed
for the Himalayas. He never came back home. He was initiated by a mahatma to
spiritual knowledge and practices. The
mahatma reassured him that he would always be by his side.
In later times, the erstwhile judge would
be found sitting at one place, unmoved.
He wouldn’t abandon his seat even for the purposes of eating or to carry
out other bodily functions. His neck
would be observed to be wrapped by big snakes. Hence, he begun being addressed
as Sri Nageshwara Baba.
Wrapping up the narration of this story,
SriSri Babathakur stated – that through which dukkho (misery/unhappiness) is
experienced, is Consciousness. In
acceptance lies the key to experiencing ‘ananda’; questioning only leads to
unhappiness. Accepting
Saccidanandamoyee Maa rids the mind off all thoughts. And when that happens, one then doesn’t need
to read the Shastras; the Shastras self-reveal from within.
