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| Aug 22, 2006 4:57 pm |
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re: re: re: re: re: re: Sanathana Dharma - Part II |
Bharat P
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Reminds me of a good old story once narrated by Ramana Maharshi about a disciple and guru - A PURANIC STORY of Sage Ribhu and his disciple Nidagha:
Although Ribhu taught his disciple the Supreme Truth of
the One Brahman without a second, Nidagha, in spite of his
erudition and understanding, did not get sufficient conviction to adopt and follow the path of jnana, but settled down in his native town to lead a life devoted to the observance of ceremonial religion.
But the sage loved his disciple as deeply as the latter
venerated his Master. In spite of his age, Ribhu would himself go to his disciple in the town, just to see how far the latter had outgrown his ritualism. At times the sage went in disguise, so that he might observe how Nidagha would act when he did not know that he was being observed by his master.
On one such occasion Ribhu, who had put on the disguise
of a rustic, found Nidagha intently watching a royal procession.
Unrecognised by the town-dweller Nidagha, the village rustic enquired what the bustle was all about, and was told that the king was going in procession.
“Oh! It is the king. He goes in procession! But where is
he?” asked the rustic.
“There, on the elephant,” said Nidagha.
“You say the king is on the elephant. Yes, I see the two,”
said the rustic, “But which is the king and which is the elephant?”
“What!” exclaimed Nidagha. “You see the two, but do not
know that the man above is the king and the animal below is
the elephant? What is the use of talking to a man like you?”
“Pray, be not impatient with an ignorant man like me,”
begged the rustic. “But you said ‘above’ and ‘below’ – what do they mean?”
Nidagha could stand it no more. “You see the king and the
elephant, the one above and the other below. Yet you want to know what is meant by ‘above’ and ‘below’?” burst out Nidagha. “If things seen and words spoken can convey so little to you, action alone can teach you. Bend forward, and you will know it all too well”.
The rustic did as he was told. Nidagha got on his shoulders
and said, “Know it now. I am above as the king, you are below as the elephant. Is that clear enough?”
“No, not yet,” was the rustic’s quiet reply. “You say you are above like the king, and I am below like the elephant. The ‘king’, the ‘elephant’, ‘above’ and ‘below’ – so far it is clear. But pray, tell me what you mean by ‘I’ and ‘you’?”
When Nidagha was thus confronted all of a sudden with
the mighty problem of defining the ‘you’ apart from the ‘I’, light dawned on his mind.
Chill
BharatPrivate Reply to Bharat P (new win) |
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