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Story 7: Family for the Gita

     Once a renounced spiritual master presented his neophyte disciple with a copy of the Bhagavad-gita, instructing him to study the book all the time. The disciple, eager to imitate the advanced status of his guru, entered a cave in the Vindhya hill and there read the gita day and night.

     Now, while the disciple took rest, a mouse who lived in the cave nibbled at the pages of the holy book, leaving the edges ragged. The disciple was very upset about this. He went down the hillside to a village and found a kitten, which he brought back to the cave to deal with the mouse.

     But the kitten required milk. So the disciple managed to find a pious farmer who willingly parted with one cow. Next the would-be renunciate constructed a cow-shed with materials that he begged from here and there and laboriously dragged up the hillside.

     Even after building the shed, the disciple found it too difficult to maintain the cow alone. At last he found a young villager who was willing--simply for three meals a day--to tend the cow.

     But now the aspiring anchorite was faced with the duty of cooking thrice daily for the cowherd as well as preparing his own meals. This meant he had to visit the village at least once a day to beg sufficient foodstuffs and firewood and then bring it all up to the cave. The villagers were less supportive now that his possessions had increased. One of them even mocked the dis- ciple, saying, "You've become a busy householder. Why do you persist in this charade of renunciation? Get married and work like the rest of us!"

     Finding it impossible to meet his requirements otherwise, the disciple did just that. As his family grew, so did his needs until at last he lived in a comfortable villa on a large tract of land as the owner of many animals and the employer of many servants.

     After the guru became aware that his disciple had abandoned the cave, he traced him to his new home and was astonished to find him amidst all the trappings of worldly existence. "Now what does all this mean?" he demanded of his disciple.

     "Oh Divine Master," came the reply, "this, my family and property, is for the gita study you ordered."

     The scriptures enjoin: yaavannirvaaha pratigraha--"accept only that which is essential for serving the Lord." This means that a devotee centers his life's needs around Krsna and not around himself. He is concerned neither with excessive gain or excessive renunciation. Indeed, if an aspirant on the spiritual path becomes selfishly inclined even in the matter of renuncia- tion--i.e. his vanity is displayed in his show of detachment from the world--that selfishness is very liable to mislead him into accumulating excessive material possessions in the name of maintaining his spiritual life. Another way that material attachment creeps into the life of a renunciate is through attraction to material knowledge. If pride is fostored through mastery of the scriptures and through philosophical erudition, that knowledge is only material and will result in the falldown of the student into material entanglement.

Story 8: "There Runs the Thief!"

     A village was plagued by thievery. Things would disappear from houses in the night, and though careful guard was kept and the alarm was raised whenever something went missing, the thief always managed to escape detection.

     At last the village headman called in all those who'd been burgled and interviewed each in confidence. He discovered that in each case, as soon as the alarm was raised, a certain fellow was always nearby who joined very eagerly in the hunt for the thief. Suspicious of this coincidence, the headman advised the night watchman to keep this person under special surveillance.

     One night the watchman spied the suspect sneaking out of his house at about 2:00 AM with a tool in his hand. Following him surreptitiously, the watchman saw this man use the tool to pry open the bamboo wall of a neighbor's house and then enter it. After some moments there was shouting from in the house: "Thief! Thief!" The suspect hurried out through the broken wall carrying booty and entered the jungle. Meanwhile a crowd of outraged villagers gathered in front of the house to listen to the burgled householder's tale of woe. The watchman observed how the suspect stealthily came out of the jungle and entered the crowd to join in the general hue and cry for the capture and punishment of the thief.

     The crowd began milling about in an effort to find the culprit. Just then the watchman stepped forward and seized the man he'd been spying upon. "This is the thief!" he announced loudly.

     Many in the crowd protested the arrest. "You fool!" they shouted at the watchman, "He's no thief! He's been with us the whole time!"

     But the village headman appeared on the scene and quieted them. Receiving the watchman's report, the headman led the crowd to the jungle via the trail shown by the observant watchman. The suspect became visibly nervous as they entered the woods. "Why do you bring us all into this dangerous jungle at night?" he demanded of the headman. "No burglar is hiding here. This is highly irresponsible. What if some citizen is bitten by a snake?"

     Many of the villagers now saw the suspect's nervous chatter as an indication of his guilt. But some still were swayed by his words and began to grumble: "Yes, while we thrash about out here the real thief is probably plundering our houses at this very moment."

     But soon the watchman found the ornament box he'd seen the suspect carry from the burgled house. He held it up in triumph for all to see. Just as everyone's attention was fixed on the stolen property, the suspect broke free and ran back into the village on his way to the main road out of town. The furious crown surged after him. "Stop him! There runs the thief!" they cried out to the late arrivals at the scene of the crime and pointed to the suspect as he ran. But the cunning suspect also pointed to some innocent passersby ahead of himself and shouted, "Yes! Catch the thief! There he goes!" Confusing the entire village in this way, the burglar managed to escape in the night.

     Tulsidas, the famous Hindi poet, has sung:

corko chode sadhko bandhe
pathikko lagaoe phansi--
dhanya kalijug teri tamasa
duhkh lage aor hasi

     "The real thief is set free, and the sadhu is handcuffed, while the passerby is hanged--all glories to Kali Yuga! Such is your great joke that it generates both pity and laughter at the same time."

     In this age of confusion, rascals disguise themselves as saints and plunder the foolish populace, while at the same time accusing the real sadhus of being cheaters. These rascals use the wealth turned over to them by fools for their personal sense gratification, but they cleverly convince others that their sense gratification is divine and for everyone's benefit. They ridicule the devotees use of money in the service of Krsna (especially for the building of temples and the worship of the Deity) as being a criminal waste. Such rascal leaders of religions and welfare organizations are like the thief who escapes in the night by accusing the innocent.

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