Hello friends,
This is Mohanji.
Welcome to another podcast.
Today I will tell a story.
First we listen to the story,
Then we talk about the moral of it.
Two people,
A master and a disciple,
They were going from a village to a city.
On the way the master told the disciple the treacheries of the city,
Means the city life is not as plain and simple as it was in the village.
City life is complicated.
People pretend,
People have masks and sometimes what they say is not what they mean.
All these things the master told the disciple.
So the disciple was aware and while they were going at one point in time they were very hungry and thirsty.
That time most of the distributions and the shelters were connected to temples.
They found a temple and in temple they were feeding a lot of people.
So they also joined in to get some food and in the nearby pond they took a bath.
Before they had the food they took the bath.
Then they came for the food,
They got the food and they were all happy.
And while they were sitting a few people gathered around them and they asked a question about a thing which is seemingly a very small thing but it had a very deep meaning.
The question was about motherhood.
The master thought it's not a very important subject.
So then he told the disciple,
You explain about motherhood.
What is the importance of motherhood?
The disciple started explaining about motherhood and the guru became very surprised.
Is it that deep?
So many dimensions of motherhood he explained right from the conceiving till every aspect of the growth of the child until even the child becomes a father or a mother.
Like that the disciple started explaining and it was really a grand explanation.
Once he completed answering the question one of the people listening to this came forward and removed his gold chain,
The necklace he had around his neck,
Very expensive one and put it on the neck of the disciple and said,
You have shown me the way.
You have actually made me realize how indebted I should be to my mother.
Let me now discontinue my journey and go back to my mother.
Rest of my life I would like to serve her.
So this effect was created by the speech of the disciple.
The master was surprised.
Master said,
My God,
You know so many things.
How did you know all these things?
Then the disciple said,
From you my master,
The way you look after your mother,
The way you take care of all the women and how you respect,
I learned from that.
The master said,
You have grown beyond me.
I would not have articulated so much to that question.
Then the disciple said,
Thank you master,
It's all your grace,
Your kindness,
Your mercy.
Then the master started praising the disciple and as he started praising the disciple started crying and the master did not understand why is he crying and then he asked the question,
Why are you crying?
I'm praising you.
I'm happy with you.
Then he said,
Master,
You can beat me,
You can scold me,
I have no problem.
But when you praise me,
I may get stagnated.
I'm worried about that.
Please don't praise me.
I have not achieved anything as yet.
Let me not have an ego connected to my knowledge or illusion that I may develop about my knowledge.
Please don't praise me.
You can guide me,
You can scold me,
You can even beat me.
I have no problem.
But let me not have a bloated ego thinking that I have known everything now.
I know everything because that time I stagnate.
When we know that we know everything,
We stop growing.
Instead if we keep a curious mind and if we try to gather more information or try to assimilate more information,
We are progressing.
The world is not as it seems to be.
We have discussed that in a previous podcast.
We said that the world is relative truth.
It's what we experience is the relative truth which the senses can understand.
Nervousness usually indiscriminately roam into various aspects of the external world and we feel that's freedom.
We feel that's the thing which we want.
Of course,
Experience is what we are asking for.
Experience is what we are born for.
But we must understand who we are as well in this whole journey and that's the human life.
That's the worth of human life.
That is how human life should be,
A full awareness about what we are.
So the disciple was very intelligent.
He understood if the master praises him too much,
He will stagnate.
Instead he would like to believe that he knows nothing.
He would like to keep his ego well under his feet so that growth is not affected.
I leave this story with you on your plate as food for thought.
Think it over and try to understand this point and think when we are in a world where we chasing appreciations,
We're craving for applause,
We're craving for accolades.
But in the bargain,
We stop understanding or we do not understand that we are stagnating there.
You know,
In this mad rush or the craving for praises and rewards and recognitions,
We stop growing.
So we must evolve and to evolve,
We must look within.
To look within,
We must spend time with ourselves.
This is the food for thought today.
I leave you with this thought.
Enjoy the rest of the day and the rest of the week.
Wish you happiness always and great success in life.
This is Mohanji with you.
Lots of love.
