Destiny, Circumstances, Fate, Luck, Krishna…Call Whatever

A very short beautiful story on the inexplicable…the invisible hand!

This refers to swayamwara arranged by the King Draupad to find a suitable match for his beautiful daughter, Draupadi.

A tough competition was set up: There was a wheel carrying a fish on its rim and revolving at the top of a pole. The pole was rose erect next to a water-body at its base. One who shot an arrow through the eye of the fish looking merely at the reflection in the waters below would win Draupadi’s hands.

The night before, a vexed Arjuna was talking it out with Krishna.

Krishna advised him: ‘ Arjuna, take care, put your foot forward, concentrate on the eye of the fish in your mind.’

Arjuna, more in despair: ‘If I do everything, what will you do, Krishna?’

Krishna smiled and said softly: ‘What you can do, I know, you’ll do and do well. What you can’t, I’ll.’

Arjuna: ‘And, what would that be?’

Krishna: ‘I’ll hold the water steady for you.’

…call it what you like, no denying the hand of the invisible in our lives.

End

Source: Based on a post from Vasu Kadambi

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The Story Of A Banana That Lost (Found?) Its Way

‘Did you taste the bananas I had sent for you yesterday?’

‘Yes, it was very tasty indeed,’ Krishna smiled.

‘It’s a special variety I had planted this season. What I sent you was the first ‘thaar’ (bunch) of the season from the field.’

‘But you sent just one.’

‘Just one? I had personally handed over an entire ‘thaar’, not keeping even one for our home.’

‘Don’t know about that, but I got to eat just one and it was delicious, not the usual stuff.’

‘That’s surprising…never mind, today I’ll personally come with two thaar’s since you liked it so much. Be there till I turn up, don’t go away; I’ll surely come…will surely come…will surely come…’

‘Enga (Hey), where are you going to and where are you coming from? Wake up, it’s morning. You were dreaming,’ his wife was standing beside him.

The devout mirasdar (landlord), startled out of his sleep, taking a little while to gather his wits, dismissed his wife: ‘Oh, it’s nothing, don’t worry. Get the coffee ready, I’ll be there in a few minutes. I’ve to go to the field thereafter, so don’t delay.’

When he returned later with two huge thaar’s in his hands, his servant, coming to work just then, rushed to him: ‘Ayya, why did you bother? But for my son – down with fever, he didn’t sleep all night – I would have been here much earlier.’

As he tried to relieve the master of the heft, he found himself pushed aside petulantly.

The inquisition began: ‘Tell me first what happened to the bananas yesterday?’

‘Why, I carried the thaar you had given and delivered it to the Ayyar (priest).’

‘How many bananas were there in the thaar you carried?’

‘Ayya, I did not count. I guess it must be over hundred.’

‘And you handed over the whole thaar at the temple?  Don’t lie – I’ve a way to find the truth.’

‘I did exactly like you had instructed, Ayya…except for a small lapse.’

‘Small lapse?’

‘Just when I neared the temple, the sight of the bananas drew a beggar child who seemed too weak even to beg. He barely managed to put out his two hands, his hunger-dizzied eyes fixed on the fruits. I did not have the heart to walk away. Gave him a fruit that he eagerly partook…it was just one small fruit from the bottom of the pile, squashed on one side by the weight of the thaar…’

Despite his efforts to minimize the loss, the servant stood waiting for the inevitable reprimand.

Silence…

Finally, ‘Go, take these two thaars…’

‘I’ll go right away and this time there’ll be no lapses, I assure you, Ayya…’

‘and distribute among the hungry.’

‘Ayya?’

‘You heard me right.’ The mirasdar walked away.

The servant’s jaw dropped. He had expected to be fined a month’s pay for the infraction.

Vexed over ‘whatever happened to his master?’ he trooped out carrying the bananas. He was not going to lose his peace trying to figure things out.

 

End

 

 

 

Source: Adapted from a post in WhatsApp. Image from urbandud.wordpress.com

The Difference Between Knowledge And Its Practice

The reclusive Uttang Rishi stayed the forests for most of his life with little contact with the rest of the world. It was during one such long stay away from civilization that the war between the rift between the Pandavas and Kauravas ripened to enmity and ended in the calamitous war at Kurukshetra that resulted in the decimation of all the Kauravas. Always in penance the Rishi moved places. Pleased with his sincere devotion, Lord appeared and said, “I wish to grant you a boon, O most righteous sage! What would you ask of me?”

Uttang said, Oh Lord “I need nothing! The only thing that I, perhaps, may seek is that I may not lack for water wherever I am, since I travel in wild and inaccessible places.”

Lord replied “Granted!”

Once, Uttang Rishi was traveling through a desert and was afflicted by  severe thirst and could not find any water to drink. He remembered the boon of LORD and besought some water.

Lord summons Indira and instructs him to take the nectar (Amrit) and fulfill the Rishi’s thirst permanently making him immortal. Indira was surprised with Lord’s command as the Nectar was meant for deva’s and not humans. However it was an instruction from the Lord that could not be ignored..

Indira changes his attire He dresses himself as an ugly looking chandala (one who deals with disposal of corpses) and arrives before the Rishi along with a stray dog.   The Rishi is dismayed. He follows the Rishi and pleads him to take the divine water he is carrying from his deerskin container.

Uttang Rishi was aghast. How could he, a Rishi, take water from a chandala? Thrice the chandala offers water and thrice the Rishi refused. The Rishi declares that he would die of thirst rather than drink the water given by him and asks him to leave. The chandala disappears in fraction of a second leaving the Rishi in surprise.

He was pensive when Lord Krishna appeared before him.

Uttang Rishi complained:”Lord! You promised me water whenever I needed it. How could you send it in the hands of a chandala?”

Lord Krishna smiled and said, “O Sage! I asked Indra to give you divine nectar and make you immortal. Indra was hesitant saying that Amrit was not for normal human beings. I told that you were a realised soul and deserved immortality.

Indra felt that if you were truly a realised soul, you would know that all differentiation between people were only the creation of mortals and that all people were the same in the eyes of a realised soul and, thus, if you accepted the nectar from Indra in the guise of a chandala, you would deserve it. I agreed. You let me down…

End

 

 

Credits: Google Images and kmkvaradhan.wordpress.com minimally edited

 

A Krishna-Arjuna Episode

One morning, Krishna and Arjuna went out on a walk.

Suddenly Krishna paused in his stride and looked up.

‘Arjuna, see this beautiful white dove flying above.’

‘Yes, Krishna,’ Arjuna said: ‘indeed a spotlessly white dove.’

‘Arjuna, I think it is a duck. See the longish webbed feet.’

‘Yes, Krishna, you’re right. It is a duck.’

‘The sunlight is playing tricks. Now from near its feathers take a greenish hue…and its curved beak. Dhananjaya, in fact it is a parrot.’

‘I too think it’s a parrot.’

‘Partha, what’s the matter with you today? You readily concur with whatever I say. First it was a dove, then a duck and now a parrot. Next thing if I said it was a giraffe flying up there, I reckon by your performance so far today you wouldn’t disagree.’

‘Yes Achyuta, it could even be a giraffe.’

‘Why is it so, my dear Kauntheya?’

‘A dove turning into a duck and a duck into a parrot or to get a giraffe to fly…is it too much to do, Govinda, for a mayaavi like you? Don’t I know it must be so if you say so?’

End

PS: Partha, Dhananjaya and Kauntheya are other names for Arjuna.

Source: Adapted from the net. Image from india-forums.com.

Krishna The Just

There were three young lads that came into the temple.

After the darshan, they were on their way out. They paused near the hundi (collection box) located in the front and turned around for one final darshan of the deity. At this time one of the lads idly ran his hand over the slit of the hundi and felt a coin stuck at the slit that had not dropped into the hundi. He looked around. Seeing no one watching him, he retrieved the two rupee coin mumbling sincere apologies.

It was a god-send. With no money on them, they had not eaten almost for a day and hence were mighty hungry. In fact they had come into the temple in the hope of receiving some prasadam which unfortunately did not happen. On the two-rupee coin, they went to a nearby eating house and had a dosa each for a total of a rupee and a half. The lad returned to the temple with his mates and dropped the remaining half a rupee back into the hundi thanking the Lord for his timely help.  Just then the Bhattar (priest) who happened to be nearby saw the lad with his hand on the hundi.

Suspecting some mischief the Bhattar pulled up the lad and questioned him. The lad made a clean breast of whatever had happened.  An angry Bhattar gave them a punishment of making four pradakshanam’s (circumambulations) of the temple with hands folded in obeisance to make expiation for the misdeed.

Complying with Bhattar’s pronouncement, the lads proceeded to make atonement.  On their third pradakshanam,  the Bhattar saw a sweet child following them with folded hands. Strangely no one else seemed to be aware of the child’s presence.

Bhattar addressed the child: ‘My child, why are doing it? It was meant for those lads.’

The child smiled at the Bhattar: ‘Sir, you prescribed four pradakshanam’s for the two rupees they took out of the hundi. They had used a rupee and half for their food and gave me back half a rupee. Please tell them to stop on completing the third. It is only fair they do three and I do the fourth.

Without waiting any further the child sped away around the shrine on a pradakshanam not to be seen again.

End

Source: Heard it on a TV channel, details differing somewhat, months ago. The subject temple is in Guruvayoor where Krishna is the deity as a child. Image from Krishna mohanji.org