Sri Sathya Sai Speaks

The third defect of the mind, karana apatavam, means weakness or debility of the instruments. This weakness affects both the inner instrument (antha karana) and the external instruments (the sense organs.) Here is a small story to illustrate the weakness of antha karana. There was a rich farmer in a village. He was the undisputed leader of the village. There was another middle-class farmer in the same village. One day, the cattle belonging to both these farmers were grazing together. Unexpectedly there started a fierce fighting between the two bullocks, one belonging to the rich farmer and the other to the middle-class farmer. During the fight, the rich man’s bullock died due to the injury to some vital and vulnerable part of its body. Now, the middle-class farmer who was there at that time became deeply worried. He ran to the village to inform the rich farmer about the fatal accident to the latter’s bullock. But due to the highly nervous and confused state of his mind, he was trembling with fear, and he told the rich farmer that the latter’s bullock had killed the bullock of the farmer; i.e. the opposite of what actually happened. The rich farmer very calmly received the news. He consoled the small farmer, saying that, when human beings endowed with intelligence are killing each other, there is no wonder if the rich farmer’s bullock has killed the small farmer’s bullock, because after all the animals are devoid of any intelligence; in the meanwhile, the small farmer realised his mistake in giving a wrong report and told the rich man, “Respected Sir, I have unwittingly committed a blunder by giving a wrong version of the accident. I am very sorry to tell you that it is my bullock that has killed your bullock.” On hearing this, the rich man was beside himself with anger. He rebuked and abused the small farmer in very strong terms and demanded from him a penalty of five hundred rupees. This story betrays the karana-apatavam in respect of the rich man’s antha karana, which obviously was weak because of its inconsistent behaviour based on the feeling of “I” and “mine” as opposed to the “other” man.