Once Krishna and Arjuna were going together along the open road.
Seeing a bird in the sky, Krishna asked Arjuna, “Is that a dove?” He replied, “Yes, it is a dove.”
He asked Arjuna, “Is it an eagle?’ Arjuna replied promptly, “Yes, it is an eagle.”
“No, Arjuna, it looks like a crow to Me. Is it not a crow?” asked Krishna. Arjuna replied, “I am sorry, it is a crow beyond a doubt.”
Krishna laughed and chided him for agreeing to whatever suggestion was given.
But Arjuna said, “For me, Your Words are far more weighty than the evidence of my eyes; You can make it a crow, a dove, or an eagle, and when you say it is a crow, it must be one.”
Implicit faith is the secret of spiritual success.
Let me tell you an incident that happened while in the previous body at Shirdi.
There was a lady from Pahalgaon, a simple illiterate devotee. She stored water in her kitchen in three clean, brightly polished brass pots from three separate wells, and she had named the pots Ganga, Yamuna, and Saraswathi (after the three rivers). She always referred to them by those names. Whenever any thirsty wayfarer called at her door, she mixed water from all three and offered it to the person as water from three rivers (thriveni theertha).
Neighbours used to laugh at her faith, but her belief that the three wells were connected underground with the three rivers that joined at Prayag was unshakable. Her husband started on a pilgrimage to Kasi (Benares).
Discourse to a gathering of students and older devotees
03 June 1986
FIVE principles have to be observed for realising the divinity in man. They are: Ahimsa (Noninjury), Sathya (Truth), Soucham (Purity), Daya (Compassion) and Asthikyam (Faith in God).
Non-harming (Ahimsa):
It is a supreme virtue. But, in daily life, almost at every step some harm or other is being caused. When we breathe in or breathe out, countless microbes perish. There are occasions when wittingly or otherwise, injury is caused to some being or other. Complete nonviolence is not a practicable ideal. What should be ensured is that there is no deliberate causing of injury or harm to anyone.
Truth (Sathyam):
Truth is Divine. Where there is Truth there is Divinity. When Dushyanta forgot that he had given a ring to Sakuntala when he met her near the sage Kanva's ashram, Sakuntala declared in the open court of the king that Truth was the supreme Dharma and a king should uphold truth at any cost. She pointed out that in the order of merit, starting from digging wells to performing horse-sac...
Gullapalli BuchiRamaya Sastry spoke about the Mahabharatha so well and with so much scholarship since he has been specialising in its exposition for years. The Mahabharatha is considered by many as not so conducive to devotion as the Bhagavatha, for instance, or the Ramayana, but if once you know the taste, no one will give it up or consider it as of lower value. It is called the Fifth Veda, not without reason. The Vedas reveal things that are beyond the reach of the intellect. The truths declared by the Vedas are made practicable and simple, interesting and instructive, by means of stories and homilies in the Mahabharatha. The Purva Mimamsa (an inquiry into the ritualistic action part of the Veda) deals with the path of worldly desire and the Uttara Mimamsa with the path of renunciation. The Purva Mimamsa deals with the reason (karana) and the Uttara Mimamsa with the duty (karyam), which is wisdom (jnanam). In the Mahabharatha, both paths are fully explained, so it is called the Fifth...
Droupadi praying in distress from the assembly hall of the Kauravas is an instance in point. The Mahabharatha proves times and again that the Lord answers prayers that come out of faith and agony in yearning. A cowherder called Maladhasa was determined to see the Lord as He was described in the sacred texts he had heard expounded in the village temple by a pandit. So he prayed and prayed to the “black Lord riding on the white bird” all the time his cows were pasturing in the fields. Eleven days passed, but there was no sign of the “black Lord riding the white bird”. Maladhasa had forgotten to take food and drink during all those days and had become weak - too weak to walk or talk. At last, the Lord melted at his entreaties and presented Himself before him as an old Brahmin. But the Brahmin was not riding a white bird, nor was he black, beautifully black, as the pandit had described.
