Banyan Tree
TEACHING STORY
One with the God
The Saptarishi or the Seven Sages were the first seven disciples of Lord Shiva. It was a daily ritual for them to circumambulate Shiva, to offer him their devotion and obeisance. One of these was Bhrigu, who was a little possessive about Shiva. Once, Bhrigu thought, “Why should I circumambulate Parvati? I have nothing to do with her. I want to circumambulate only Shiva.” So he asked Parvati to move away which angered her a lot. She flatly refused to step aside. So Bhrigu turned into a small bird and circled only around Shiva, leaving Parvati out. Shiva found this whole situation quite amusing.
Wanting to see what Bhrigu would do next, Shiva drew Parvati onto his left lap, leaving no space between them. Bhrigu turned into a bumble bee and went around only Shiva’s head, again leaving Parvati out. She got even more furious. Shiva, highly amused with this drama, pulled her in, making her a part of himself, till they were sitting as one. He shed one half of himself and replaced it with Parvati and became an ardhanari. Then, Bhrigu, as a bumblebee, bored a hole, again making sure that he would circle only Shiva. In anger, Parvati cursed Bhrigu, saying, “Let your body decimate! Forget going around Shiva, you won’t be able to take a single step forward.”
Bhrigu lost all his muscle and was reduced to skin and bones. He couldn’t even stand. This made Shiva interfere and he said to Parvati, “What have you done to him? He is a devotee. Devotees are insane. He is not doing this out of any disrespect to you. If you had just told him ‘I am also Shiva,’ he would have circumambulated around you too.” But it was too late and even Lord Shiva couldn’t revoke Parvati’s curse, so he gave Bhrigu a third leg to stand upon. The third leg not only became a support for Bhrigu but a boon, by virtue of which he could perceive the three worlds.
—Sadhguru
ANANDAMAYI MA
This, I know
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To live in the presence of God who is Truth (satya)—this indeed is the meaning of satsang.
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The remembrance of God must be sustained under all conditions and circumstances.
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Solely by turning to God is there any hope for man to gain peace.
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To cry out to Him is never in vain. So long as no response is received, the prayer must be continued.
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In Him is everything. Him you must try to find.
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When the mind is full of worldly desires, it is their very nature to confuse the mind. Withdraw the mind from outer things and turn it inwards.
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When by the flood of your tears, the inner and the outer have fused into One, you will find Her whom you sought with such anguish, nearer than the nearest, the very breath of life, the very core of every heart.
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Reality is beyond speech and thought. Only that which can be expressed in words is being said. But what cannot be put into language is indeed ‘that which is’.
INSPIRATION
Stream of life
The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.
It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.
It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.
I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.
—Rabindranath Tagore
JUST FOR LAUGHS
Old age
A pious man who had reached the age of 105 suddenly stopped going to the synagogue. Alarmed by the old fellow’s absence after so many years of faithful attendance, the Rabbi went to see him. He found him in excellent health, so the Rabbi asked, “How come after all these years we don’t see you at services anymore?” The old man said in hushed tones, “When I got to be 90, I expected God to take me any day. But then I got to be 95, then 100, then 105. So I figured that God is very busy and must have forgotten about me... and I don’t want to remind Him.”
ONE-MINUTE WISDOM
Once, a journalist asked the Master to name one thing that characterises the modern world. The Master unhesitatingly replied, “People every day know more and more about the Cosmos and less and less about themselves.”
And to an astronomer who held him spellbound with the wonders of modern astronomy, the Master said, “Of all the millions of strange objects in the universe—the black holes and the pulsars— the strangest, unquestionably, is the self!”
QUOTE
You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realise how seldom they do.
―David Foster Wallace