Parents

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Every person by birth becomes rini for parents — without whom the very existence on this earth would not have been possible, devatas — for all the panchabutas, rains, nature etc. and rishis — for giving us puraanas, shastras etc. Of these, the runam of parents cannot be paid back easily and is virtually impossible. Hence one needs to atleast do seva to them, listen and adhere to their words and give them a lot of respect. This is the least one can do to them. Our puraanas also show that one can attain moksha just by doing seva to parents. Once upon a time, there used to live a great Bhakta of Krishna. He had a wife, who deserved to be his ardhaangini. However, they had a son, Pundarika, who had all kinds of vyasanas. In the attraction for a mere vaaraangana, he drives his parents out of his house, does not love his wife and finally looses all his money. The vaaraangana, whose love he thought was eternal, left him once his money was over. In the

sorrow of being apart from the vaaraangana, he walks into a forest and finally reaches the ashram of a great sage, Kukkuta muni. He sees the following wonder when he reaches the place: Three very ugly looking old females, suffering from terrible diseases, enter and clean the ashram. After doing all the cleaning required, they go inside Kukkuta muni's kutir and to his surprise, three very beautiful, young women with the tejas of sun come out. Out of his usual attraction to women, he goes and holds the hand of one of the women and immediately she turns ugly like before. The woman tells Pundarika “because people like you take dip in our holy waters everyday, we get these ugly forms and have to bear such dreadful diseases. We are Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswathi. Everyday we clean the kutir of Kukkuta muni and have his darshan to relieve the loads of paapas you maanavas leave with us and get back our divya shariraas.” She again has darshan of Kukkuta muni

and all the three leave the place. Pundarika, just to see what is there inside, goes into the kutir. He sees nothing great — no jewels, no big furniture nothing. He sees a person totally immersed in pressing the legs of his father. The person was totally engrossed in it and the only other thing he had in mind was the thought of Lord Shiva.Seeing Kukkuta muni, Pundarika asks him many questions about the woman etc., but sees that the muni gives back no reply, because the muni was totally engrossed with the seva to his father with his mind on Shiva. Not able to bear the rejection, out of ahankaar, he tries to kick the muni and immediately falls on the ground injuring both his legs. Pundarika cries for help and the muni gets disturbed by his cries and attends to him. Pundarika begs the muni to pardon him and the muni immediately pardons him. Pundarika realizes all the mistakes he has done in his life and asks the muni for prayaschittam. The muni says that there

is nothing that can help him except the seva to his parents and even a bhrashta can achieve moksha by serving his parents. Immediately Pundarika, pulling himself with his hands, sets off in the search for his parents, whom he drove away from his house. He truly and whole heartedly repents for his mistakes and continues his journey to his parents. He does not think about food, water, his bleeding legs, the only thing he has in his mind is to search for his parents, beg them to pardon him and do their seva. He does not care about thorny paths, heat of the sun, steep mountain cliffs etc. and continues his journey. Time and again he comes across several obstacles, but time and again, Lord Krishna helps him. At all stages,Pundarika’s heart was filled only with the thought of doing seva to his parents, and hence Krishna helps him all along. Finally, he reaches the kutir of his parents and falls at their feet. He begs them to pardon him for being so cruel to them and

pleads with them to grant him the chance of doing their seva. The parents immediately pardon Pundarika and Pundarika finds that his legs are healed. From that day onwards, he always used to be busy doing seva to his parents and always thinks of Krishna in his mind. Unable to bear the separation from his bhakta, one day Lord Krishna comes to see Pundarika. He waits at the door of Pundarika’s kutir and calls for him. Pundarika sees Krishna, the Paramaatma for whose darshan even great munis spend their entire lives in tapas, standing at his door. But Pundarika was at that time pressing the feet of his parents, who were asleep, with legs in his lap. Pundarika, seeing the Lord becomes very happy, but asks Him to wait a bit, since he cannot stop seva to his parents and he throws a brick towards Krishna, so that Krishna can stand on the brick! And the ever-loving God waited for his devotee. When Pundarik finished with his seva and begged God's

pardon, Krihsna replied that far from being displeased, he was pleased with his love for his parents and granted a boon to him. Pundarik requested God to stay back on Earth and bless all his numerous devotees. The Lord agrees to stay back as Vithoba, or "God who stood upon a brick". This temple later became the well known temple of Pandharpur on the banks of the Chandrabhaga river in Maharashtra. Pundarika's Krishna is also known as "Vitthala" in Marathi. The word "Vitthala" is said to be derived from the Marathi word "Vit", meaning "brick". Lord Krishna's idol there is shown as standing on a brick with his hands on his hips. Ref:- http://moralstories.wordpress.com/list-of-great-people/----------------------------HAPPY VISHU TO ALL DEVOTEES.OM NAMO NARAYANAYA.Om Namo Narayanaya.Group website: http://www.guruvayoor.com/Monthly magazine: www.guruvayoor.com/navaneetham Do You ?