Seva to parents alone is enough!

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Seva to parents alone is enough!

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

ardhaangi. 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 a lonely kutir of a

great person by name, Kukkuta muni. He sees the

following wonder when he reaches the place:

 

Three very ugly looking old females, suffering from

terrible diseases, will be cleaning the ashram. After

doing all the cleaning required, they go inside the

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 bare with such dreadful

diseases. We are Ganga, Yamuna and Sarawathi. 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 (They wondered why a common human,

that too a bad person, was able to see them in human

form at the first 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 gave back no

reply, since the muni was totally engrossed with the

seva to his father. Not able to bear the rejection,

out of ahankaar, he tries to kick the muni and

immediately falls on the ground loosing both his legs.

Pundarika cries for help and the muni gets disturbed

by his cries and attends to his help. 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 pardonhim and do their

seva. He does not care about thorny paths, heat of the

sun, steep mountain cliffs etc. and continues his

journey. When he falls off a cliff, Lord Krishna used

to catch him safely and let him move on. At all

stages,Pundarika’s heart was filled only with the want

of doing seva to parents, and hence Krishna bhagavaan

used to help him all along. Finally, he reaches the

kutir of his parents and falls on their feet. He begs

them to pardon him for being so cruel to them and

pleaded them to grant him the chance of doing their

seva. The parents immediately pardon Pundarika and

Pundarika again gets back his legs. From that day

onwards, he always used to be busy doing seva to his

parents and always think of Krishna paramaatma 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. Krishna asks Pundarika to come

and take Him inside. Pundarika, seeing the Lord

becomes very happy, but asks Him to wait a bit, since

he cannot stop seva to his parents and he will come

after taking their permission. Lord Krishna waits at

the door and by being touched by his lotus feet, Indra

who was lying in the form of a stone because of the

curse of Lord Shiva, takes back His original form and

leaves to Indraloka.

 

Meanwhile Pundarika’s father wakes up and asks him

what happened. Pundarika says that Lord Krishna had

come but he was unable to receive him. Immediately

Pundarika’s father runs to receive the Lord, but does

not see Him. He then asks Pundarika to call Krishna.

Krishna appears immediately on the call of Pundarika

and blesses moksha for Pundarika, his wife and his

parents. Krishna also stays permanently at the house

of Pundarika to bless bhaktas and it became the well

known kshetram of Pandarpur. The kshetram is so

ancient that the legs of the Pandarnath’s idol are

half eroded just by the touchings of bhaktas!

 

Morals in the story:

 

1. Only because Pundarika did true seva to his

parents, did Krishna wait for him at his door and

immediately come when called by Pundarika. This shows

the importance of being obedient to parents ans doing

their seva.

2. Seva of parents is the most basic thing that the

Indian culture prescribes. A person going against the

word of his parents will not be liked by God.