IN THE WORLD BUT NOT OF THE WORLD

[Guest guest]

IN THE WORLD BUT NOT OF THE WORLD

Source: Spiritual Stories told by Sri Ramana

Maharshihttp://www.ramana-maharshi.org

 

KADUVELI SIDDHAR WAS famed as a very austere hermit.

He lived on the dry leaves fallen from trees. The king of the

country heard of him and offered a reward to one who would

prove this man's worth. A rich dasi agreed to do it. She began to

live near the recluse and pretended to attend on him. She gently

left pieces of pappadam along with the dry leaves picked by

him. When he had eaten them she began to leave other kinds

of tasty food along with the dry leaves. Eventually he took good

tasty dishes supplied by her. They became intimate and a child

was born to them. She reported the matter to the king.

 

The king wanted to know if she could prove their mutual

relationship to the general public. She agreed and suggested

a plan of action. Accordingly the king announced a public

dancing performance by the dasi and invited the people to

it. The crowd gathered and she also appeared, but not before

she had given a dose of physic to the child and left it in

charge of the saint at home.

 

As the dance was at its height, the child was crying at home

for its mother. The father took the babe in his arms and went to

the dancing performance. As she was dancing hilariously he

could not approach her with the child. She noticed the man

and the babe, and contrived to kick her legs in the dance, so as

to unloose one of her anklets just as she approached the place

where the saint was. She gently lifted her foot and he tied the

anklet. The public shouted and laughed. But he remained

unaffected. Yet to prove his worth, he sang a Tamil song meaning:

 

" For victory, let go my anger!

I release my mind when it rushes away.

If it is true that I sleep day and

night quite aware of my Self,

may this stone burst into twain

and become the wide expanse! "

 

Immediately the stone (idol) burst with a loud noise. The

people were astounded.

 

Thus he proved himself an unswerving jnani. One should

not be deceived by the external appearance of a jnani. Verse

181 of Vedanta Chudamani further explains this. Its meaning is

as follows:

 

Although a jivanmukta associated with the body may, owing

to his prarabdha, appear to lapse into ignorance or wisdom, yet

he is only pure like the ether (akasa) which is always itself clear,

whether covered by dense clouds or without being covered by

clouds. He always revels in the Self alone, like a loving wife

taking pleasure with her husband alone. Though she attends on

him with things obtained from others (by way of fortune, as

determined by her prarabdha). Though he remains silent like

one devoid of learning, his supineness is due to the implicit

duality of the vaikhari vak (spoken words) of the Vedas; his

silence is the highest ex-pression of the realised non-duality which

is after all the true content of the Vedas. Though he instructs his

disciples, he does not pose as a teacher in the full conviction

that the teacher and disciple are mere conventions born of

illusion (maya), and so he continues to utter words like akasvani.

If, on the other hand, he mutters words incoherently like a

lunatic, it is because his experience is inexpressible. If his words

are many and fluent like those of an orator, they represent the

recollection of his experience, since he is the unmoving nondual

One without any desire awaiting fulfilment. Although he

may appear grief-stricken like any other man in bereavement,

yet he evinces just the right love of and pity for the senses which

he earlier controlled before he realised that they were mere

instruments and manifestations of the Supreme Being. When

he seems keenly interested in the wonders of the world, he is

only ridiculing the ignorance born of superimposition. If he

appears wrathful he means well to the offenders. All his actions

should be taken to be only divine manifestations on the plane

of humanity. There should not arise even the least doubt as to

his being emancipated while yet alive. He lives only for the

good of the world.

gokulmuthu narayanaswamy <gokulmuthu