Flight of the Crow :The Dangers of Pride

[Guest guest]

 

The following story told by Salya to Karna

from the forty-first chapter of the Karna-

parva of Mahābharata nicely illustrates the

dangers of pride.-----------------------

 

There once lived a wealthy vaiśya by the side

of the ocean. He performed many sacrifices

and gave generously in charity. He was quiet,

observant of the duties of his order, and was

pure in his habits and mind. The vaiśya had a

number of sons all of whom were pious and

kind to all living creatures. Living in a place

that was ruled over by a pious king, the vaiśya

was peaceful and free from anxiety.

There was a crow that daily came to the

home of the vaiśya to feast on remnants of

the family’s food that the children gave him.

After eating every day the opulent milk,

puddings, yogurt, honey, butter and other

foods, the crow became very arrogant and

began to think little of all other birds.

One day, some great white swans, who were

practically equal to Garuda in terms of speed

and range of flight, came to the shore of the

ocean. When the sons of the vaiśya saw the

wonderful swans, they jokingly told the crow,

“O ranger of the sky, you are superior to all

of these big birds.”

Intoxicated with arrogance and false

pride, the crow considered these words to

be true. That foolish crow then challenged

the leader of the swans, saying, “Let us

have a flying competition to see who is the

best.”

Hearing the words of the arrogant crow,

those swans began to laugh. Those

foremost of birds, capable of flying

anywhere at will, said to the crow, “We

are swans who live on the Manasa Lake.

We traverse all over the earth, and

amongst winged creatures we are always

spoken highly of for the length of distances

we fly. How can a crow like you hope to

compete with a swan?”

{to be continued...}

[Guest guest]

 

Seeing him fallen, with a sorry heart the

swan addressed the crow who was on the

verge of death, “O crow, how is it that you

were previously praising yourself so loudly?

Remember, you said that you would fly in a

hundred and one different ways. How is it

that you have become so tired and have fallen

into the water?”

Overcome with weakness, the crow pleaded

with the swan, “Eating the remnants of the

family’s opulent foods, I thought myself equal

to Garuda and did not care for the crows or

any other birds. I now seek refuge with you

and place my life at your disposal. Please take

me to the land and save me from this calamity.”

Without a word, the swan picked up the

crow, placed him on his back, and began

flying back to the land. Nearly at the point of

death, deprived of his senses, drenched with

water, trembling in fear, and hideous to look

at, the melancholy crow was weeping. The

swan speedily restored the crow back to the

land where they had originally started.

Placing him gently on the ground and

comforting him, the swan then quickly flew

away to return to Manasa Lake.

[salya then told Karna that just as that

crow fed upon the remnants of the vaiśya

children, became proud,␣and thus

disrespected his equals and superiors,

similarly, living on the remnants of

Dhritarashtra’s sons, Karna had become

proud and thought himself fit to fight with

Krishna and Arjuna.]

Sometimes it is seen that after becoming

uplifted by receiving the mercy of great

personalities, some kāka-janas, crow-like

persons, become proud and forget the color

of their feathers. After having a little

association with swan-like parama-hasa

devotees, they begin to consider themselves

far superior to their peers and perhaps

even equal to the parama-hasas. Instead

of anusāra, following the instructions of the

Lord’s dear devotees, they take up the

cheap practice of anukāra, imitation. By

taking shelter of swan-like persons we may

cross the ocean of birth and death, but if

we try to imitate them we will certainly

fall down into the ocean and drown.

The crow replied, “Great as I am, I tell you,

that before your eyes, I shall fly for hundreds

of yojanas (a yojana is eight miles) displaying

a hundred and one varieties of motions in

flight. Rising up, swooping down, whirling

around, going straight, proceeding gently,

going backwards, darting forward, moving

with great velocity I shall display my great

strength and expertise in flight.”

One of the swans said, “O crow, you may

fly in a hundred and one different ways. I

however, shall fly in only one way, which is

the way all other birds know. For I do not

know any other. O you of red eyes, you may

fly as you like.”

Hearing this, all of the crows that had

gathered there laughed and said, “Now we

will see our brother crow defeat the swans.”

The crow and swan then rose into the sky,

the swan flying in a simple straight motion

and the crow making many elaborate

movements. Seeing the variety of styles of

flight he was exhibiting, all of the assembled

crows were filled with delight and began

to caw loudly.

For a moment it appeared that the crow had

defeated the swan, then suddenly, with great

velocity, the swan began to fly westwards

towards the ocean. After following him for

some time out to sea, the crow could no longer

see any land or trees, and he became afraid.

He thought, “When I become tired, where

shall I rest on this vast ocean? The water is

immeasurably deep and is inhabited by

hundreds of monsters who will devour me.”

Covering a great distance in one moment,

the swan looked back to see how the crow

was faring. Seeing him far behind, exhausted,

and barely able to stay above the water, the

swan felt pity and went to his aid. The swan

said, “O crow, what is the name of this special

flight which you are exhibiting now? You are

repeatedly touching the water with your

wings and beak.”

Unable to see the limit of the ocean, and

greatly fatigued by having flown so far, the

crow replied, “O revered sir, we are crows.

We move about here and there crying, ‘Caw!

Caw! Caw!’ O swan, I seek refuge in you and

place my life in your hands. Please take me

back to the land.” Speaking thus, the crow

suddenly fell exhausted into the ocean.

 

[Guest guest]

Bhaktivinode Thakur sings:

garhita ācāre, rohilāma moji’,

nā korinu sādhu-saga

lo’ye sādhu-veśa, āne upadeśi,

e boo māyāra raga

Remaining absorbed in abominable activities, I

never really kept company with sādhus. Now I

adopt the dress of a sādhu and act out the role of

instructing others. This is māyā’s big joke.

Conceit is a great stumbling block on the path

of devotion. In the Bhāgavad-gītā (16.4),

Krishna describes pride as a demoniac quality:

dambho darpo ’bhimānaś ca krodha pāru yam eva ca

ajñāna cābhijātasya pārtha sampadam āsurīm

Pride, arrogance, conceit, anger, harshness and

ignorance—these qualities belong to those of

demoniac nature, O son of Pritha.

Nārada Purā

a (1.7.15) describes:

ahakāro mahān jajñe māsūyo lobha-hetuka

Pride is the cause of destruction of all wealth,

the source of false ego and all types of failure.

Suffering from the troubles caused by trying

to compete, the crow finally had no other

recourse then to give up his pretension and

take shelter of the swan. Similarly, if we find

ourselves in such a situation our only hope is

to take shelter of the parama-hasas. In Vraja-

vilāsa-stava, text 1, Srila Raghunath Das

Goswami has compared our spiritual pursuits

to travelling on a road where one is beset with

thieves. Like the crow that was nearing death

and cried out to the swan, Raghunath Das

says that our only hope is to call out to the

swan-like devotees of the Lord:

prati

hā-rajjubhir baddha kāmādyair vartma-pattibhi

chitvā tā saharantas tān aghāre pāntu mā bha

ā

The highwaymen of lust, greed, and anger have

captured me and bound me with the ropes of the

desire for fame. I pray that the heroic devotees of

Lord Krishna, the enemy of the Agha demon, may

defeat my captors and cut the ropes that bind me.

Srila Sanatan Goswami has advised us of

the benefits of humility:

yenāsādhara

āśaktā-dhama-buddhi sadātmani

sarvotkar ānvite ‘pi syād buddhais tad dainyam i yate

Even if one is very exalted, he should be humble

and think himself very incompetent and lowly.

yayā vācehayā dainya matyā ca sthairyam eti tat

tā yatnena bhajed vidvās tad-viruddhāni varjayet

A wise man should try to be humble in his words,

deeds, and thoughts. He should shun whatever

is opposed to humility.

dainya tu parama prem

a paripāke

a janyate

tāsā gokula-nārī

ām iva k

a-viyogata

Humbleness comes from advancement in love

for Krishna, as is seen in the example of the

women of Gokul when they were separated

from Krishna.

paripāke

a dainyasya premājasra vitanyate

paraspara tayor ittha kārya-kāra

atek yate

Mature humbleness brings love for Krishna. It

is seen that the two are in a relationship of cause

and effect. — 2.5.221-225.

 

[livingentity]

Please understand I am not criticizing but would it be possible for you to edit the symbols and numbers out of your posts. Your posts are very very nice but I know I am missing so much nectar by not being able to discipher so much of them.

[gHari]

Apparently if you paste the texts into notepad first and then copy from there, the funny characters don't appear. I use text-to-speech software to hear most long posts, and these numbers-instead-of-punctuation really turn my head inside out.

 

Russell Crowe

[livingentity]

is that something you can get from the web?

 

Just trying to read these posts makes my little brain have a meltdown! Nice tip about the notepad trick - hope this poster starts using it.

[I_love_krishna_]

The Swan that we see in the story, is it symbolizing krishna?

 

And the crow then must symbolize the living entity. When the living being is proud, it starts to think of itself as great as Krishna.

 

But it is unable to cross the Ocean of Material Samsara as easily as the Swan could cross...

 

So, it needs the help of the swan to make it cross the ocean.

 

The people who have playfully tricked the crow... do they symbolize maya?

 

Maya tricks us, thus making us fall into the deep ocean of material disgust in which we can do nothing but drown unless the swan like krishna comes to our rescue.

 

But there are many swans... whats up with that?

 

 

[Guest guest]

Dear gHari what exactly does paste into notepad first mean?

Sorry,i'm just learning about these computer operation things.

[gHari]

Notepad is a program on any Windows PC that will open or create text files (.txt). It is usually found under Accessories. You could also use WORD or any other program used to create text files. Once you paste the words in there, these special characters that are used on some web sites will be converted into more normal characters. When you then highlight and copy from there, your passage will not longer be displayed with numbers instead of punctuation.

[gHari]

I don't know of any free programs. I paid for mine a long time ago ($100US) and it paid for itself in no time. I have even taught it to pronounce sanskrit quite well. It does a cool japa.

 

The only inconvenience is that it requires the program CD in the computer to start the program. It is called AccuVoice Av1700 if you're interested. I think they sold out but the new owners also provide similar stuff. It is great for catching those Paris in the the springtime typos, and for reading text (I actually had it read the entire novel Siddhartha to me a couple of weeks ago). It is very life-like since it uses sound bytes of human words instead of generating computer geek-talk.

 

I'm trying to create a .wav file of it reading this message and if it works (recording turned out a little tinny but ..) it will be available by <a href=http://home.primus.ca/~caitanya/talk.wav>CLICKING HERE</A> ..... so I will let it chant this japa:

 

Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare;

Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.

[livingentity]

I was surprised! It was funny though because it read the link URL when it got to "Clicking Here".

 

Sometimes it is hard for me to read for any real length on the computer screen - a program like that would certainly come in handy.