Deivathin Kural is a rare gem which has every little secret to build a happy life. It makes us truly believe that,only God could have taken a human form to MENTOR us in uncovering the Ultimate truth. It’s such a bliss reading this book. If you would like to buy this book, please click the image below.
In this chapter, MahaPeriyava talks about the reason behind our miseries and ways to handle it,with a very cute story.
The story of wooden Elephant
This chapter starts with a story from Thirumanthiram attributed to Thirumoolar. Thirumoolar is a Yogi, who moved from North of India to South. Thriumanthiram contains 3000 verses, that formed the basis for the Saiva Siddhantha that developed in Tamilnadu.
There was a carpenter in a village, who specializes in making wooden toys. One day, he made a wooden Elephant which looked like the real one, to be used in carnival. Another carpenter went to examine this wooden Elephant with his child.
The four year old child, perceived the wooden Elephant to be the real one. So, when the father went near the wooden elephant, the child screamed in fear,” Father please don’t go near the Elephant. It might hurt you.” The father tried to convince the child that it was just a doll and not a real Elephant.
The child perceived the Elephant to be real, as the wisdom of the doll being made of wood was hidden from the child. At the same time, the father did not get frightened as the knowledge that it was made out of wood made him feel confident that the doll might not hurt him. What does Thirumoolar convey through story?
In short, if we see Elephant in the toy, we don’t see the wood. If we see wood in the toy, we don’t recognize the Elephant. It is just an illusion.
As the Elephant and the wood are same, the five elements(Air, water, fire,Earth, space) and our Self(Paramathma) are the same entity.
As the child did not perceive the wood in Elephant we find difficulty in perceiving our self(Paramathma) due to the illusion that this Universe creates.
But on the other hand, saints see the Universe disappearing in Self(Paramathma). For those who have gained spiritual wisdom, everything appears as God. So now you might ask why should I know all these? What bothers me if I am able to see the Universe or God? Here is the answer.
What does this all mean?
We are in a competitive world, running crazily to become rich so that we enjoy all the comforts. Assume a hypothetical situation where God makes everybody rich. Do you think it will resolve all the issues? An international survey says
Most developed countries housing many millionaires and billionaires are 50% under paramedical care. Nearly half of the population cannot survive without medicines.
Even if God created everyone rich, there might still be a competition of who is richer? This competition never ends. It does not suffice to have enough money for our comfortable living alone; we need more than the other person and this competitive spirit is inherent to human nature. So even if everyone gets all the comforts equally, then there is a competition who gets the comfort first.
MahaPeriyava, here quotes an incident from Mutt. Everyday post his pooja, he offers Theertham(holy water) to all the devotees. Eventhough everybody knows he is not going to miss anyone, they are unable to stand in a single queue and wait patiently. This urge to get it first is the cause of all the chaos, where they tend to push, pull and jostle around. As long as this competitive spirit exists, we can never stay satisfied. But we think economic comfort alone is the solution. But please do remember
Comfort is not going to reduce the competition.
How do we stop this competition?
Competition can always happen between two or more people.For complete absence of the competitive spirit, the wisdom that there is no substance present for competition should be realized. If we do not want to fall to the sufferings of the Universe we must give up this self egoistic attitude and start exuding grace. In simple words,
“Detox your Ego and become available to Grace.”
If you do not have conclusions about anything, you will be soaked in Grace. We need to consciously recognize it, to work for us. A medically established fact says that two people who eat the same food do not get the same nourishment. It depends on your ability to derive sustenance from the food. Similarly we all have Paramathma within us. To derive sustenance from that we must become an expression of the grace.
We can draw inspiration from nature for this. We get the most fragrant flowers from our garden. Nobody everyday takes the effort to fill these flowers with fragrance. Even if it is given filth it learns to bloom with fragrance. Assume it gives an unpleasant smell, nobody will be interested in nurturing that plant. If it exudes filth because it has received filth, nobody will nurture the flowers. So my dear friends let us understand that grace brings many benefits. What is the benefit of exuding grace?
Once you start exuding grace, everybody wants to nurture it, promote it and most importantly become a part of it. Now the question is not about, Does Paramathma reside in us?
The God resides in us, otherwise we cannot exist. The question here is, are exuding grace that we derive from our inner self(Paramathma) or transforming it into something useless and exuding it out. The air, water and everything available to us in this Universe in grace. We conceive grace from nature but do we exude grace is the question. People have a tendency of accepting fantastic things and converting it into something useless and exude it to the outer world.
So let us transform ourselves to exude Grace rather than filth and if each one of us takes this step we will see this Universe bloom into a heaven and it becomes the best place to live.
HARA HARA SANKARA JAYA JAYA SANKARA.
MommyReturns 