Due to lack of knowledge of spiritual science, some seekers, taking their Guru or a Saint as their role model, try to imitate their external behavior, but such behavior is inappropriate. The minds of saints are in unison with God, thus, their external behavior does not influence their Sadhana.
In the year 2003, some of us seekers got the opportunity to be in the company of a saint.We all sat in a small room for an hour and he was talking causally and giving us a few perspectives on Sadhana. During that one hour, he smoked a Beedi thrice. I cannot stand the stench of Beedi at all, but surprisingly none of us (seekers) could get the smell of the Beedi and what is more astonishing was that we realised this only after He had left ! Why saints act in a certain way, what is the purpose behind it, is often very difficult to understand by examining through ordinary intellect.
Imitating the gross acts of saints is totally improper instead one should practice Sadhana that they did to achieve sainthood. In this context, is a truly inspirational short story. Once, a disciple was in the habit of imitating the gross acts of his Guru and the Guru reminded him of his mistake many times, but not seeing any change in this behavior of the disciple,He decided to teach him a practical lesson. One day, both the Guru and the disciple were taking a bath in the Ganga at Haridwar. While bathing the Guru took water in his palms and the disciple saw four small fish had got caught in the Guru’s palms and His Gurus wallowed the fish along with the water.When the disciple took water in his palms, by Guru’s Lila(divine play of the Guru), four small fish got caught in his palm too. Imitating his Guru, the disciple too devoured them. A fortnight later, when the Guru and the disciple were bathing in river Ganga at Varanasi, demonstrating to his disciple, the Guru burped and four fish, a little larger in size came out alive. The Guru turning to the disciple said, “Their family members have been waiting for them, so I will let go of them here” and gesturing to the disciple said, “You too take out the fish from your stomach.” Hesitatingly the disciple replied, “I will try”, but the fish did not come out. The disciple said, “Perhaps I have digested them” and feeling ashamed of his action pledged never to imitate his Guru’s gross actions in the future.
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