SHORT STORY: MAHARISHI'S LAUGH

Copyright@shravancharitymission

By Kamlesh Tripathi

Maharishi (great spiritual leader) Matang was a bhramagyani (theologian) He had many devotees, and to meet his devotees he used to continuously travel to various towns and cities, and that gave an opportunity to his disciples to see new places, and meet new people. Most people used to come to the Maharishi with their worries and problems to get it solved.

    One day the mukhiya (Head) of a town with his complete jingbang and sycophants came to meet the Maharishi. And to Maharishi’s surprise, mukhiya’s sycophants were not getting tired of praising him. And the pompous mukhiya with a lot of arrogance, started boasting to Maharishi about how he had thought about the citizenry of his town and had made plans to develop it, by keeping their future in mind.

    After sometime, Maharishi Matang went to another town. There the famous vaidya (practitioner of Ayurvedic medicines) of the town came to see him along with his aides and supporters and started swaggering about, how he had treated so many illnesses and saved so many from the cruel hands of death. And when his aides and supporters were praising the vaidya, Maharishi couldn’t help, and he laughed. Vaidya took offence to Maharishi’s laugh and left immediately with his aides and supporters.

    And, after some time, in a different town, a renowned Pandit of that town, along with his disciples came to see the Maharishi. And all those disciples started bragging about the spiritual knowledge of the Pandit, and started narrating how he pardoned the crime of so many criminals and brought them under his fold and gave them assurance of a good life. Upon hearing all this talk Maharishi laughed, when the Pandit too, took offence and left in anger.

    The disciples of Maharishi were watching this, and were amazed at him, when they decided to ask, ‘Gurudev, normally you bless people who come to your fold, but thrice we saw you have not blessed them, on their achievements and on the contrary you laughed at them, because of which they took offence and left in a huff. Can we know the reason for this?

    Maharishi smiled and looked at them, and said softly, ‘My dear disciples, Mukhiya was planning to sort out others life in the town when he knew nothing about his own life. In the same manner Pandit, by pardoning criminals was trying to become God, when he never could focus, his own attention on the number of sins he himself had committed. And such arrogant and boastful people want to control the future, life and faith of others.

    I laughed because the mukhiya is soon going to die, the viadya will contract a disease shortly that doesn’t have a cure and the pandit will go mad soon. In life we should not try and do those jobs which are beyond us. In fact we should encourage other people to move forward themselves. We should rely only on God, and at best, should be in under the aegis of a theologian, if required.

   This story reminds us about some relevant aspects of life, and that is, although, we may plan meticulously for our future we can’t ensure it. We are no one to give life to anyone but we can definitely look after the health of someone. In the same manner we can control our devotion. We can increase our devotion or help increase devotion of others.

***