1. Saint Kabir
Kabir was a great bhakta (devotee) who lived in or near
Benares some centuries ago. Although he had siddhis (psychic
powers), he earned his livelihood by weaving.
One day, when
he was working on his loom, a disciple entered in great
excitement and said, “Sir, there is a juggler outside here who
is attracting large crowds by making his stick stand in the
air”.
Thereupon Kabir, who like all true saints, discouraged
the display of jugglery, wanted to shame the man, and so
rushed out with a big ball of thread in his hand.
Seeing the
long bamboo standing in the air, he threw his ball of thread
up in the air. As the ball went up it unwound itself till the
whole length of thread stood stiff in mid-air, and to a far
greater height than the juggler’s stick, without any support
whatever.
The people, including the juggler himself, were
stunned with amazement, and Sri Bhagavan’s eyes acted the
amazement, while his hand stood high above his head in the
position of Kabir when he threw up the ball.
2. Unknown Tenth Man
Devotee - Not having realised the Truth that the Self alone
exists, should I not adopt bhakti and yoga margas as being
more suitable for purposes of sadhana than vichara marga?
Is not the Realization of one’s Absolute Being that is, Brahma
jnana, something quite unattainable to a layman like me?
Ramana Maharshi - Brahma jnana is not a knowledge to be acquired,
so that acquiring it one may obtain happiness. It is one’s
ignorant outlook that one should give up. The Self you seek
to know is verily yourself. Your supposed ignorance causes
you needless grief like that of the ten foolish men who grieved
the ‘loss’ of the tenth man who was never lost.
The ten foolish men in the parable forded a stream and
on reaching the other shore wanted to make sure that all of
them had in fact safely crossed the stream.
One of the ten began
to count, but while counting others left himself out. “I see only
nine; sure enough we have lost one. Who can it be?” he said.
“Did you count correctly?” asked another, and did the counting
himself. But he too counted only nine. One after the other
each of the ten counted only nine, missing himself. “We are
only nine” they all agreed, “but who is the missing one?”, they
asked themselves. Every effort they made to discover the ‘missing’
individual failed.
“Whoever he be that is drowned” said the
sentimental of ten fools, “we have lost him”. So saying he burst
into tears, and the rest of the nine followed suit.
Seeing them
weeping on the river bank, a sympathetic wayfarer enquired
for the cause. They related what had happened and said that even after
counting themselves several times they could find no
more than nine.
On hearing the story, but seeing all the ten
before him, the wayfarer guessed what had happened. In order
to make them know for themselves that they were really ten,
that all of them had come safe from the crossing, he told them,
“Let each of you count for himself but one after the other serially,
one, two, three and so on, while I shall give you each a blow so
that all of you may be sure of having been included in the
count, and included only once. The tenth ‘missing’ man will
then be found.”
Hearing this they rejoiced at the prospect of
finding their ‘lost’ comrade and accepted the method suggested
by the wayfarer.
While the kind wayfarer gave a blow to each of the ten in
turn, he that got the blow counted himself aloud. “Ten” said
the last man as he got the last blow in his turn.
Bewildered they
looked at one another, “We are ten” they said with one voice
and thanked the wayfarer for having removed their grief.
That is the parable. From where was the tenth man
brought in? Was he ever lost? By knowing that he had been
there all the while, did they learn anything new?
The cause of
their grief was not the real loss of any one of the ten, it was
their own ignorance, rather their mere supposition that one
of them was lost – though they could not find who he was –
because they counted only nine. |
