KNOWLEDGE FOR ASKING?

Knowledge is to understand, to become aware of something either by experience or by education.  It requires one’s interest and inclination to know about the subject.   One’s mind should be open to understand, to grasp.  If it is crammed with hustle and bustle of daily problems, thoughts traits and plans of egoistic nature, like a dust bin brimful with garbage, knowledge afresh cannot be received without the proper effort to cleanse and purify the mind particularly when one is intent on receiving spiritual knowledge. The following story is a lesson for the easy going who presume divine knowledge (brahma jnana) is an item that can be acquired as easily as an item available in a provision store!

A house wife used to offer alms to a jnani (a realized sage) on regular basis in the village. With that familiarity on one day after offering the alms she requested the sage to tell her brahma jnana (the divine knowledge) then and there.  The sage replied her that he would impart her the divine knowledge on the next day.  With a gleam in her face, she made a proposal to the sage to visit her house first on the next day morning for which he accepted.  With much enthusiasm she woke up in the early morning next day, gone through special head bath, prepared special food items like payasam (a viscose sweet preparation with lot of aromatic ghee and topping of cashew nuts). After food preparation was over, she wore a luxurious silk saree for the special occasion and stood at the entrance to welcome the sage.

The sage as promised set out for the house of the house wife.   On the way he picked up some garbage like rags, cow dung and placed in his begging bowl.   With a smile on her face she greeted him and asked for the bowl. When she was about to place the food items, saw the filth in the bowl and with astonishment remarked, ‘Guruji! If I place the lavish food items in this filthy bowl, the food too becomes unwholesome for your consumption. Please give the bowl to me.  I will clean it thoroughly and make it useful again for the food offered by me.’  The sage with a smile replied, ‘So is the case with your mind also madam.  At present it is preoccupied with all worldly thoughts, worries,  problems without peace of mind.  First you have to undergo through cleansing and purifying process of your mind.  Then only it becomes a good receptacle for the Divine Knowledge.’

Om Shanti!