Once Eknathji the great saint was sitting near the bank of Ganges and doing bhajans.
There was an envious person who wanted to disturb Eknathji.
To provoke him to fight, he spit on his face.
Eknathji got up, went to the river, took a holy dip and came back to the bank and continued with his bhajans.
The man repeated the spitting 108 times.
Every time Eknathji went and took a dip and came back to the river bank and continued chanting, without getting irritated or angry.
In the end, the envious man got very fed up and he asked, “How come you are not becoming angry?”
Eknathji replied, “Why should I become angry? I should actually thank you. Because of your mercy, I took bath 108 times in the Ganges.”
Moral of the story:
Usually we find it comfortable or easy to thank people who help us in favorable manner.
But if someone offends or scolds us, we only feel angry with them and there is no question saying “thank you”.
In the above incident we see that Eknathji always saw Krishna’s hand in every experience.
So he could tolerate even the other person spitting on him, took it as an opportunity to take holy dip in the Ganges and thanked the other person who was spitting on him.
So without blaming others, if we think calmly then we can realize every experience in life, be it good or bad is a lesson for us to learn. So we should be thankful in both cases.
“What to speak of 24 Gurus? We can have millions of Gurus. In fact we can learn something from everyone and hence, in that sense, everything and everybody in this world is our Guru.
If we are humble and sincere, Krishna will reveal all the transcendental knowledge through all the different entities in this world.”
Such sanity of mind is possible only under the guidance of spiritual master.
So we should always take shelter of such mahatmas, remember their glorious lives and silently observe the various experiences and learn the different kinds of lessons which Krishna has in store for us in this life-time.
Day in and day out we come across so many different kinds of people, different situations and thereby have different kinds of experiences. These experiences have a great impact on our life.
Specifically the experiences which we have in our childhood, have a great impact on our future behavior and character.
We have seen in many households how when the parents are short-tempered or drunkards or chain-smokers, it affects the children in different ways.
If there is proper guidance for the child, either from elderly person in the family or a teacher, then even though the child is exposed to these difficult situations it learns the lesson of how not to behave.
Whereas in the absence of proper guidance, children tend to take up the same bad traits in their life as they grow old.
As the saying goes experience is the best teacher.
Be it good or bad, every experience has a lesson for us. Good experience teaches us how we should behave and bad experience teaches us how we should not behave.
Lord Krishna says in Bhagavad Gita verse 16.
dvau bhuta sargau loke’smin / daiva aasura eva ca
daivo vistarashah prokta / aasuram paartha me shrnu
“O son of Prthaa, in this world there are two kinds of created beings. One is called the divine and the other demoniac. I have already explained to you at length the divine qualities. Now hear from Me of the demoniac.”
In scriptures like Bhagavad Gita and Bhagavatam also, Lord Krishna is mercifully showing us both categories of people.
From devotees of the Lord, we can learn how to serve the Lord and His devotees.
From demoniac people we can learn what are all the qualities, which we need to give-up, so that we could serve the Lord in favorable manner.
So when we meet divine people we should thank them for showing us how to live in this world. And when we come across other kind of people, we should still thank them for showing us how not to behave.
Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.
Welcome to the path of peace 