గురు బ్రహ్మ గురు ర్విష్ణుః గురు ర్దేవో మహేశ్వరః
గురు స్సాక్షాత్ప రబ్రహ్మ తస్మై శ్రీ గురవే నమః
శుక్లాంబరధరం విష్ణుం శశివర్ణం చతుర్భుజం
ప్రసన్న వదనం ధ్యాయేత్సర్వ విఘ్నోప శాంతయే
శ్రుతిస్మృతి పురాణానాం ఆలయం కరుణాలయం
నమామి భగవత్పాదం శంకరం లోక శంకరం
ఓం నమః శివాయ
Swami Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa used to discuss
lot of things with people, who would gather around him, including his
disciples. He used to narrate stories to convey a concept. I will try to post
some of those stories as part of this series.
Nature has three gunas - Sattva, Rajas and Tamo.
Humans being part of nature also carry these three gunas in some proportion. The
nature and character of a person is driven by this proportion. Tamo gunam
basically stands for anger, sinning, causing pain/harm etc.
One person asks swamiji about the need for Tamo gunam
for a person. Swamiji promptly responds that it is required. To elucidate further,
he narrates the following story.
Outside a village, there used to be a big anthill
in which a poisonous snake used to reside. It used to bite the people who would
go anywhere close to that. The villagers were scared of it and so never ventured
to go anywhere near its anthill. Importantly, they used to warn all the new
comers to the village.
Once, a Brahmachari entered the village on some
work and started going out in the direction of the anthill. The villagers warned
him about the snake and told him to take a different path. The Brahmachari said
that he can handle the snake and told them not to worry and went in his
intended direction.
As expected, the snake came out as he neared the
anthill and started hissing at the Brahmachari. The Brahmachari recited some mantras
and sprinkled some water on the snake. The snake curled up like an earth worm
near the Brahmachari and said, “What’s the order?”.
“Hence forth, never harm anyone. Don’t be angry
with anyone. Recite this mantra.” Saying this the Brahmachari initiated the
snake with a mantra (మంత్రోపదేశం) and he went his way.
The snake gave up its anger and started eating some
fruits and leaves and gave up eating rats, frogs, eggs, birds etc. The villagers
realised that the snake stopped biting and hissing at people. Some of the boys
even went up to the snake and caught hold of its tail and started playing. But the
snake would not do a thing.
One day, one of the boys took the snake by its
tail, rotated it in the air and hit it hard on the ground. The snake became
unconscious and lay there. Thinking that the snake died, the boys spread the
news around in the village. The snake woke up after some time and slowly crawled
into its anthill and took multiple days to recover.
Days went by like that and one day the Brahmachari
came to the village once more. Hearing from the villagers that the snake died,
he was surprised. He went close to the anthill and called for the snake as he
was very sure that the snake would not have died.
After initiating someone with a mantra, the Guru apparently
would know how successful the disciple would be. Here the Guru knew that the
snake would not have given up on its life without reaching a certain stage.
The snake slowly came out and the Brahmachari was
shocked to see the state of it. He checked with the snake about its condition.
The snake mentioned that its saatvik diet could be the reason for its
condition. But the Brahmachari was not convinced and asked it to remember any
incident that would have brought the snake to this condition.
(Please note that once you reduce/lose the Tamo
gunam and increase the satva gunam, you wouldn’t even remember the bad/negative
things)
After giving a serious thought, the snake responded
that he was banged onto the ground by one village boy. Hearing this the
Brahmachari felt very bad.
He said, “I told you to stop harming people. But I
never told you to stop threatening people if they attempt at causing harm to
you. You could have hissed at them without spitting the venom.”
Swamiji concluded that while one should give up the
tamo gunam, one should pretend to possess it, at times when required.
To elaborate on the above, the following are some
situations.
When a child does something wrong, pretend that you
are very angry with the child, but don’t be actually angry or don’t cause harm.
When someone threatens physically or mentally,
instead of taking it silently, respond appropriately so that you are not
thought of as a roll over.
But one should be in complete control of this reaction
state and it should not be that the reaction takes over you.
సర్వే జనాః సుఖినో భవంతు
PS: There could be typos and other
mistakes in Telugu and English. Please ignore
