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Once upon a time, a thief
stole into Sri Chakradhar swami's quarters. The Master was asleep and the
thief found nothing valuable to steal. But he was entranced by the Master's
matchless form, which was illuminated in the moonlight. Just then aged
Baieesa, who always attended on the founder of the Mahanubhava sect in 13th
century Maharashtra, woke up and set up an alarm. The thief fled, leaving
behind his woollen blanket. Baieesa complained bitterly about the intrusion
to the Master who remained unperturbed by the incident. "Check your things
Baieesa," he said when she wouldn't stop. That's when she discovered the
expensive well-woven blanket the thief had worn to hide himself lying on the
floor. "So it's we who seem to have stolen from the thief, instead of the
poor fellow helping himself to our goods," said Chakradhar swami with a
gentle smile much to Baieesa's embarrassment. One moral of the
'who-stole-from-whom ?' parable exhorts you to be always aware of your
perspective, for it invariably colours your perception. Another exhorts you
to be grateful for small mercies.
A similar tale is told of the
Zen Master who lived in a shack on Cold Mountain. One evening, while he was
away, a thief sneaked into the hut only to find there was nothing in it to
steal. The Zen Master returned and found him. "You have come a long way to
visit me," he told the prowler," and you should not return empty handed.
Please take my clothes as a gift." The thief was bewildered, but he took the
clothes and ran away. The Master sat naked, watching the moon. "poor
fellow," he mused, "I wish I could give him this beautiful moon." One
interpretation of his actions is to be grateful to everyone, even a thief.
Another is to remain unperturbed by valuable things. Yet another asks you
not to forget the beauty of nature, available to all free, as you run around
frantically to grab material things!
Like Sri Chakradharswami, the
Zen Master too has nothing and yet there is nothing that both these Masters
lack. The thieves, by contrast, appear to be in a pathetic bind: because
they are unaware of wisdom, the one truly valuable things in the room, that
can neither be stolen nor be given for free. And the thieves could not know
the peace that the Master held inside them: they were free from hankering
after even the bare necessities. |
