Spiritual Import of Religious Festivals -15-8.

15/03/2018
CHAPTER-15.
Lord Dattatreya – Master Par Excellence-8

Dattatreya Jayanti message given in the year 1973. Dattatreya Jayanti falls on the full moon day in the month of Margasirsha (November-December)

"I learnt a lesson from a poor girl, in a village. Please hear what lesson I learnt from that girl. That girl belonged to a very poor family. They had barely something to eat for a single meal a day. She was to be betrothed to some gentleman. That gentleman, with his father and mother, came to the house of this poor girl to see her.

They wanted to know how she looked and what she was like, and all that. People do not settle a marriage without properly investigating into the background of the girl. So they were talking to the girl's parents. And the hospitality of the country is such that whenever guests come they have to be fed first. And there was nothing to feed them with, except a little unhusked paddy grain which had to be husked for obtaining rice.

They were too poor to have any servant in the house. So, she herself started pounding the paddy inside the house, for the sake of getting rice which had to be cooked for feeding the guests. You know, these ladies wear bangles. This girl also was wearing a number of bangles on both the wrists, of course all cheap glass bangles.

So when she started pounding the paddy with a pestle, the bangles started making sound – kanu, kunu. She thought: "Now what will the guests think? They will think that since I am myself doing the work, our family must be very poor and therefore I am not a suitable match for them. Oh, these bangles are causing the trouble! I will remove them."

So she removed all the bangles, leaving only two bangles on each wrist. And still they made a sound – tung, tung, tung. Then she removed one more and kept only one. Then there was no sound. So, I have learnt from this girl that I must be alone. Even two persons are not good. There is a saying: "Ek niranjan; do ghad-bad; theen lath-path": If one person is there, he is happy; if two are there, there is quarrel; and three means fighting.

And in the Narada Parivrajaka Upanishad also it is said, "Ekah sadhu suprayuktah, dvitiyam gramamuchyate, tritiyam nagaram smritam." This means that one person is good, two persons make a village and three make a city. I have learnt this lesson from that poor girl, who is therefore one of my Gurus."
To be continued ...

Swami Krishnananda