Arjuna was walking proudly alongside Krishna through the forest.
Then they saw a strange man, half-naked and wild-eyed. A hermit... but he also carried a brightly gleaming sword.
Arjuna confronted the man. "Who are you? And why do you wield that sword?"
"I'm Vishnu's defender!" shouted the hermit. "I must punish the three enemies of my Lord. First, Narada, who bothers the Lord with music at all hours. Then, Prahlada, who keeps pestering the Lord with his prayers. And finally Arjuna, who has made the Lord into a mere charioteer!"
Arjuna bowed his head in shame, but Krishna just smiled.
Inspired by: Tales and Parables of Sri Ramakrishna
Notes: This is story 77 in the book. You can read more about Narada and Prahlada at Wikipedia, they were devoted to Vishnu, and Krishna is one of the avatars of Vishnu. In his role as Arjuna's charioteer, he sang to him the Bhagavad-Gita before the Battle of Kurukshetra. In Ramakrishna's story, this hermit was such an extreme ascetic that he would not even eat green grass; he lives on dry grass instead, not wanting to do harm to the living grass.
No comments:
Post a Comment