Bhagavan: Blessings cannot increase impurity

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One day Sri Bhagavan was feeding the squirrels when a Muslim devotee,

who had been watching him, gave him a note in which was written: "The

squirrels are very fortunate because they are getting the food from

your own hands. Your grace is so much on them. We feel jealous of the

squirrels and feel that we also should have been born as squirrels.

Then it would have been very good for us."

 

Sri Bhagavan couldn't help laughing when he read this note. He told

the man, "How do you know that the grace is not there on you also?"

And then, to illustrate his point, he started to tell a long story.

 

"One saint had the siddhi of correct predictive speech. This is,

whatever he said came true. In whatever town he went to, the local

people would come to him to have his darshan and to get his

blessings. The saint, who was also full of compassion, removed the

unhappiness of the people by blessing them. Because his words always

came true, the blessings always bore fruit. That is why he was so

popular.

 

"During his wanderings he came to a town where, as usual, a lot of

people flocked to him to get his blessings. Among the blessing

seekers there was a thief. He went to have darshan of the saint in

the evening and asked for his blessings. When the saint blessed him,

the thief was very happy. He felt certain that because of these

blessings, when he went out to steal at night, he would be

successful. But it turned out otherwise. Whenever he went to break

into a house, somebody or other from that house would wake up and he

would have to run away. He tried in three or four places but he could

not succeed anywhere.

 

"Because of his failure, the thief got very angry with the saint.

Early the next morning he went back to him and angrily said, 'You are

an impostor! You are giving false blessings to the people.'

 

"The saint very peacefully asked the reason for his anger. In reply

the thief narrated in detail how unsuccessful he had been during his

attempts to steal the previous night. Having heard his story, the

saint commented, 'In that case, the blessings have borne fruit.'

 

"How?" the thief asked with astonishment.

 

"Brother, first tell me, being a thief, is it a good or a bad job?"

 

"It is bad," the thief admitted, but then he defended himself by

saying, "but what about the stomach that I have to feed?"

 

The saint continued with his explanation: "To be unsuccessful in bad

work means that the blessings have indeed borne fruit. There are so

many other ways of feeding the stomach. You should accept any one of

them. To come to this conclusion it was necessary that you be

unsuccessful in your thieving work."

 

"The thief understood and informed the saint that in future he would

take up some other honest work. He prostrated before the saint and

left."

 

Having narrated the above story, Sri Bhagavan asked the Muslim

devotee, "Do you mean to say that if everything goes according to

your desires, only then is it possible to say that the grace of a

saint has worked?"

 

"I don't understand," replied the Muslim.

 

Sri Bhagavan explained in more detail: "The blessings of a saint

perform the purificatory work of life. These blessings cannot

increase impurity. One whose understanding is limited will ask for

blessings so that he can fulfill certain desires, but if the desires

are such that their fulfillment will make the seeker more impure

rather than purer, the saint's blessings will not enable him to

fulfill the desires. In this way the seeker is saved from further

impurities. In that case, are not the saint's blessings a gift of

compassion?" The Muslim finally understood and was satisfied by these

words.

 

Hari Aum !!!