MEDITATE WHILE YOU WORK (13)

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MEDITATE WHILE YOU WORK : A NEW PATH FOR A NEW AGE (13)

Swami Ashokananda

 

(continued)

 

And she said, 'You see, I have a teacher. He is a butcher. And he

taught me that if I did my duties without attachment in my heart,

then I would attain to illumination. I do my duty as it is

apportioned to me in my station in life; that is all the yoga I

practise. But I do not crave for the results of it; I try to do

my duty in the best spirit possible. And it is in this way that

I have become illumined.' The young brahmin became very eager to

know more, and so she directed him to her teacher. She said, 'Go

so many miles and you will come to a marketplace and there you

will find him selling meat. Tell him that I have sent you to him.'

So he went to the marketplace and found a big fat butcher

very busy cutting slices of meat and bargaining and selling and

so on; he was covered with blood.(Vyadha literally means 'hunter',

not 'butcher', but you see, in the olden days the person who

sold the meat had to go into the forests and hunt game and bring

it back to sell. So hunter and butcher became identified.) Well,

this butcher said to the young man, 'Please wait, let me finish.'

Towards evening, when he had finished selling his meat, he took

up his basket and said, 'Come', and he went home. Again he said,

'Please wait. I must attend to my old parents.' So he bathed and

attended to his parents - bathed them, gave them dinner, made

them comfortable in their bed, and after all that was done, he

said, 'Now!' So the young man asked him a few spiritual questions

and the butcher gave him a most inspiring teaching on karma yoga.

 

(to be continued)