MERCY IS MELODIOUS

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MERCY IS MELODIOUS

Baba said, "We should take pity and love all creatures, leave off adventurous

fights and killings" in Sri Sai Satcharitra, Ch. XXII.

There was a king. He had a queen who was self willed, stern-spirited and

stubborn and given to making all kinds of demands every now and then. The king

was weak-minded and just could not say no to her. Often he and his subjects

were hard put to fulfil her demands.

One day the queen asked the king to get a new palace built for her – a palace

with walls lined with colourful feathers of birds. It set the king thinking –

hundreds of thousands of birds will have to be killed to get the required

number of feathers. He couldn’t do it. No. But the queen was adamant and took

to the dark room in protest, refusing to eat.

"I will starve to death if you do not fulfil my wish," she said. At last the

king gave in and much against his good sense, he sent for the chief of birds.

The message was duly delivered. The chief of birds was intelligent; he sensed

that there was going to be trouble. They say birds have special antennae to

divine things in advance. He sent his deputy to the king, to convey that the

chief was extremely busy and would see the king soon.

Arriving in the court, the deputy chief of birds bowed low and said, "Your

orders? What’s the matter, Maharaj?"

"Well, nothing for you. You just go and tell your chief to come as soon as possible."

After a couple of days the chief of birds presented himself before the king.

After the usual bowing and kow-towing and salutations, he said, "Maharaj, I am

sorry I could not present myself before Your Highness earlier. There was too

much work to be done. I didn’t have a moment’s respite. I have just completed

it and have come post haste."

"What work was it that kept you busy?"

"Maharaj, a question arose whether in our kingdom, we had more males or females?

All my birds were engaged in collecting the figures. The counting was finished

only yesterday."

"What was the result of your compilation of the figures?"

"Maharaj, females far outnumber males."

The king was surprised and said, "But how is it so? We had got a census made and

it showed that males were slightly more than females; more or less equal males

certainly had an edge. Only last year we got these figures. How was the number

of females gone up so much so soon?"

The chief of birds bowed his head and folded his hands and said, "Maharaj, we

have counted those males who always act according to the wishes of their wives,

among females. What sort of man is if he who remains a slave to his wife doing

her bidding?"

The king kept quite. He didn’t know how to respond. The bird’s remark had cut

him deep within. He didn’t say a word about the proposed palace and motioned to

the chief of the birds to leave.

Thus, the cleverness of a bird not only saved the lives of several birds but

also changed the nature of the king who refused to listen to any unreasonable

demands of his wife henceforth.

Tamaso Ma Jyotirgamaya.....

Never forget that we are here as pilgrims, that our stay on this isle of

Enchantment – the Earth – is for a brief while, and that we must retrace our

steps back to our Homeland which, alas, we have forgotten in the shouts and

shows of an empirical existence.

"Where is thy native-land?" was the question asked of a dervish. And he answered

in the word swhich God had said to Moses: "Thou art on this earth a stranger. I

am thy native-land!"

God is the Homeland for the soul. This we must never forget for a single moment.

Our thoughts and aspirations, our words and deeds must express our longing to

return to the Homeland. There can be no way back home if we weave round

ourselves webs of worldly desires. All desires must drop before we can tread

the Homeward Way.

We are here to play our respective roles on the stage of time. We are here to

fulfil the plan which God has meant for us. And so the most important thing for

us is to constantly remember Him and aspire to do His Will.

God above everything, God first and foremost, this should be the watch-word of

our life. Significant are the words of the ancient Rishi: "When the longing for

God wakes up within your heart, give up the vain pursuit of worldly things and

be absorbed in Him!"

Until the longing for God wakes up within our hearts, we are not truly awake. We

are asleep. We walk, we talk, we work, we eat, we wake, we sleep in a sleep

which is a deeper sleep.

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