The Devotee who worshipped a Bull

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The Devotee who worshipped a Bull

A story told by Swami Vivekananda in a

Bhakti yoga class on January 20, 1896 in NYC

Source:http://www.vivekananda.net/

 

There was a certain Yogi who used to practise meditation in a lonely

part of the forest, on the banks of a river. There was a poor

cowherd, a very ignorant man, who used to tend his herd in that

forest. Every day he used to see this same Yogi meditating by the

hour, practising austerities, living alone, studying. Somehow he got

curious what he did, so he came to him and said " Sir, can you teach

me the way to God? "

 

This Yogi was a very learned, great man, and he replied, " How will

you understand God, you common cowherd; blockhead, go home and tend

your cows and don't bother your head with such things " .

 

The poor fellow went away, but somehow a real want had come to him.

So he could not rest, and he came again to the Yogi, and said " Sir,

won't you teach me something about God ? "

 

Again he was repulsed, " Oh, you blockhead, what can you understand

of God ? Go home. "

 

But he could not sleep, he could not eat; he must know something

about God.

 

So he came again, and the Yogi, in order to quiet the man, as he was

so insisting, said, " I'll teach you about God. "

 

The man asked, " Sir, what sort of being is God? What is his form?

How does he look? "

 

The Yogi said, " God is just like the big bull in your herd ; that is

just God; God has become that big bull " .

 

The man believed him, and went back to his herd, and day and night

he took that bull for God, and began to worship it. He brought the

greenest grass for that bull, rested close to it, and gave it light,

sat near it, and followed it. Thus days and months and years passed.

His whole soul was there. One day he heard a voice, as it were,

coming out of the bull. " The bull speaks " . " My son, my son " .

" Why, the bull is speaking! No, the bull cannot speak " . Again he

went away, and sat near meditating in great misery of his heart; he

did not know anything.

Again he heard the voice coming out of the bull, " My child, my

child " . He went near- " No, the bull cannot speak " . Then he went back

again and sat despondent.

Again the voice came and that time he found it out. It was from his

own heart. He found that God was in him. Then he learned the

wonderful truth of the Teacher of all Teachers, " I am with thee

always " . And the poor cowherd learnt the whole mystery.

 

Then he goes back to the Yogi, and when he is at some distance the

Yogi sees him. The Yogi has been the most learned man in the

country, practising austerity for years, meditating, studying, and

this cowherd, an ignorant blockhead, never studied a book, never

learnt his letters, but he comes, his whole body, as it were,

transfigured, his face changed, the light of heaven shining round

his face.

 

The Yogi got up. " What is this change ? Where did you get this ? "

 

" Sir, you gave me that. "

 

" How? I told you that in joke " .

 

" But I took it seriously, and I got everything I wanted out of that

bull, for is He not everywhere? "

 

So that bull was the pratika, and that man worshipped the bull as

his pratika, as God, and he got everything out of it.

 

So that intense love, that desire, brings out everything. Everything

is in ourselves, and the external world and the external worship,

are the forms, the suggestions that call it out. When they become

strong, the Lord within awakes.

The external teacher is but the suggestion. When faith in the

external teacher is strong, then the Teacher of all teachers within

speaks; eternal wisdom

speaks in the heart of that man. He need not go any more to any

books, or any men, or any higher beings, he need not run after

supernatural or preternatural beings for instruction; the Lord

Himself becomes his instructor. He gets all he wants from himself,

no more need to go to any temple, or church; his own body has become

the greatest temple in the world, and in that temple lives the Lord

of Creation.

 

In every country great saints have been born, wonderful lives have

been (lived), coming out of the sheer power of love. So all these

external forms of Bhakti, this repetition of the name, worship of

Pratika, this Nishta, this Ishtam, are but the preparations until

that eternal power wakes up. Then alone comes spirituality, when one

goes beyond these laws and bounds. Then all laws fall down, all

forms vanish, temples and churches crumble into dust and die

away.

 

It is good to be born in a church, but the worst possible fate to

die in a church. It is good to be born in a sect, and the worst

possible thing to die in a sect, with sectarian ideas. What sect can

hold a child of the Lord, what laws bind, what forms shall he

follow ? What man shall he worship ? He worships the Lord Himself.

He Himself teaches him. He lives in the temple of all temples,the

Soul of man.

GOMU <gokulmuthu