……From Part 2 – So saying the two friends started staying close to each other and sharing and learning from each other and also being each other’s friend in need and in happiness.
Continued….
Hiranyaka, the mouse and Laghupatnak, the crow lived happily in each other’s company for many months. Then one day Laghupatnak told Hiranyaka that it was increasingly getting difficult for him to source his food in the jungle and so he wanted to shift to another place where his food would be more abundant and easy to source.
But Hiranyaka advised him saying, “Teeth, hair, nails and people removed from their place do not look beautiful any more. The wise should not abandon their own place.”
Laghupatnak then replied, “Friend I feel this is the thinking of a coward. Lions, good people and elephants all move constantly in search of better places and food. It is the cowards like the deer and crows who never venture out and so meet death at the same spot in which they have always lived. Also what is one’s own land and what is a foreign country? By one’s confidence, mental and physical abilities a brave person can make any place his/her own. Just watch the lion which by its physical strength and abilities is able to gain dominance wherever he goes.”
Hiranyaka thought for some time and seemed to accept Laghupatnak’s view. He then asked, “But where will you go? >A wise person should not abandon his own place unless they have tested out the suitability of the new place?”
Laghupatnak replies, “Friend it is easy to be wise when advising others, but an intelligent person finally must take his/her own decision when charting one’s own course of life.
Then he continued, “I have already worked on searching for a new place. Not too far away, in the Dandaka forest there is a lake called Karpurgaur. In this lake lives my friend the tortoise by the name of Manthar. This friend will help me by catching and feeding me fish from this lake where fish is available in plenty.”
Vishnusharman paused here and told the Princes – There are certain conditions under which a person should decide to stay in a place or move away:
“One must move out of a land in 4 types of conditions – where one has no friends, if there is no respect for goodness, if there are no means of livelihood, there is no advancement of knowledge seen”
“One should not set up house in a place where these 4 types of people/ things are not found– wealthy persons, spiritual teachers, a ruler or government and a river”
“One must also avoid a place where the following 5 are not found – busy streets, debt-payers, modesty, honesty and generosity”
Hearing the crow talk about moving away, Hiranyaka felt he would be left alone and asked if he could also accompany his friend to the new place. Laghupatnak happily agreed and both set out towards the Dandaka forest.
Manthar the tortoise noticed the two friends coming towards the Karpurgaur lake and came out to welcome his friend Laghupatnak, the crow. Laghupatnak introduced Hiranyaka to him and told Manthar that meeting a wise person like Hiranyaka is indeed good fortune as such wise ones are difficult to find. Manthar bowed nd greeted Hiranyaka and asked how come he had come to this desolate and lonely forest. Hiranyaka said that I will tell you my story and then you will understand and then started to relate his story.
There is a town called Champaka where mendicants, sadhus and bhikshus live. A sadhu Chudakarna lived in this town and everday brought home some food donated by the town people to him. He would hng his pot of food high up on a peg on a wall. I had created my home by burrowing a hole in one of the walls of Chudakarna’s house. Everyday once he was asleep I would keep jumping to reach the pot and finally when I could reach it would happily eat the food stored in the pot and also carry some to my burrow to eat later. Like this I had created a good amount of food storage in my burrow which gave me enough food to eat every day. Being well fed I became physically very strong and so I always had enough energy to keep jumping to reach the high food pot hanging on the wall peg.
One day Chudakarna’s friend, Veenakarna came to visit him. While talking to Chudakarna, Veenakarna noticed that his friend was distracted with something else and hardly paying attention to what he was saying.
So Veenakarna said, “A pleased expression, clear eye contact, sweet responses and appropriate responses and suggestions are the signs of an attentive listener. Showing dissatisfaction, being ungrateful, disrespectful, pointing out the other person’s failings, forgetting the one’s name during a conversation are signs of a disinterested or estranged person.”
Chudakarna replied, “I do not mean to be disrespectful but you see there is this mouse in my house which is ever stealing food which I have kept safely kept in that Pot on the wall for my next meal.”
Veenakarna was surprised to see the high place from which the pot hung and asked, “It is unusual that a mouse can jump so high and steal your food? We must find out the reason for this unusual action he is displaying. There is always a hidden cause behind unusual behavior. It is said that when a very young wife of an old man, passionately embraces her husband there is a hidden reason behind it.”
Chukarna asked, “How is that?”
Veenakarna then tells him the story of the rich merchant. “In the city of Kosambi there was a very rich merchant who overcome by desire and arrogance of wealth decided to take a young bride. The young bride was utterly dissatisfied with the old man and always looked out for young lovers. The old man was very in love with his young wife and even though he was incapable of winning her interest, he was drawn by his desire to continue to keep her fully happy and engaged like a normal wife. As expected, the young wife was attracted to a young, handsome man in the neighborhood. One day as she was enjoying time with the young man, she spied her husband returning at an unusual hour. So she quickly went to the door and passionately embraced her husband and engaged him in sweet talk giving her lover the time to escape unnoticed. An old woman noticing the passionate embrace given by the young wife to her old husband wondered about the secret reason behind this unusual behavior and soon saw the young man escaping from the house. Hence, we must also try to find the secret reason behind this mouse’s strength and ability to climb so high and steal your food.”
Hiranyaka said, “So saying, Veenakarna started digging my burrow to see what was inside. He discovered a large stock of food which was sustaining and strengthening me day by day. He showed Chudakarna my stocks and told him it was this wealth which was making me so strong and so it must be destroyed. This is how I lost both my house and wealth. Without the wealth of my food I soon became weak and unable to find food for myself.”
“On that day I realized that all human beings are built similarly with the same limbs, organs, skin and bones but what differentiates them is their wealth. A wealthy person has friends and relatives, such a person enjoys the world and what it has to provide. It even makes the person wise. Poverty is even worse than death. Death ends everything but poverty has to be endured. Devoid of the warmth of wealth a person transforms and becomes something else.”
“From poverty one gets shame, shame deprives the person of spirit, becoming dispirited the person is treated with contempt, contempt makes him despondent, despondency leads to misery and these depressive thoughts further lead him to complete destruction. So poverty is the root of calamity.”
“While I understood the impact of poverty on me, I also reflected on stealing of the food of another. I thought just like it is better to keep silence than to utter even one word of lies, it would be better to live on alms rather than feast on another person’s wealth. But what worried me was the fact that just as the moonlight removes darkness and old age takes away beauty, begging takes away a hundred good qualities of a person.”
“But inspite of my understanding of consequences of poverty, begging, stealing, I continued to covet the wealth of others. Then I realized that through covetousness intelligence wavers. Covetousness brings insatiability and nothing seems to satisfy this greed. Through such dissatisfaction one experiences misery forever.”
“I now understood that one greedy for wealth or one of unrestrained senses will always have a mind that is discontented. But the calm minded and satisfied person, keeping desires and expectations away, will always find happiness as she/he need never run around to satisfy desires and expectations. Whatever they have satisfies them. It was now becoming clear to me that all actions are a result of one’s own disposition.”
“Then I further reflected on what is the right way of living – It is kindness towards others. What is happiness – having a healthy body. What is kindness – It is good nature. What is Wisdom? – It is discrimination or one’s ability to discriminate. In any difficulty it is our ability to discriminate that saves us from calamity and helps us take the correct decisions. Some examples of discriminate behavior of a wise person are – it is better to abandon one person for the sake of the family, better to abandon the family for the village, better to abandon the village for the sake of the country, better to abandon life for the sake of the soul.”
“Now I recognize that in life you have to make choices. I understood that If one makes little effort you may get only water or you can face great dangers and enjoy a big feast. So the choice is to be either content with little or be ready to embrace the dangers and discomfort which accompany the life of acquisition and riches.”
“Reflecting in this way, I reviewed my choices and concluded that it was better to live in a jungle full of dangerous animals and eat the fruits and water available in the forest, rather than live in poverty among known relatives and people.”
“But due to my good fortune I have been finally blessed with the company of my good friend Laghupatnak who has been my great support and companion. Now having come here I have gained another good friend in you. While this world is like a poisonous tree, it has 2 very sweet, nourishing fruits – blissful, sweet poetry & music and secondly the company of good people. So, with the protection and company of 2 friends like you and Laghupatnak, I feel blissful.”
Till now Manthar had been listening attentively to Hiranyaka. He now replied, “Friend you unnecessarily got caught into the vice of wealth accumulation and it dealt you a heavy blow. We should understand that wealth is like dust at your feet, youth like a torrential, short rain in the mountains, adulthood like a drop of water which has short life and is unsteady and life is like foam. So, only the one with a steady and unwavering mind focused on doing his duties and focusing on correct action is able to live happily. The others get consumed by remorse, regret, grief.”
He continued, “In a life which is so temporary, those who get occupied with accumulation of wealth are doing it at the cost of their own enjoyment of that wealth. This habit of accumulation takes away all sense of freedom in one’s everyday life and makes it difficult to be generous and liberal with others. The one who lives each day without giving or enjoying is living a meaningless and miserable life. For what is wealth if not given or enjoyed? What is strength if not used to repel an enemy? What is learning if not used? What is the use of knowing about the soul if the senses are not conquered?”
“Another important thing to know is that the accumulated wealth of a miser neither goes to God, nor to family or self. Wealth stored away is most often taken by fire or theft or forcibly taken by the King or the powerful. So wealth can go only in 3 directions – it can be enjoyed, shared with others and if neither of these two options are taken, then at some point it is lost.”
“One wise person once told me that there are 4 excellent characters which are very hard to find in people – One, kind speech liberally used; second, knowledge without pride; third, bravery followed by compassion; wealth held with a sense of ease.” Finally the lesson is in being discriminate in how much wealth to accumulate and when one is tending towards excessive accumulation of wealth like in the story of the acquisitive Jackal that was killed by a bow.”
At this point Hiranyaka and Laghupatnak asked, “How was that?”
Manthar then relates the following story to them:
In a town called Kalyan there lived a hunter called Bhairav. One day he took his bow and went to the Vindhya forest to hunt for meat. He saw a deer and successfully hunted it down. He picked up the dead deer, put it on his shoulder and started walking back home. Suddenly he saw a large wild boar charging towards him. He put down the deer and aimed an arrow at the boar. The arrow injured the boar becoming angry, it charged even more forcefully at the hunter. The hunter was killed brutally by the boar. The injured boar was also so badly wounded that after some time it also died. During the fight between the hunter and the boar, a snake which came in their path was also crushed to death. After a few hours, a jackal was passing by that place and saw the dead deer, boar, hunter and snake. He was very happy to so much food which could keep him well contented for many months and he would not even have to make much effort to hunt. He made some calculations to understand how many days the food would last him. He thought the man’s flesh would be enough for a month’s supply of food, the deer and the boar can then be eaten over the next 2 months, the snake will be enough for one day’s meal. Having done all his calculation he looked at the hunter’s bow which had a leather string. He decided that he would rather hoard all the meat and would eat only the leather bowstring now and start to enjoy the rest of the flesh from tomorrow. So he started to chew at the bow string. Now the string was tied very tight to the bow and the bow had a sharp curved end where the string was tied. As the jackal chewed at the string the bow turned and the sharp edge pierced his heart and he died in an instant.”
“Hence, I tell you that accumulation can be done but how much accumulation is enough, is understood only by a wise mind.”
“The truly wealthy are those who give to the deserving and also use their wealth for their own enjoyment. What one hoards is left after death to be enjoyed by others.”
“While speaking of wealth and hoarding, it is also important to know that prosperity naturally flows towards the home of those endowed with the following qualities – strong determination, who does not procrastinate, understands the right principles of action, does not have any vices, is brave and ever grateful for her/his blessings and firm in friendship.”
“Even without riches such a person can reach positions of great honor, but a mean person endowed with great riches only attains a poor reputation, just like a dog with a golden collar can never attain the dignity of the lion. So one should try to only acquire the qualities to develop a good character and habits and the rest follows. All people must realize that if your entire pride is based on wealth then what will happen when wealth slides away from you?”
“Those consumed only by the desire to be wealthy must also know that for them there is continual fear from those more powerful, natural calamities, robbery and even their own family. Wealth is not easy to acquire and once acquired it is not easy to preserve and this is what creates anxieties of all kinds. If this thirst for wealth is not managed then it is your own wealth that enslaves you into serving to grow or safeguard it.”
“If you watch your desires carefully you will notice that what we acquire gives rise to further desires and then it slowly becomes a chain of desires. But only that after acquiring which no more desires remain is truly worthy of being acquired. The wise know what this is.”
Laghupatnak and Hiranyaka had been listening to the wisdom shared by Manthar with rapt attention. Laghupatnak said, “Dear friend we are fortunate to have a friend like you. Only the truly good are able to guide the good through their misfortune of unfortunate times. Only one who can appreciate virtue will delight in a virtuous person. The non virtuous will find no pleasure in the company of the virtuous. The one who deserves praise is the one who does not turn away or disappoint those who come to her/him for refuge. So, Manthar, Hiranyaka and I are truly fortunate to have found such a virtuous, praiseworthy friend in you.”
For many months the 3 friends then stayed together, helping and supporting, enjoying each others’ company and sharing their wisdom and learning from life.
Then one day they hear a lot of noise and see a deer run hurriedly into their part of the forest. They are startled and run to hide.
