True Transformation

Once upon a time there was sage living in his ashram. One morning, while he was offering his prayers to the Sun god, a small mouse fell in his hands from the sky. It was being carried by an eagle and badly wounded. The sage felt pity on the mouse and transformed it into a human girl to protect it from the eagle. He took the girl to his ashram and nurtured her as his own daughter. The daughter grew up in the ashram and attained ripe age for marriage.

The sage wanted to marry his daughter to the most powerful person in the world. When the sage thought about the potential bridegrooms, he realized that the Sun is the most powerful in the whole visible world around us. So, he asked his daughter, "Dear, I want you to marry the most powerful person in the world. And I see that the Sun is the most powerful in the whole world. Are you willing to marry the Sun god?" The daughter replied, "You are right father, but a small cloud could obstruct the power of the mighty Sun. Isn’t the cloud more powerful?" The sage replied, “OK, so will you marry the cloud god?” “But father, when the wind blows it could easily scatter away the thickest of the clouds. Isn’t the wind more powerful than the clouds?”

The sage asked again, “so, you want to marry the wind god?” “No father. Please think about it. Even the most powerful winds are blocked by a mountain. Isn’t the mountain mightier than the wind?” reasoned the daughter. “So, how about you marry the mountain god?” “Don’t rush father! I agree a mountain is mighty. But a small mouse can easily dig a tunnel through the mountain. Isn’t the mouse the most powerful creature in the whole world?” The disappointed sage said, “My child, I transformed your body from that of a mouse to a human and raised you for so many years in my ashram, but I couldn’t transform your mind. You better be a mouse and live your own life,” and transformed her back into a mouse.

Similarly a Guru offers protection to the disciples in distress and raises them as his own children. A Guru’s one and only desire is to liberate the disciples from the shackles of illusion and make them attain the ultimate peace and bliss that he constantly experiences. But we, the disciples fail to follow his directions and instead desire and seek the most mundane pleasures. We pester the Gurus for things like promotions, marriages, children, wealth, health etc. while they seek to liberate us from this whole cycle of birth, death and rebirth. It doesn’t matter if we live in an ashram, dress like devotees and perform all the religious rituals. As long as our mind does not transform and progress on the path shown by the Guru, there is no use of the bodily transformations.

The power of organs

Our mind and the sensory organs are very powerful and when not properly controlled, they pose a great threat to our spiritual progress. Our Guruji SriBabuji Maharaj used to explain this through a story. Once sage Jaimini, a disciple of sage Veda Vyasa was reading through a book, still in the works, by his guru, when he found a verse denoting the power of the organs – "Balavaan indriyagramo, vidwansamapi karshati", meaning "the organs are so powerful that they even attract the well learned scholars." Jaimini, who was so proud of his intellect and renunciation, thought the guru must have written it by mistake and wanted to correct it. He changed the verse to "Balavaan indriyagramo vindwansam naapi karshati", meaning "even though the organs are so powerful, they cannot attract a well learned scholar." When sage Vyasa returned to his hut and noticed the changed verse, he just smiled and left.

One night when sage Vyasa was out of the ashram, sage Jaimini was alone in the hut. It was raining heavily outside with gusting winds. He heard a knock on the door and answered it to find a very beautiful woman wearing a wafer-thin sari completely wet in the rain. He welcomed her inside out of compassion. Her beauty in the dim light was making him mad. Her sweet voice and the natural aroma made him lose his control over the senses. He couldn't hold back anymore and tightly embraced her, rubbing his face all over her cheeks. He closed his eyes in ecstasy and suddenly felt a beard against his face. The shocked Jaimini opened his eyes to find the guru in his tight embrace. Sage Vyasa just smiled and left. Overcome with shame, Jaimini corrected the verse back to its original form.

Lord Krishna suggests two tools to control the powerful organs and mind in the Bhagavad Gita. The first one is practice. Suppose we suddenly decide to meditate for an hour every day. The first day it will be hard to sit and control our thoughts and we get pains all over the body. The second day will be ten times worse. But if we continue our practice, it slowly gets better over time and we will be able to sit comfortably and contemplate upon the universal truth. The second tool is detachment. Why do we get attached to things or people? Because we don’t know or realize their true nature. Suppose you get attached to a person because of their beauty. When you realize that the beauty is only skin-deep and the body is actually made up of bones, flesh, blood and all the slimy substances; that realization automatically leads to detachment. Similarly, if you are attached to your smartphone thinking you have a great tool to help you, when you realize that it's the phone that made you its servant and not the other way round, and that the phone is constantly leading you to stress and servitude, you automatically get detached to it.

Thus, even though the organs and mind are so powerful in deceiving us, practice and detachment through realization can be of great use in overcoming them. But, for realization you need constant reminders from the guru as we have seen in case of sage Jaimini.