A man living in the world was disgusted with life and, renouncing it, went to a solitary spot and dwelt in a cave praying to God to give His Darshan. He fasted and prayed for a long period and just when he was despairing of seeing God, He appeared before him saying, "Lo! I am here." What did the man see before him? God had come to him in the form of the world itself which he had renounced in search of Him. On having this vision the man returned to the world and saw God everywhere in it and ever remained filled with bliss and peace.
http://www.anandashram.org/html/ebooks/Stories_as_told_by_SwamiRamdas.pdf
In a forest lived a great Tapaswin. His wife was a highly evolved soul. She passed away leaving an only daughter. The daughter grew up in all innocence and purity. Her father was getting old. She used to seat him on a Jhula and swing it to and fro. She was guileless and pure and free like a child. One day, a Raja who happened to pass that way, saw the young girl in the company of her old father. The Raja was a bachelor and had declined to marry so far, though he had many offers. Seeing this girl, he told his minister that if at all he married, he would marry her only. So they went and asked the Tapaswin if he would be willing to give his daughter in marriage to the Raja. The old hermit replied, "I have absolutely no objection if she agrees. You may approach her and get her consent."
They then asked the girl. She replied, "I have no objection. But there are two conditions to be fulfilled. Firstly, you should engage somebody here to look after my old father. Secondly, I will bring with me the clothes that I am wearing now and I should be permitted to spend one hour daily in a solitary room in the palace where I will put on these clothes." The king agreed.
The marriage was duly performed and the girl cheerfully left her father and carried on the duties of the queen peacefully in the kingdom. She was very loving and compassionate to every one. According to her vow, she was spending an hour daily in a lonely room, wearing her simple forest-dress. In course of time, a girl was born to her. Unfortunately, the subjects felt that as their king had married some forest-girl, they should not allow her children to inherit the throne. They requested the king to get the child killed. The king conveyed this tragic news to the queen. She gladly agreed to give away the child. The child was then handed over to two men who were instructed to take it to the jungle and kill it. They took the child to the jungle but seeing its beauty and innocence, were prompted to leave it there alive. They falsely reported to the king that they had killed it. The child was soon taken away by another king who happened to pass that way.
Two years later, a son was born to the queen. Again the subjects agitated that the son should be killed. The queen readily gave away this child also. The men who were commissioned to kill it left it alone in the forest as before and reported to the king that they had killed it. It so happened that this child was also found and taken away by the same king who had taken the first baby girl. After sometime, another daughter was born to the queen, which went the way of the previous two and was adopted by the same king who took away the first two children. The three children grew up nicely under the loving care of the king and queen who had no children of their own.
Now the subjects requested the king to send the queen back to the forest and marry another - a princess, - as they thought there was no use having a queen whose children were unfit for the throne. The king told the queen about this. She cheerfully fell in with the idea and went back to her father and started to serve him as before, swinging him on the Jhula. She was as happy as ever. She had no regrets, because she took all that happened in such a detached spirit that life was to her, nothing short of a dream.
Some years passed. The king, who sent back his queen to the forest, decided upon marrying the daughter of the king of the neighbouring State. The marriage was settled. As there was no female member in the palace for making the necessary preparations, the subjects requested the king to send for the former queen and ask her to arrange everything for the king's wedding. They all knew that the former queen was very wise in managing all affairs. The king sent messengers to the forest to call her. She came willingly and supervised the preparations for her husband's marriage.
Before the function commenced, however, the father of the bride told the king in the presence of the assembly, "I wish to tell you some details of my family before the marriage takes place. These three children of whom you are going to marry the eldest are not really mine. I found them all one by one in the forest. I took them to my kingdom and brought them up."
Now the king - the bridegroom - suspected that the bride was perhaps his own daughter and that the other two were also his children. He sent for the two men who were ordered to kill them. On being questioned they confessed that they did not kill the children and begged to be pardoned. After careful enquiries, he was convinced that they were his own children. Of course, he could not marry his own daughter. So the marriage was cancelled. All were pleased with the result. The people of the kingdom highly appreciated the good and lofty qualities of the queen who calmly passed through the severe trials that befell her. They then prayed that she should not go back to the forest but should remain in the palace as the queen. She agreed to the proposal.
See how detached the queen was while living and moving in the world. That was because she was brought up in her most impressionable age by a saint, in an atmosphere far removed from worldly distractions. So she had developed detachment from worldly pleasures and position.
An itinerant Sadhu came to a certain place along with his young disciple. The routine was that the disciple should go for alms, and after collecting sufficient provisions, come back to the Guru. Both would then cook food from the provisions thus secured and satisfy their hunger.
As usual, the disciple, who was yet a boy, started in the morning on his daily Bhiksha. When he was passing through a lane he was called by an astrologer who sat on the verandah of his house waiting for customers. Having had no customers till then and finding no work to do he asked the boy to sit by his side. Taking that moment as the basis, the astrologer studied the planets governing the life of the boy and found out that the boy, according to his reading, should die the next day. The astrologer told this anticipated event to the boy.
The boy hearing the prediction of the astrologer was thoroughly frightened. He could not collect the Bhiksha for the day, but hurriedly went back to his Guru. With tears in his eyes he told his Master about the dire prediction of the astrologer. Then the Guru calmly replied, "Look here my boy, nothing is going to happen to you tomorrow. You will be all right."
Next day, the Guru, lest the boy should be scared at the thought of the predicted death, kept the boy with him the whole day. The boy was safe and sound. The day passed. On the following day the boy was asked to go for Bhiksha in the usual course. The boy again happened to pass through the same lane in which the astrologer lived. The astrologer was astounded to find him alive, contrary to his prediction. He called the boy, asked him who his Guru was, and expressed a wish to have his Darshan.
Accordingly, led by the boy, the astrologer went to the Sadhu whose disciple the boy was. The boy introduced the astrologer to his Guru. The Sadhu looked at the astrologer and said, "You frightened my disciple unnecessarily. Do you think he will meet with any harm so long as he is under my protection? It was unwise of you to have upset the mind of the boy by saying that he would die yesterday."
Such is the power of saints.
http://www.anandashram.org/html/ebooks/Stories_as_told_by_SwamiRamdas.pdf
Remembrance of God means elevation to higher consciousness. We must keep this light burning within us always. You know, as soon as the light goes out, we fall into darkness. When our vision is pure, we see only God. If impure, we see evil.
There was a very good king named Yudhishtira who led a righteous life. In his own time, there was another king named Duryodhana who was evilminded and lived an unrighteous life. One day, Lord Krishna, a great incarnation of God, asked Yudhishtira, the virtuous king, to pick out for him a bad man in the world. The king went about in search of a bad man.
He returned and told Krishna that he could not find such a one. Krishna called Duryodhana, the vicious king, and asked him to find out for him a good man. Duryodhana went in search of one. He could see only bad men everywhere and not a single good man. He came and reported this to Lord Krishna.
The moral of this story is that if we are good, the whole world is good for us; if we are bad, the whole world is bad for us. Every man has got some good points in him. We should see only the good points. If we are to see the bad points let us see them in ourselves. If we do so, we shall find in course of time that what is bad in us will disappear. If we see evil in others and good in us, what good we have will disappear and the evil in us will grow. We are condemning, criticising, and thinking ill of so many in the world. By so doing, we are only getting our mind more and more impure. So the way to progress on the spiritual path is to see the good points in others and love everybody. To see good in others is to see God in them, because God alone is good. By seeing God in others we shall realise God in our own heart. So long as we criticise others, we shall never see God in them.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/211018986/Stories-as-Told-by-SwamiRamdas
There was a great saint named Tukaram. He was a votary of God's name. Once some people from his village decided to go on a long pilgrimage and they requested Tukaram also to follow them. Tukaram expressed his inability, but requested them to be kind enough to take with them to all the places they visited a bitter gourd that he would give them. He wished that the bitter gourd should be given a dip in all the holy waters where they took bath and also have it taken to all the temples they visited. Not caring to know the significance of what the saint said, the villagers took the bitter gourd from him and carried it all along the pilgrimage, obeying the instructions of the saint in regard to dipping it in the holy waters and taking it to the temples.
In a few months, the party returned from the pilgrimage and handed the bitter gourd back to Tukaram. Tukaram was happy and invited all the members of the party to a feast the next day to celebrate the successful completion of their pilgrimage. Tukaram made a special dish out of the bitter gourd which he had sent on the pilgrimage. They were served with the various preparations and they started eating. When they tasted the gourd dish, they all remarked it was bitter and asked Tukaram why he had served it. Tukaram, as if greatly surprised, asked them how it could be bitter when it was made out of the gourd that had gone on a pilgrimage. It was no doubt bitter when he handed it over to them before the pilgrimage, but he wondered why it had not lost its bitterness in spite of the pilgrimage. This was a great lesson to all the pilgrims.
There are so many who go on pilgrimage and return as bitter as before. But, if you go on pilgrimage as urged by God within, and continuously remember Him all through the pilgrimage and see only purity and goodness of God everywhere, you will achieve purity. Such a pilgrimage will surely be beneficial to you.
http://www.anandashram.org/html/ebooks/Stories_as_told_by_SwamiRamdas.pdf
Once upon a time there was a King named Shibi. He was very generous and just. If anybody approached the king for any help, he would never return disappointed. King Shibi would always take care of the needs of all his subjects.
Once a pigeon came to King Shibi's court. It was trembling with fear. The king lovingly held it in his hands. Just then, a hawk flew towards King Shibi and said, "O king, return my prey to me." However King Shibi refused and said, "This pigeon has taken refuge with me. If I return it to you, you will eat it and I shall acquire sin."
The hawk said, "I am hungry and this pigeon is my food. If you snatch away my food from me, I shall die of starvation. Won't you acquire sin then?" King Shibi replied, "No, that is not my intention. You ask for any other food and I shall give it to you. The hawk said, "I eat meat. You give me your flesh, equal in weight to that of the pigeon."
To the shock of everyone present King Shibi readily agreed. He ordered his men to get a weighing scale. The pigeon was kept on one side of the weighing scale and Shibi placed a piece of flesh from his thigh on the other. To everyone's surprise, no matter how much flesh was cut from the king's body and kept in the scale, it still could not outweigh the pigeon. Finally, King Shibi himself sat on the scale.
Suddenly, the pigeon and the hawk vanished and in their place stood Agnidevata (The Deity of Fire) and Deity Indra. They both blessed King Shibi and said, "O King. We had come here to test you. You really are very kind and just." They restored his body and left the palace.
Because Shibi did his shariira Daanam to save the life of a sharanaagati, we now also remember him. Whenever people talk about maha-daatas, his name will surely be taken. That is why even the Gods had to descend from the heavens to bless him. We should learn to be kind and helpful to others.
Morals in the story:
The Daana-gunam and Dharma-rakshana of Shibi must be learnt by all of us.
The knowledge of the Dharma-shastras helped Shibi decide what to do in the difficult situation.
http://moralstories.wordpress.com/2006/07/11/the-story-of-the-great-shibi-chakravarti/
Rupananda (Khema Theri) was quite an attractive and graceful woman who was always surrounded by admirers. She never ceased to feel very lonely, however, because all those dear to her—mother, brother, and even husband—had all entered the Order. Missing her family badly, she went to visit them often and heard them speak of the Buddha in such a way that she longed to go and pay him homage too.
But when she learned that the Buddha often talked about the impermanence of the body, she was afraid that he might disparage her for her beauty, and so hesitated to do so. In the end, howe ver, she decided that no matterwhat the Buddha might say to her, she would go and see him anyway.
As soon as the Buddha saw Rupananda, he realized that she was someone very attached to her beauty. To teach her a lesson, he caused a vision of a ravishing young lady to appear before her. When Rupananda saw the young lady, she could not help but remark how extremely beautiful she was and exclaimed to herself, “My goodness, next to her I must look like an old crow!”
Then before Rupananda could realize what was happening, the beautiful young lady started to age and slowly deteriorate before her very eyes until she finally lay sick and helpless on the floor, rolling in her own excrement. Then she died, and Rupananda saw her corpse going through the different stages of decay, oozing pus and other foul liquids, and finally crawling with maggots.
Witnessing this rapid succession of images, Rupananda realized that there was a continuous process of change and decay in the body. “In the same way,” she thought, “like this young girl who has grown old, died, and decayed before my very eyes, I, too, will grow old and decay one day.”
With that realization, the attachment that Rupananda had for her body diminished and she came to perceive its true nature. She then became a nun, and under the guidance of the Buddha, eventually attained arahatship.
This body is built up with bones which are covered with flesh and blood. Within it dwell decay and death, pride and jealousy.
http://www.dhamma.worldofwisdom.asia/2011/12/impermanence-of-beauty.html
http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/bmDamaStory.pdf
