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Swami Materializes a Fruit
You must have watched one gentleman wearing a proper Andhra, South
Indian dress, called a dhoti. That gentleman is a big contractor
and builder and a great devotee of Bhagavan. He didn’t have a very
high education, but intuitively he felt like writing a few
compositions. It turned out that he wrote many poems about the
all-important epic, the Bhagavatham.
Bhagavatham is a very important text, full of devotion.
Bhagavatham is a text filled with stories of devotees and the
power of God. On the one hand, it tells of the power of God. On
the other hand, it narrates the experiences of the devotees.
Bhagavan always thinks of the spirit (feeling) behind everything.
Bhagavan will never go by the scholarship of a person alone. He
doesn’t want scholarly people. He doesn’t want knowledgeable
people. He doesn’t want men of letters. He wants men of the Spirit.
He wants those of the Spirit, who have sincere feelings behind
everything that they do. This is much more important than
exposition. So, He picked up a liking for this man and wanted him
to read a few sentences aloud from his own writings. This poet did
it ecstatically!
At the end, Bhagavan said, "Everything that you read, all those
things mentioned in Bhagavatham, are so sweet and nectarine that
you cannot say, ‘This can be omitted.’ Nor can you say, ‘You can
bypass these lines.’ Every sentence is full of nectar. Every
sentence has to be read." Then He said, "You know how sweet it is?"
In so telling, He waved His hand and materialized a fruit this
size, the likes of which I have never seen.
Being a student of botany, I must confess that I do not know of
its taxonomy or morphology. Morphology means its external shape
and taxonomy means its group. Well, I just don’t know. I saw that
fruit for the first time! He broke it into two and gave one half
to that poet. The other half He made into two pieces and gave to
two important guests, the present and past vice-chancellors of the
university.
He wanted them to eat it right there. Being commanded to do so,
they ate it immediately. They began eating. This man who had read
a few sentences of his poems was so thrilled and excited! He could
not control his expression. He said, "Bhagavan, I have eaten many
fruits throughout my life. But this type of fruit I have never
tasted! All the fruits I have eaten I taste on my tongue only.
However, after eating this fruit, now I feel the sweetness even in
my stomach and in my intestines!"
Baba: "Is it that sweet?"
"Yes."
Bhagavan said, Bhagavatham is that same kind of sweetness."
Well, I always take some risks, as I told you. I said, "This kind
of fruit I have not seen in the surrounding areas." That’s what I
said, hoping not to be too risky. But it was! (Laughter)
Immediately He said, "What nonsense you say! Why do you say, 'in
the surrounding areas'? It is not here on earth and not anywhere
in the world."
"Oh! That’s why it is unique Swami!" Somehow I could save myself.
It was so unique.
Source: Anil Kumar's Sunday Talk
on March 25, 2001
Philosophy and Truth |
