THE MOUSE AND THE GITA
There is a story about a guru who had a brahmacari disciple. He ordered the
brahmacari that he should perform Bhakti by reading Gita every day. So he sat
in a cave, reading the Bhagavad-gita. But there was a small mouse who came to
nibble at the Gita, when it was not being read. He became tired of scaring the
mouse away, so he thought, "I need to get a cat to take care of the mouse." So
he got a cat. The cat kept away the mouse, but it started making sounds because
it was hungry. So he had to feed the cat. Then he thought, "I need a cow in
order to feed the cat milk." He had to take care of the cow. Gradually he
started giving less and less time for his Gita reading. Since he had to give
the cow so much attention, he thought, "I need someone to take care of the cow,"
and he hired a man. The man took care of the cow, but he found that he had to
have someone to watch the man, otherwise he was not doing his work properly. He
thought, "This is becoming a little complicated. I have to get married, then
the wife will watch over the man who is taking care of the cow, who is feeding
the milk to the cat, to keep away the mouse." He got married, but his wife
wanted certain things. So there were children, and he had to get some money.
He started some business enterprise and brought some land. One day, the guru
came back to see his disciple. He said, "What happened? I ordered you to read
Gita, but I see you have got wife, children, family, business, workers and so
many things. You have forgotten the Gita? Tell me what happened." He replied,
"Gurudeva, I am simply doing all this in the service of the Gita. In order to
read the Gita, I had to do all this. This is all Gita-samsara."
MORAL: We have to be careful not to perform bhakti for some other objective, that is not pure bhakti.
PS: I humbly request all the devotees to please forward moral / instructive stories they hear so that everyone can be benefited.
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