So you sow, so shall you Reap!

I was intrigued by one story I read from Sai Charitra – A book I got last time I visited Shirdi..

Below incident is mentioned to have occurred 7 days before Baba passed away in Shirdi.

Few excerpts are as below,


“There came a country-cart on which tiger was fastened with Iron chains. Its said to have been suffering from malady & its keepers – 3 Derveshis – has been taking it from place to place to make money by exhibiting it – which was their means of their subsistence. Their all efforts to cure the malady remained in vain & they had come to Baba after they heard heard his fame. They got it down, supposedly fierce & restless as it was disease ridden. On Baba’s consent when the animal met baba – its said to have immediately moved its tail & dashed it thrice against the ground, & the fell down senseless. The Derveshis were dejected, how its said to be very meritorious on the animal’s part to met its death at Baba’s feet. It was their (Derveshis) debtor and when the debt was paid off it was free & met its end at Sai’s Feet”


Its been almost more than a month since I have read this and it had a deep impact on me which were due to collation of few other stories that I had heard/read before.
They are as below


1. All us human beings as our own nature, we are supposed to serve viz. Mother serving a son by taking care of him & upbringing him, son serving mother by taking care of her. How ever due to our innate desire for sense enjoyment we tend to become forgetfull of our responsibilities and duties and we start to or tend to presume that others are supposed to serve us rather than we… Point here is - We tend to serve so many – is it the debt that we are paying? (P.S.We can anyways not repay debt to our parents for that matter however the chance that we get to serve- is it a chance to repay some part of debt?)


2. We at some point of time heard that some relations are “Runan- bandhan”. If you are about to get married you might hear this more often ;-). Since the literal meaning says a bonding of the past - the question that remains is still the same like at the end of previous question?


3. You might have heard/read teachings in Gita – when some one else says harsh words to you, you shouldn’t retaliate back other wise there would be no difference between you and him? (Barring exceptions of Kshatriya dharma mentioned which is not applicable to this point). This also leads to the same question are we indebted to the harsh speakers by having done something harsh in the past for them and now it’s the time to repay by silence?


4. This one is the story of the King who had killed 100 animals in name of the Bali (Animal killing offering) to Devi, how ever version of the story that I heard he was supposed to be killed by animals 100 times so that he could repay the debt to them. He did severe penance to the Devi however Devi said that this nothing can be done to avoid being killed100 times but she granted him a boon wherein the 100 animals can kill him at same time in one go - so that at least his suffering can be reduced. Bottom line – it translates to the same question – the debt that we are supposed to repay to others?


All the stories about from various sources seem to have a common connect and that not sure if its same as one being said to part of Law of Karma!
But its interesting in a way as it answers us a little part of our questions that we ask to the Supreme why are we suffering in small way in form of failures or other such similar things, May be we are repaying part of what we did at some unknown time and one day once we have done it - it will be all Good times!!