THE STORY OF NARADA
There was a great sage called Narada in the Hindu mythology. He worshipped the maha Vishnu, the maintainer. He went to maha Vishnu and asked, “I am praying to you since time began. Why am I not achieving the highest grace? What is the blocking factor? I am not able to achieve the perpetual bliss state where I am always happy, blissful for no reasons. Why isn’t it happening?” Maha Vishnu said, “That is very simple. You don’t have a guru, that’s why.” Then Narada said, “Oh, if that’s so, then please guide me to find my guru.” Maha Vishnu said, “Tomorrow early morning, during Brahma Muhurta, the subtlest time between 3am and 6am, the softest, the subtlest possible time, you walk on the river Ganga, you’ll find your guru.” So Narada went to the river and started walking. He walked and walked and there was nobody. He continued walking. After a long time, there was one boatman in a boat to help people cross the river. Narada was disappointed. He thought that maha Vishnu made fun of him. So he went to maha Vishnu and asked him, “Why did you make fun of me? I couldn’t find a guru, I walked all the way, miles and miles, but there was no one. Just a boat and a boatman.” Maha Vishnu became very angry. He said, “You could not find your guru. And you discriminated. So now I curse that you will take one thousand births and only after that you will find your guru.” He was devastated. He said there had been a mistake. Because maha Vishnu said he should have taken the first man and that was the boatman. But what will a boatman teach? He thought, how can a great sage like him take a boatman as his guru? But maha Vishnu was angry because he had not fulfilled the instruction completely. So Narada went to his father Brahma and said, “This has happened and I’m very, very devastated, what should I do?” Brahma had a solution, he said, “Go back to maha Vishnu, and ask him to write the script of the thousand lives, the horoscope what you would do in the thousand lives.” Narada went to maha Vishnu and asked him, “Would you be kind enough to find out my destiny for the next thousand lives?” So maha Vishnu said, “That’s not a problem.” He is god, so he wrote the whole thousand lives’ horoscope and gave it to Narada. He took it to Brahma, and Brahma said, “Ok, lie down on the floor. Spread it. Roll on it from one side to the other.” He rolled and maha Vishnu said, “Ok, I relieve you from this problem, now go back and walk on the banks of Ganga to find your guru.’’ So all 3 were happy. Narada went for a walk on the banks of Ganga again. And again he found only the same boatman. But he already learned his lesson so he didn’t want to take a risk. He went to the boatman, and requested him to accept him as his disciple. Narada then realised this was Lord Shiva.
So, Narada’s problem was a concept in his mind, ”A guru should look like this”, etc. Nobody can attain any guru as big as Lord Shiva. He is the yogi god, or the highest of yogis. All the yogis aspire to be like him. And Shiva is not exactly an entity (though in this story it’s an entity) but Shiva is a state. The state of Shiva is a perpetual bliss state, Sat-Chit-Ananda. ‘Sat’ means the essence of the universe, essence of the creation, of everything, of the creator. ‘Chit’ is our substratum which is the unitised form aspiring to merge with and be the essence of the creator. When the ‘Sat’ and the ‘Chit’ merge, it’s pure bliss, absolute joy, ecstasy, that is Satchitananda, the state of Shiva. This is what every being aspires for. This is what all spirituality is about. Don’t think that Shiva has an image with the snake on the neck. It’s a state that every being wants to achieve- consistent never-ending absolute bliss and ecstasy without any reason.
All the pleasures that human beings know are temporary. If certain things happen, we are happy, if certain things are absent, we are unhappy. We are like a pendulum going from happiness to sorrow. What we are looking for is perpetual happiness, the state where we are absolutely happy with or without a thing, a person, situation or time. In that state, whatever, wherever, or whoever you look, you only see the vibration. You only see the brightness, whether it is an animal, a bird or a plant, a tree, fruit or a human being, we cannot differentiate. We will only see the brightness, the love, and the unity. The consciousness gets united, and this is absolute freedom, 100% freedom because there is no duality. There is no you and I, there is only oneness.
