Jabala – Me, My Guru

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Jabala – Me, My Guru

Without telling us, she had said it all! It was student’s duty to ‘listen’ to his Guru’s words, not just hear. We in his place would’ve said or thought “I don’t know this forest and yet he sends him there. Will there be wild animals there? What about my safety? What about my food? How’ll I know my way back home” I’ve just come today how he can relegate such a menial job to me even without giving me any lesson first. He is using me as a servant – may be

because of my lineage!”  And what not? But here was Jabala in his sincerity not only accepted the work allotted to him but also went one step extra in taking extra responsibility of tending cows till their number increased to 1000. That is taking ownership of the job given. And here we were ever eager to push our responsibility and roles on to others and what we little did we considered as a torture and suffering and felt our elders, boss and others extracting job from us. Did we go extra mile to fulfill ‘jobs’ assigned to us? We always think and believe we ‘deserve’ what we desire. ‘Wishing for something or desiring something’ doesn’t qualify as our ‘worthiness’ to receive it. But who is to be explained? It is so ingrained in our psyche that even a small effort of ‘saying gratitude’ seems torturous to us! We and I in special understood all this here and now but the moment I walked out I behaved, felt and said that same way as before. All my understanding seemed momentary. Applying it seemed an impossible task! Or that’s what we especially me wanted to believe – because it made it easier for me to put the blame of my suffering on others – like my fate is bad, he is so lucky, my Guru is partial or not great or powerful enough to fulfill my wish, God is sadistic and loves to see me suffer etc.

Not only did Jabala take up the work allotted to him, he did it happily. He knew to give before receiving. When we go to hotel, cinema hall, travel we pay upfront and without flinching. For entertainment we are ever ready with money but when it came to giving even fees to masters we were loaded with excuses and if master asked then he was greedy and money-minded. Even I had similar values for many years. Years of sadhan and looking at my intentions and motives with honesty revealed such cheap nature of mine. Now that I was changed, I hated the same qualities in others. Funny isn’t it?

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