The true lies – Part 3

The hunter empathised with the saint. He sat in front of the saint, humility personified.

The saint looked at the hunter and understood the greatness of the man in front of him, though, perhaps he himself did not realise it.

"Maybe", thought the saint, "greatness reaches you unawares and remains within you only as long as you do not realise it.”

The hunter earnestly continued narrating the story of the holy sage who had lived in the forest a few decades ago.  “His ashram was right over there” pointed the hunter towards a hut,,which now bore a deserted look. “I wish I had taken better care of his abode” rued the hunter.

“He used to teach the little children who lived nearby.” Though the children he taught were from very modest upbringing, the sage took pride in sharing his knowledge with them. After the elders returned home from their day’s work, they too sat around the sage, and listened intently to the sage’s words. To them every word from his mouth was holy.

“The light that enters every body leaves with a different hue, each hue being as beautiful as the other”, he would often say. "Similarly knowledge enters every soul and exhibits itself in different forms, each form being as pure as the other."

The hunter had not understood those words then. In spite of it, he would listen. “But today, every word makes a lot of meaning and sense to me.”The hunter took a pause and asked the holy man who was intently listening to him, “Do you know how I met this sage, who became my Guru, my philosopher and today my guiding angel?” The saint told him he was curious to know more about this man whose words seem to have inspired many.

“I was a robber and stole things from people for a livelihood. One day I was caught and people came chasing me. I ran into this forest and looked around for a place to hide. I could find none. It was then that my desperate gaze fell on the hut. I ran to the ashram, saw the sage and briefly told him to save me from my pursuers. I told him that I had stolen things from them and was willing to return everything to them.”

The sage had asked him to hand over his loot to him and then hide in the ashram. When the gang reached the ashram they asked the saint if he had seen a man running with stolen things. The sage simply gestured that he was on ‘Maunvrath’ or an oath of silence for a day. He handed over the bundle of loot and pointed straight ahead.

The chasers assumed that the thief had thrown the loot and ran away in the direction pointed at by the sage. To confirm their assumption they asked the saint if the robber was still around. The sage wrote ‘Nowhere’ and the people who were hitherto angry, left with the satisfaction of having got back what they lost.

“After the people who were chasing me left, I fell at the feet of the sage and asked him to pardon me." To save me he had to tell a lie.The sage smiled benevolently, and told me that he had not uttered a word of lie and that he had written ‘Now here’ which was still the truth.

He then told me that in the instant that I handed over my loot to him he saw a transformation in my eyes and sensed that I was destined to do greater things in life. He then told me to hunt only for my needs and never to loot the hard work of someone else. To save a robber like me the saint used tact and took over the responsibility of turning me over into a new leaf. 

Later the sage explained the difference between truth and lies to me."Truth is what we perceive things as, within the limited knowledge that we possess. Truth or lies, good or evil, therefore are all reflections of our mind and do not have any fixed form. When we seek knowledge our perception about happenings change and therefore truth also changes.”

"Knowledge leaves every soul purifying the heart. Whatever you do, do it with pure heart and then that becomes the truth."

The saint stood up and with a pure heart prostrated before the hunter!