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Endurance
(Song of an ascetic—Story of Avanti Brahmin)
Some took away his bamboo staff, some his begging bowl and water pot, some his seat and someone his rosary and some again, his torn clothes.
They would offer to give them back and when he came near laugh at him and refuse to give them. Sometimes they returned those things but again snatched them from him. At other times when he was eating his alms near a lake or a tank, they would pour excretions or spit over his head. They made him speak when he was observing silence and beat him if he did not do so.
Others said, ‘This man is a thief.’ Some tied him with a rope and some said, ‘Kill him, Kill him.’ Some abused and taunted him and said, ‘He is a rogue posing himself to be a righteous man. Having lost all his wealth and being abandoned by his relatives, he has taken to this course of life.’
‘Oh, he is very strong. He endures all taunts and remains unshaken like a mountain. He is very resolute like a heron. He wants to gain his purpose by silence.’
Some mocked him often, while others tied him with ropes to a pillar or a tree, making sport of him as if he were a toy or a bird.
Whatever affliction or trouble thus befell him caused by the elements or the gods or his own body, he thought they were predestined and therefore must be patiently borne.
Even though he was insulted and treated with contempt by wicked men, even though they tried to make him aband on his saintly course he stuck to his path of righteousness, quite steadily and sang the following song.
The Brahmin said, ‘Neither this body nor these people nor the gods, nor the Atman, nor planets, nor Karma nor time is the cause of my pleasure or pain. The wise say or the Srutis declare that it is the mind that is the true cause of pleasure and pain, as it sets in motion the wheel of Samsara.
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