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37.I AM NO CRANE
The brahmana was shocked beyond
measure and stood at a distance in disgust.
The butcher suddenly rose from his seat,
came to the brahmana and inquired:
"Revered sir, are you well? Did that
chaste brahmana lady send you to me?"
The brahmana was stupefied.
"Revered sir, I know why you have come.
Let us go home," said the butcher and he
took the brahmana to his house where he
saw a happy family and was greatly struck
by the devotion with which the butcher
served his parents.
Kausika took his lessons from that butcher
on dharma, man's calling and duty.
Afterwards, the brahmana returned to his
house and began to tend his parents, a
duty, which he had rather neglected
before.
The moral of this striking story of
Dharmavyadha so skillfully woven by
Vedavyasa into the Mahabharata, is the
same as the teaching of the Gita. Man
reaches perfection by the honest pursuit of
whatever calling falls to his lot in life, and
that this is really worship of God who
created and pervades all. (Bhagavad Gita,
XVIII, 45-46)
The occupation may be one he is born to
in society or it may have been forced on
him by circumstances or be may have
taken it up by choice. But what really
matters is the spirit of sincerity and
faithfulness with which be does his life's
work.
Vedavyasa emphasizes this great truth by
making a scholarly brahmana, who did not
know it, learn it from a butcher, who lived
it in his humble and despised life.
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