A sage and his disciples.

               

 This story was told by my school teacher when I was studying in Marathi medium. Still I remember it and say how we make our mind conditioned in course of the time. We are too engrossed to change the mind.

     Once upon a time there was ashram on outskirts of a village. There a sage and his disciples lived. It was full of spiritual and religious place, so the villagers kept visiting there in order to get the advice, guidance, and sometime a blessing. Every day the sage and the disciples used to get up early morning. Then they used to go at main hall and there meditate for an hour. It was a routine, and nitty-gritty of their spiritual lives. So nobody could pass day without it.

          One day, all at once, a small kitten came and disturbed them during meditation hour. The following day it happened again. Every day it jumped here and there, disturbing them. Therefore they began complaining among themselves. They regretted that they were wasting their precious time in early morning hour. But everybody could leave no stone unturned to control it. In the end of the day, they thronged outside of the sage’s cottage. As soon as he came outside, they shared their difficulty with him. One of them told him that the kitten was distracting them. So they could not do the meditation well.

         At a moment he thought for a while and suggested that any one of them would be assigned to catch and put it under a basket. Every day one of them had the duty of watching over and catching it. Slowly and gradually it was a part and parcel of the routine. Consequently nobody could get disturbed. The time was flying as fast as possible and everything seemed to be fine, suddenly the kitten died and left them shocked.

              In short time, all of the disciples felt something missing in their routine. Therefore they rushed at the sage again and asked him what they would do the next. By that time he was in deep thought and heard them quietly. Even one of them pointed out that they were habituated with catching the kitten and doing the meditation. Further they shared that they had been feeling vacuum in daily routine since the death of the kitten.

                   Then the sage told them that they could get the small kitten from nearby village. And they would start their routine as they were doing. On hearing that, all disciples left him with smiling face and happy heart.

          But the sage was confused over his disciples’ mind progress. By and by the year passed, one day the sage also passed away. Afterward a new sage took over and succumbed to the disciples’ routine.

It was a permanent routine for all of them. In a course of time everybody could shackle it and it became a rule of their lives.