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SriRangaSri List Archive: Message 00102 Apr 2007

 
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Seva to parents alone is enough!
Every person by birth becomes rini for parents ?
without whom the very existence on this earth would
not have been possible, devatas ? for all the
panchabutas, rains, nature etc. and rishis ? for
giving us puraanas, shastras etc. Of these, the runam
of parents cannot be paid back easily and is virtually
impossible. Hence one needs to atleast do seva to
them, listen and adhere to their words and give them a
lot of respect. This is the least one can do to them.
Our puraanas also show that one can attain moksha just
by doing seva to parents.

Once upon a time, there used to live a great Bhakta of
Krishna. He had a wife, who deserved to be his
ardhaangi. However, they had a son, Pundarika, who had
all kinds of vyasanas. In the attraction for a mere
vaaraangana, he drives his parents out of his house,
does not love his wife and finally looses all his
money. The vaaraangana, whose love he thought was
eternal, left him once his money was over. In the
sorrow of being apart from the vaaraangana, he walks
into a forest and finally reaches a lonely kutir of a
great person by name, Kukkuta muni. He sees the
following wonder when he reaches the place:

Three very ugly looking old females, suffering from
terrible diseases, will be cleaning the ashram. After
doing all the cleaning required, they go inside the
kutir and to his surprise, three very beautiful, young
women with the tejas of sun come out. Out of his usual
attraction to women, he goes and holds the hand of one
of the women and immediately she turns ugly like
before. The woman tells Pundarika ?because people like
you take dip in our holy waters everyday, we get these
ugly forms and have to bare with such dreadful
diseases. We are Ganga, Yamuna and Sarawathi. Everyday
we clean the kutir of Kukkuta muni and have his
darshan to relieve the loads of paapas you maanavas
leave with us and get back our divya shariraas.? She
again has darshan of Kukkuta muni and all the three
leave the place (They wondered why a common human,
that too a bad person, was able to see them in human
form at the first place).

Pundarika, just to see what is there inside, goes into
the kutir. He sees nothing great ? no jewels, no big
furniture nothing. He sees a person totally immersed
in pressing the legs of his father. The person was
totally engrossed in it and the only other thing he
had in mind was the thought of Lord Shiva.Seeing
Kukkuta muni, Pundarika asks him many questions about
the woman etc., but sees that the muni gave back no
reply, since the muni was totally engrossed with the
seva to his father. Not able to bear the rejection,
out of ahankaar, he tries to kick the muni and
immediately falls on the ground loosing both his legs.
Pundarika cries for help and the muni gets disturbed
by his cries and attends to his help. Pundarika begs
the muni to pardon him and the muni immediately
pardons him. Pundarika realizes all the mistakes he
has done in his life and asks the muni for
prayaschittam. The muni says that there is nothing
that can help him except the seva to his parents and
even a bhrashta can achieve moksha by serving his
parents. Immediately Pundarika, pulling himself with
his hands, sets off in the search for his parents,
whom he drove away from his house. He truly and whole
heartedly repents for his mistakes and continues his
journey to his parents.

He does not think about food, water, his bleeding
legs, the only thing he has in his mind is to search
for his parents, beg them to pardonhim and do their
seva. He does not care about thorny paths, heat of the
sun, steep mountain cliffs etc. and continues his
journey. When he falls off a cliff, Lord Krishna used
to catch him safely and let him move on. At all
stages,Pundarika?s heart was filled only with the want
of doing seva to parents, and hence Krishna bhagavaan
used to help him all along. Finally, he reaches the
kutir of his parents and falls on their feet. He begs
them to pardon him for being so cruel to them and
pleaded them to grant him the chance of doing their
seva. The parents immediately pardon Pundarika and
Pundarika again gets back his legs. From that day
onwards, he always used to be busy doing seva to his
parents and always think of Krishna paramaatma in his
mind.

Unable to bear the separation from his bhakta, one day
Lord Krishna comes to see Pundarika. He waits at the
door of Pundarika?s kutir and calls for him. Pundarika
sees Krishna, the paramaatma for whose darshan even
great munis spend their entire lives in tapas,
standing at his door. But Pundarika was at that time
pressing the feet of his parents, who were asleep,
with legs in his lap. Krishna asks Pundarika to come
and take Him inside. Pundarika, seeing the Lord
becomes very happy, but asks Him to wait a bit, since
he cannot stop seva to his parents and he will come
after taking their permission. Lord Krishna waits at
the door and by being touched by his lotus feet, Indra
who was lying in the form of a stone because of the
curse of Lord Shiva, takes back His original form and
leaves to Indraloka.

Meanwhile Pundarika?s father wakes up and asks him
what happened. Pundarika says that Lord Krishna had
come but he was unable to receive him. Immediately
Pundarika?s father runs to receive the Lord, but does
not see Him. He then asks Pundarika to call Krishna.
Krishna appears immediately on the call of Pundarika
and blesses moksha for Pundarika, his wife and his
parents. Krishna also stays permanently at the house
of Pundarika to bless bhaktas and it became the well
known kshetram of Pandarpur. The kshetram is so
ancient that the legs of the Pandarnath?s idol are
half eroded just by the touchings of bhaktas!

Morals in the story: 

1. Only because Pundarika did true seva to his
parents, did Krishna wait for him at his door and
immediately come when called by Pundarika. This shows
the importance of being obedient to parents ans doing
their seva.
2. Seva of parents is the most basic thing that the
Indian culture prescribes. A person going against the
word of his parents will not be liked by God.



 
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