When The Gods Partied

365 Days✈️With HFN St🌍ry

♥️ Story-328 ♥

*How do you view challenges? How do you get the confidence to face your challenges?*

When the Gods Partied

The battle was fought between the mightiest. The gods, known as devas, and the demons, called asuras, clashed like never before. It looked like the evil asuras were about to win when Lord Indra, the king of the devas, prayed to the Supreme Being, called Brahman.

Lord Indra had not seen the Supreme Being until then, but his teacher had told him that it was Brahman who created people. He made the sun rise, the plants grow, the birds chirp. It was also Brahman who decided the outcome of battles. Lord Indra meditated upon Brahman to invoke him. As he explained the situation, his confidence grew, and he led the devas to victory. With joy and pride, they celebrated. They drank and ate and made merry since their natural tendency is to enjoy. However, in their merriment and pleasure, they forgot to thank the very Supreme Being who guided them to victory.

The celebration carried on to the next day, when suddenly, a huge, bright figure appeared at a distance. The devas were puzzled at the appearance of this unknown entity amidst their wonderful celebration.

“Who is this?” they asked each other. But they were too scared to approach the figure directly. “O Agni! You are the god of fire! Could you please go and find out who or what that thing is,” one of the devas requested.

Agni agreed and approached the figure. As he came closer, the brightness was blinding, and he could not make out what the figure looked like. Before he could say anything, the figure spoke. “Who are you?”

“I am Agni, the god of fire!” “And what special power do you have?” “I can burn everything on Earth!” declared Agni triumphantly.

The figure placed a small blade of grass before Agni. “Please burn this,” he challenged.

Agni pointed all his fingers at the blade of grass and focused all his energy on it. He used every last bit of his powers. But the blade of grass remained undisturbed.

“I couldn’t do it!” said a dejected Agni as he walked back sadly to the rest of the devas. “I couldn’t find out who the figure is.”

The perplexed devas now turned to Vayu, the lord of wind and air. “Please find out who this is,” Vayu agreed and approached the mighty entity.

“Who are you?” the figure asked. “I am Vayu!” “And what special power do you have?”

“I can lift everything on Earth with just my breath!” The figure placed a small blade of grass before Vayu. “Lift this meagre blade, please.”

Vayu rushed to the blade of grass with all his strength and blew with all his might. But the blade of grass did not move even a tiny bit!

Vayu, too, hung his head in shame and walked back to the other devas. “I couldn’t find out who the figure is.”

Finally, the devas approached their king, Indra, and asked him for help. “Don’t worry. I will find out who this is,” declared Indra, and set off to meet him.

Indra strode powerfully and purposely towards him, but the figure disappeared before his eyes. Indra was shocked and frightened. He knew this was a strange being. He decided to sit down, pray and meditate, as he had done earlier, to find a solution.

While he was in deep meditation, the Divine Mother suddenly appeared. “Did you not recognise him, O King of the gods?” she asked. That was Brahman, the Ultimate or Absolute, himself!

“He is the Supreme One, and it is because of him that the devas won the great battle yesterday!” she said.

On hearing this, Indra immediately understood. He bowed his head and sought forgiveness from Brahman. All the other devas followed. “Please forgive our false vanity and pride,” they said. “We are indebted to you.”

“Do not worry,” Brahman said. “Your understanding is all I need!” Then he blessed them all.

Isn’t it fascinating how we often forget that we are only a tool of nature, but we start believing, ‘I am doing it. Perhaps if we forget the ‘I’ and the ‘me’, the action may happen naturally.

So how do we forget the lower self, the weaknesses of body, mind and intellect? Personally, I have experienced that by praying to the infinite power and connecting through the heart, we forget that ‘I’ am doing it, and thereby what needs to get done is done. Unfortunately, the ego comes back in and takes the credit for a job well done. But if you ponder over it for a minute, you realise that it is the forgetfulness of ego, the absence of egoism, that made the performance possible.

                    ♾️

“By transcending the relationship with the ego, by refining it, by becoming more and more humble, your consciousness can expand infinitely.” Daaji

Reference: Tales from the Vedas and Upanishads by Daaji (President of the Heartfulness Institute)

Heartfulness Meditation 💌

HFN Story Team Jodhpur

An example i can think of is if the fingers and thumbs somehow get an ego they may start thinking that they are performing the tasks whereas it is always the human having those fingers and thumbs that is the real doer. I think the ego is given to us only for doing His work - the signal comes from the heart and the ego is needed to execute it. It was and was never meant to be bloated.