Nature Is The Best Teacher!

On one occasion, in the course of his travels, Dakshinamurti (primal Divine teacher of eternal spiritual wisdom) reached the shore of the ocean. The ocean represents the Shabda Brahman (primal Divine sound, Omkara). It symbolises the grandeur and majesty of the Divine. He drew a lesson from the endless waves reaching the shore from the ocean. He noticed that as soon as some rubbish fell on the ocean, it threw it out on the shore by a series of waves without retaining it even for a brief moment. He questioned the ocean: “How selfish you are! You are boundless and fathomless. Can’t you make some room for this poor stuff?”

The ocean gave a fitting answer: “Lord! There is nothing unknown to you. If today I allow this piece of dirt to remain with me, before long I will be filled with flotsam and jetsam and my entire form will be changed. Hence from the very beginning I have to cast off anything that is dirty and polluting. Only then I can remain pure.” Likewise every person should keep out even the smallest bad thought the moment it seeks to enter the mind. To treat it as small and inconsiderable would mean allowing such things to enter the mind and in due course fill it entirely. In the process, the entire nature of the person is changed. Every effort must be made to keep out all bad thoughts and feelings and promote human qualities as much as possible.

The whole world is like a book, read it well. Nature is the best teacher!