The slaves of a
slave - aren’t we all ?
By
P.R.Ramachander
(Based in a remarkable story narrated by my face book friend Rajagopal Srinivasan. The last few stanzas are from my English translation of
31st chapter of Thirukkural called Vekulamai (not getting angry) I have translated the first 108 chapters of THirukural and have posted them in https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4893856948746334410#allposts/src=sidebar
)
Once after conquering an Indian town,
The emperor Alexander
was inspecting it on a horse
back,
And then he saw
there a very saintly person,
Being worshipped
by every one there.
Alexander got
down his very great steed,
And approached
that very saintly person and told,
“Somehow I like
you very much and I feel that if you,
Come with me to my country , my country would become
prosperous
The very
saintly person smiled
in a very pretty manner,
And told that he likes
to live in his motherland and not elsewhere,
And then the king slightly perturbed told that saintly person,
“If you come with me
I would give you lots of riches
and gold and make you rich.”
The saintly person told the king, Riches would not make me happy,
But the earth, the sand
and the thorns of my mother land
would,
And so please do
excuse me as I do not want to come with
you,
And then Alexander
took his huge sword and advanced
to kill the saint.
The saint laughed at him, “At best you can kill this useless body,
But I feel that
you cannot even do that because you are slave of my slave.”
Alexander who was
emperor of all that he saw
was intrigued,
“What nonsense , how can I be your slave of slave?”
The saintly person then told , I
never get angry at any time,
And keep Anger as
my slave and you got angry in a
jiffy without cause,
And so you
are a slave of anger
and so man , who things you are
great.
Are you not a slave
of my slave, whom I rule over and detest?”
The emperor understood
and became silent and want to
know more ,
Of this anger who
seemed to be a master ruling over him.”
The saint said,”If
you can control this slave , in places of need,
You are great , but if you do it in useless places, what is
the use?”
“ You should forget
getting angry against every
one ,
For all the evil things
are generated by this anger.
Also remember
that no greater enemy than anger exists for you,
Because it kills
all your pleasant thoughts and good feelings”
“Any time , anywhere
, if you want protect
yourself , control anger,
For if it is not
controlled, it would destroy you as well
as yourself .
Anger which
destroys those who get
angry, would also,
Destroy all the good people who are interested in
supporting and saving them,”
“He who uses
anger as a weapon, would get
destroyed by it,
Similar to the
fist getting hurt when it tries to hit a stone.
And also please
know that banishing anger from
the mind,
Would help you fulfill
all your desires without any effort.”
Hearing these
great words of the that very
saintly person,
Alexander was
pleased and wanted to be a master
of anger,
And then the saintly
person told him, :All this were
told to me,
By a great Tamil
poet whom people call “A poet whose
words are not lies”
Alexander anf
that saintly person , both off whom,
Were masters of
anger , turned towards south,
And saluted
that great master
of non lying words,
And the emperor
departed to his country , a happy
man.
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