Last night there was the next Darshan on Sri Swami Vishwananda's Tour of Germany, this time in Munich. More than 500 People where there and the most of them came for the first time to see Swami Vishwananda. The room was packed full.
Swami Vishwananda gave a long talk and told 3 beautiful stories, all covering the theme of surrender to the words and guidance of the Guru. He told the story of Ekalavya, a low caste boy who wanted to learn from Drona Acharya (The Guru of the Pandavas) how to become an archer. The problem was that Drona Acharya was exclusively the teacher of the royal warriors only and so he was unable to teach poor Ekalavya. To overcome this problem Ekalavya created a murthi of Drona Acharya and prayed to it to receive all the learning he yearned for. Such was his faith that he did indeed obtain all the knowledge from the murthi and became the greatest archer in all the kingdom, even greater than Arjuna himself!
So soon it came to the time for the Guru to take his Guru Dakshina for the teachings he had imparted on to Ekalavya. So Drona Acharya came to him and told him that he would only accept one thing as Dakshina - the thumb of Ekalavya. This would make it virtually impossible for Ekalavya to ever string a bow again and therefore all his learnings would have gone to waste. Yet such was his surrender and complete trust in his Guru that without even thinking once, he cut off his own thumb and offered it at the feet of his Guru.
Swamiji said this story shows us how sometimes one is unable to understand the ways of the Guru or the decisions and actions he takes, but one thing is abundantly clear - never judge Him or try to fathom Him with the mind. Instead, focus completely on your state of surrender and make it so complete that it never falters. It cannot be that one day we feel this dedication and surrender and the next day it's all gone. We must be more like Ekalavya and surrender to the Lotus Feet of the Master without any thought, doubt or question!
(Thanks to Anubhraba, Ratnamanjari and Naamdev for the pictures and to Nikhilananda for this nice report!)