Parable of The Butter Hidden In The Milk
The young daughter had gone to
her village home for the first time from her city-dwelling. At night before
retiring to bed, her mother opened a pot in which there was good cow's milk and
poured a little buttermilk. The girl asked her mother: "Mother, that was
butter milk; and why have you mixed it with Milk? The milk may be
spoiled!" "Child," answered the mother, "that is the way to
prepare the milk in order that we might get butter out of it." "But
where is butter in it, mother?" "It is in every drop of the milk,
dear; but you can't see it now. I will show you in the morning." In the
morning the daughter saw that what was liquid the night before had become solid
overnight. Mother put a churning rod into it and started churning the curd
vigorously. Butter began to float on the surface of the curd. Then she gathered
it all up and presented it to the astonishment of the daughter. The mother
explained: "The addition of the buttermilk curdles the milk. Milk is
transformed into curd. Then you have to churn it. By this process the butter
which was all-pervasively hidden in the milk is obtained. At first you were not
able to see it; it was hidden. From where has it come now? From the milk only.
Therefore you understand now that it was there all the time. It awaited the
process of churning to reveal itself to your great joy." The daughter,
too, followed the same process and got the butter, for herself.
Similarly, a worldly man
approaches a Mahatma and asks him: "O Sadhu, why have you renounced the
world, and poured this new element of Vairagya and Tyaga into your life? Why
don't you let the life take its natural course?" The Sadhu replies: "Brother,
I do so in order to realise God?" "Where is God?" "He is
all-pervading." The worldly man does not see and is not convinced. The
Sadhu then explains how the inner personality which is fickle and outflowing
should be made solid and firm. Then the churning rod of one-pointed
concentration and meditation should be taken hold of, and this solid
Antahkarana should be very well churned. Then God is realised. He is
all-pervading, in every atom of creation. But He is not visible to the naked
eye nor is He realisable by a man except through this process called Sadhana.
Just as a mother was necessary
for her daughter to learn that butter exists in milk and that churning will
bring it out, even so a Guru is necessary for a man to know that God is, that
He is all-pervading, and that He is attained through Sadhana. If the aspirant
follows the Guru's instructions, he too, can realise God.
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