Hare krsna
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada
There were two frogs. One frog lived in the sea. He knew vastness, openness and fathomless-ness. He was so used to bigness that the sea is, that no smallness could trap his attention.
The other frog lived in a well, not far from the sea. But he knew not what sea was. He had never seen it—not even heard of it. In his most wildest of imaginations, if at all he ever imagined, sea was an extended
well—or at the most, a `part' of his well, maybe from `this end to that.'
Both the frogs lived in different worlds, though they lived so close by.
One day, however, they both met. They tried to speak on common lines, but their conversation could not make much headway. They both talked different languages: the sea-frog spoke of vastness of sea, the well-frog insisted on the `vastness' of his well.
The sea-frog wondered and smiled, `How could the well-frog compare his little well to the vast expanse
of ocean!' To him, even the very idea of it was ridiculous, or at the most, sheer amusement. `Sea and
a well, where is even the possibility of a comparison?' he pondered.
The well-frog on the other hand, wondered: `How could there be anything larger, bigger, than my well? How could one trifle with the vastness of my well?' He surmised, after he heard the sea-frog describing the
sea, that the sea-frog must be a little out of his mind, or else, how could he talk like that? Can a well
have an equivalent, a match?
The sea-frog understood where the difficulty lay. But how could he convince his fellow frog of the existence of the sea? He pitied that his fellow frog never went out of his well, and had remained so small and narrow in his world-view.
The well-frog lived a cosy and protected life, but at times he felt something was missing in his life,
though he could not figure out what it was. He had all that he needed, but there came to him, now and then, a desire to know if there was anything beyond his well.
He often recalled the sea-frog's description of sea, something much bigger than his well. Many times he
planned to undertake a journey, but rarely did his enthusiasm sustain. His desire to know what lay beyond lacked strength and steadiness.
Then, one day, he knew not how, he climbed out of his well, and began his journey towards the sea—the place of his dreams. What pushed him out of his well, and how he could manage to climb out, he could not
understand, but he was happy he was out.
The journey to the sea, however, was far from being easy and smooth. He went along his path, but at times
he slipped off the surface and at other times, his little feet got stuck in the sand.
There were moments when he was not sure whether he was going in the right direction. It was a challenging experience—frightening and satisfying by turns. The journey was so long, arduous and tedious, that he wondered whether there was anything called sea—until he reached the sea.
Having reached the seashore, he had nothing more to ask. He had no doubts, no enquiries, no complaints, no regrets.
He stood speechless; he knew the sea-frog was right.
Refelection
We are all like the frog trapped inside the limited well-our vision and the world we know stuck within a
small box, whereas the realised souls are like the frog in the sea -the ones who have understood the
vastness beyond this physical world, the ones who have understood the Higher and also strive to help others "realise" and "See" that Higher too.
We are all trapped in this well right now and we don't know what's going on outside.We live in the physical world but our physical senses cannot see outside of it.
There are three ways of learning, of getting knowledge. Firstly, we learn through our senses, we
experience something through one of our senses, be it sight, hearing, taste, touch or smell. Secondly, we
can make an inference as to the reality of something, we can speculate as to what the reality might be,
based on our present knowledge.
For example, we can speculate as to the size of the sun in the sky based on our own knowledge that distant
things appear smaller than closer things, but as we draw closer to them they become bigger. Therefore, we
deduce that the sun must be large, but if we want to know what is inside the sun, how can we find out? If
we want to know who created the sun or how the sun was created, how can we answer such questions?
The sages and rishis of the Vedic culture had great wisdom. They understood that we really can't get
ultimate answers about life from our own investigations into matter or from our own speculations.We will never get such conclusive knowledge.
They recognised that there was a third method of getting knowledge, namely, from the descent of knowledge by the Divine. This descent of knowledge is sometimes called Divine testimony. It is a testimony given by the Divine so that we may have an understanding of things that exist beyond our sight,
beyond our senses and beyond our speculation.
This Divine testimony is transmitted to us through sound, through the vibration of the spoken word, as
recorded in the Vedas.
So the Vedas are a recording of the actual words spoken by God Himself to Brahma the Creator and to the
great cosmic beings who created the Universe.
Ever since that time, these sounds have been passed down from master to student, in a disciplinic
succession, whose sacred trust was not to alter or deviate from the original knowledge, and to keep it as
pure as the day it was given.
That is why the Vedas are sometimes called 'Sruti' which means mother. Why is this so? Because if we want to know who our father is, we ask our mother. Similarly if we want to know "who we are" or our real
'self' we can know it from the vedas.
Vedas are a whole body of knowledge given to us through sound to help us to understand that which is
beyond our perception and our speculation. The Gurus and the avatars that are sent to us always personify the Vedas and that is why from their lips we will only hear 'sat' or the 'truth'.
The Vedas are the milk, the nectar, that we seek.So instead of reading other things and filling our mind
with junks,we should dig deeply into the Vedas.It may take a little bit of extra effort to learn the stories
of the Vedas and to become a part of them, but once they are inside us, then our hearts will be filled
with 'sat' or 'truth'.
The great yogis realise that whatever the tongue vibrates -the ears have to listen to, that whatever
the ears listen to- the mind has to think about, that whatever the mind thinks about- it will become. That
is the great secret of walking the spiritual path.
It is by studying the Vedas and believing in them that we will embody and speak truth in any given situation. People will begin to hear God speaking through us because we will only be letting that divine sound come through.
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