Eat!

 

Once Swami gave vibhuthi to me and asked me to eat it. I ate a little, and put some into a piece of paper and tied it up in my dhoti’s end. Swami asked, “What! For your wife? When you go to heaven or wherever, your wife is not going to hold the end of your dhoti and come with you. She has her own path. No wife can go to heaven or wherever her husband goes, catching hold of his sleeve. She has her own life. When the wedding takes place the priest tells the bridegroom to take the vow. “For Dharma,” righteousness, for ‘Artha’, for earning livelihood, for “Kama” for fulfilling desires, for “Moksha” for attaining liberation together, I am marrying you. No person weds another so that they may go to heaven together. You cannot drag your wife to heaven if she doesn’t want to come, and even if she wants to come you cannot drag her to heaven, for, she has her own life, her own path.” 

So, I took the vibhuthi out of my dhoti’s end and ate it. When Swami says ‘Eat’, you must eat it completely. Don’t keep a part of it to give it to someone. You can see how His will works through a small pinch of vibhuthi. In fact, we are in the presence of an Exclamatory Mark! And, our silence is the only response!

~ Kasturi