Lord Rama and the Frog

One day, when Lord Rama was walking in the forest, He was stopped by His devotees, both men and animals, who were praying for a close ‘darshan ‘of the Lord. They all fell at His Lotus Feet in ‘padanamaskar’. Lord Rama was overwhelmed by the devotion of His subjects and He involuntarily let go of His bow. The bow sadly landed on the tiny leg of a frog, who was also a big devotee of the Lord.. However, the frog was mesmerized by the sight of the Lord. He was so very lost in the contemplation of the Lord that he neither saw the bow landing on his limb nor did he feel any pain. After a few minutes and when Lord Rama decided to resume His walk, He lifted the bow. Only then did He painfully notice that it was crushing the little leg of the frog. “Oh frog!” said Lord Rama with tears brimming in His beautiful eyes “Why didn’t you draw my attention to this careless action of mine? Why didn’t you scream? Why didn’t you call for help? ”

“Oh Rama, You are the self-luminous inner light of the Self!” answered the frog with outpouring love “if somebody else had trodden on my leg, I would have called your name-

‘RAMA!. RAMA!’

But You are my Atma Rama and I am attached to You. So when YOU are the one who is trampling on my leg, whose name am I going to call?” The true devotee is immersed in the Lord always and in all ways. As love of God grows, indifference to worldly things develops naturally.

.Love for God confers Eternal Bliss. Love for worldly pleasures confers Ephemeral Blitz. Our epics an sages have many examples like this: “Why didn’t you speak up when you were in pain?”. Frog, a self-realized soul,

replied “when others hurt me, I call your name “rama rama” – but here it is you giving me the pain – who else can I call? So I accepted this pain as a blessing.” . What a profound wisdom! •

Same way, Bhismar was already a great mahan. If he had wanted, he could have made the pain from the arrows to go away with his powers.

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Sri Appaya Dikshithar suffered from a severe pain a lot. Every day, when He did Shiva puja, He transferred the pain to a dharbai and get it back after the puja was over. We have heard 100s of incidents similar to this

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Kunti’s prayer to Sri Krishna “Please give me pain and sorrow from time to time then only i shall re,ember you otherwise if i am happy, i may forget you”. It is really true. We remember gods only in our troubled time.

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Mahaperiyava. Bagawan Ramana had cancer….

All these mahans never gave importance to their sareera and hence the pain does not even affect them in any way. They enjoyed the pain as that is also a part of Iswara prasadam….It isn’t a short story – rather a reminder that both suha/dhukka are related to our mind and body and not to our soul – so let us not get depressed when we face a tough situation – it is all His wish…

Accepting the pain as a blessing.” . What a profound wisdom!

The Jiva (the embodied soul) will face no problems as long as it remains attached to the Atma, but if it gets tempted by the transient pleasures of the external world, then pain is inescapable