22 August 2013

Agya

You know how important discipline and orders are in the army. To prove this to his men, one commanding officer assembled them on the top of a mountain, which was so slippery with moss that one false step meant falling thousands of feet below. So this officer blindfolded a soldier and told him to start marching. The soldier did so and just as he reached the slippery part, his officer called out "Halt!" He stopped right there. If he had not obeyed immediately but had taken just one more step, he would have fallen. The rest of the battalion saw this and then they understood the importance of obeying orders. When the soldier's blindfold was removed and he saw where he was, he thought, `If I hadn't obeyed I would have fallen to my death.' It was just a matter of one more step. Similarly, agya is extremely important for premies. If a devotee disobeys and takes a single wrong step it can lead to his ruin. Whatever merit he has accumulated from his devotion will be lost. On the other hand, if he follows agya, not a hair on his head will be harmed. Prahlad's father, King Hiranyakashyap, intended to tie him to a red-hot pillar, but the Lord appeared as a man-lion to save him. He had to take this shape because the king was protected by the boon that neither man nor beast would kill him. To save his devotee and kill the king, the Lord had to come in that form. So obeying agya is the prime duty of the disciple. www.manavdharam.org