Its nearing four months of my grandfather’s death. He lived for 104 years and barely narrated any story in his later years but a few on insistence. And there was this one story, probably the most beautiful, the most essential one that can make any child into an attentive adult, that he had narrated when we used share a chemistry. This story had that power and possibly that is why I still remember it. As I have to choose a story a week for the Saturday Story Session at my school, I was reminded of one remarkable lore that I came across in my lifetime and I feel everyone can take something out of it.
Once a king in South India had to send his son to a mystic, to a master, to learn awareness. The king was old. And he said to his son, “Put your total energy into it because unless you are aware, you are not going to succeed me. I will not give this kingdom to a man who is asleep and unconscious. It is not a question of father and son. My father gave it to me only when I attained awareness. I was not the right person, because I was not his eldest son, I was his youngest son. But my other two brothers, who were older than me, could not attain.
“The same is going to happen to you. And the problem is even more complicated because I have only one son, you: And if you do not attain to awareness, the kingdom will go to somebody else’s hands. You will be a beggar on the streets. So it is a question of life and death for you. The King then asked him to go to this one man; he was once my master, said the King. Now he is very old, but I know that if anybody can teach you, he is the man. Tell him, `My father is sick, old, can die any day. And time is short. I must become fully aware before he dies; otherwise I lose the kingdom.’”
A very symbolic story too, I remember my grandfather old hands moving and widening as showed me the walk and the talk of the king. So many moons away, he spoke in the dark with only one oil lamp flickering at a faraway corner: If you are not aware, you lose the kingdom. And silence gauged my eyes till he spoke again.
The king’s son went to the old master in the Himalayas. He said to the master, “I have been sent by your disciple, the king.”
The master was very old, older than his father. He said, “I remember that man. He was really an authentic seeker. I hope you will prove to be of the same quality, of the same genius, of the same totality, of the same intensity.”
The young prince said, “I will do everything.”
The master said, “Then start cleaning in the commune. And remember one thing — that I will be hitting you at any time. You may be cleaning the floor and I may come from the back and hit you with my stick, so be alert.”
He said, “But I have come to learn about awareness….”
The master said, “This is how you will learn.”
One year passed. In the beginning he was getting so many hits every day, but slowly slowly he started becoming aware. Even the footsteps of the old man… he might be doing anything — howsoever absorbed in the work, he would become immediately aware that the master was around. The prince would be ready. After one year the master hit him from the back while he was deeply involved in talking with another inmate of the ashram. But the prince continued to talk, and still he caught hold of the stick before the stick could reach his body.
The master said, “That’s right. Now this is the end of the first lesson. The second lesson begins tonight.”
Also read : What Children Dream ?
The prince said, “I used to think that this was all. This is only the first lesson? How many lessons are there?”
It depends on you, said the old man.
The second lesson is that now I will be hitting you while you are asleep, and you have to be alert in your sleep.”
He said, “My God. How can one be alert in sleep?”
The old man said, “Don’t be worried. Thousands of my disciples have passed through the test. Your father has passed through the test. It is not impossible. It is difficult, but it is a challenge.”
And from that night he was getting hit six times, eight times, twelve times in the night. Sleep was difficult. But within six months he started feeling inside himself a certain awareness. And one day when the master was just going to hit him, with closed eyes he said — “Don’t bother. You are too old. It hurts me; you are taking so much trouble. I am young, I can survive these hits.”
The master said, “You are blessed. You have passed the second lesson. But up to now I have been hitting with my wooden staff. The third lesson is that now I will start hitting, from tomorrow morning, with a real sword. Be alert! Just a moment of unconsciousness and you are finished.”
Early in the morning the master used to sit in the garden, just listening to the birds singing… the flowers opening, the sun rising. The prince thought, “Now it is becoming dangerous! A wooden stick was hard, difficult, but it was not going to kill me. A real sword….” He was a swordsman but he was not given any chance to protect himself; only awareness was going to be his protection.
An idea came to his mind: “This old man is really dangerous. Before he starts his third lesson, I would like to check whether he himself can pass the third test or not. If he is putting my life at risk, I cannot allow him to do it without checking whether he is worthy of it or not.” And these were only thoughts that he was thinking lying down in his bed; it was a cold morning.
And the master said, “Come out of your blanket, you idiot! Do you want to hit your own master with a sword? Feel ashamed! I can hear the footsteps of your thoughts… drop the idea.” He had heard. Nothing was said to him, nothing was done to him.
Thoughts are also things. Thoughts also, while moving, make sounds, and those who are fully alert can read your thoughts. Even before you have become aware of them, they can become aware of them.
The prince was really ashamed. He fell at the feet of the master and he said, “Just forgive me. I am really stupid.”
But because it was a question of a sword, a real sword, he became aware of everything around him, even his own breathing, his heartbeat. Just a small breeze passing through the leaves, a dead leaf moving in the wind, and he was aware. And the master tried a few times but found him always ready. He could not hit him with the sword because he could not find him unconscious, unalert. He was just alertness. It was a question of death — you cannot afford to be anything but alert.
In three days’ time the master could not find a single moment, a single loophole. And after the third day he called him and told him, “Now you can go and tell your father — and this is the letter from me — that the kingdom is yours.”
At that time I was mesmerised not with the story per say but with having such a master, someone who can correct you, lead you to righteousness, to strength, to truth, to light. But this is also true that you may not need a bait, but only will to be still, to be mindful, each moment of your life.
As he said, Awareness is a process, its a journey of being more and more awake.
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Thank you.
If today is the first time you have arrived on The Road to Nara, you are heartily welcome ~ Namaste
: ँ :
I will take this opportunity to introduce you to About me and importantly,
As a co-traveller, share my Ten Lessons I learnt from several years on the road, before you coarse on your own Road to Nara.
: ँ :
You might also like to know about My Little School Project.
If you wish to come over for a visit someday, that you must, you will be heartily welcome here
If you have anything to share, or feel like saying a hello, please feel free to write to me at lotusofnara@gmail.com
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Cover Image : Lionel Wendt
ROAD TO NARA 
What a great story, and memories of times with your grandfather.
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Thank you dear Maggie, yes from a curtain may be i will keep remembering my times with him.
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A very good story and it teaches an essential lesson, I think. As a species we have lost our natural instincts, thinking that we are superior but it is not so and we would do well to re-learn awareness. Thank you for the story. Best wishes.
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We have Caro. Lost something essential in the noise and of every kind. Seems every other thing is there to have our attention either money. I was watching Avatar the other day and there was this one character which actually took me what a human can do. Thank you for the kindest comment again Caro.
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This story, Narayan, is like all your tales, unique and build with words of wisdom. It was told to you by your late grandfather, himself a special man. And ever since it stayed in your memory, such is a life of stories that are infused with eternal wisdom, and therefore, unforgettable.
And now, Narayan, you feel the need to share it with the children at your school, and with us, your co-travelers.
The mythology of every religion in the world is full of such a prophetic stories, and that is why religions and believers had survived millennia, and will go on forevermore.
The focus of your story, Narayan, is on awareness of every moment of our life, on seeing the light of knowledge that will direct us onto the right pathway of life; Dharma.
How lucky are all the children at your school to have a master, their teacher, who cares so deeply about their spiritual wellbeing, and not only about the knowledge of the school’s curriculum.
Thank you, Narayan, for this masterpiece of writing, thought-provoking, and enriching your readers.
Joanna
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Thank you my dearest Joanna, well Mother is there to strictly look after the curriculum and that is only why I can work on more important things. You know whatever talks to me, connects me with nature should be shared, in person or in writing. And that i see as my dharma, my duty.
Thank you for your precious comments dearest Joanna.
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Thank you, my dearest Narayan, for your gracious reply! Knowing you, and your connection with nature ( The Himalayas exploring’s ), and your professional experience in education, filming, and documenting, there is no doubt that you will achieve all your life’s aims, and more, much more given time. The success of your school is assured, especially as you have spiritual guidance of Swami ji Vivekananda, your school’s patron.
Joanna
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Thank you dearest, finding your words on your birthday on mine and school’s success is heartening. Your presence with knowledge and writings will certainly play a huge part in making school the best in its region.
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Thank you, dearest, for my extra-gift, your wonderful message on my birthday!
You know that I can see ahead, and every word was true and will become a reality.
The school is already brilliant under you’re your mother’s and yours guidance, but the future will bring even more rewards.
If I can think of anything I could do more for your school, I will do it!
Joanna
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I remember having “read” this Zen story in one discourse of Osho Rajneesh some 42 years ago. However it’s true that awareness is such a great virtue and can’t be practiced. When one is perfectly aware, one can see Where-from emerges the I-sense or the mantra one repeats as a practice. One may also check this about one’s breath. When attention arrives at the place from where any of these emerge out one gets established in the “Chaitanya” and then abides there in the heart / Reality.
Indeed a true gem of the ancient wisdom of all times.
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Absolutely Vinay Ji. Thank you for your precious comments. And I was surprised at myself when i read your comment, because it flashed like light when I read Rajneesh Osho, as the only pocket book size frame that my grandfather kept was Osho somewhere on the broken table. I see now, and probably other stories that hover my mind reached me from Osho via him. In gratitude.
Thank you much.
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🙏 I too used to read those pocket books – for example –
अनुपम पॉकेट बुक्स,
If I remember well.
Best Regards!!
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haha yes .. Anupam pocket books. Dhanyavad Vinay ji. Your presence will help me receive and share better. Thank you.
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I have found this awe inspiring mind/heart/spirit very close to me also… I believe that, so far, he’s the first master widely acknowledged in life who continued to teach in detail beginning almost immediately after his death.
Once I channeled nine pages of close writing from him. What a mind! He began by listing (in order ~ I went back and checked) which subjects we would touch on. Then he went through them right in order, with enormous complex loops of observations in between…
I learned later that’s how he wrote all his books ~ he stared off into the air and talked, and somebody wrote it down. Presto change-o, magic: A book! Edgar Cayce did the same thing, but Osho did it awake and cracking jokes! 🤣
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You are right Ana sis. He was very much unto himself, very true to his words meeting action. So much so he even went far to say a few things that only backfired in the worst way possible, politically. Be it in India or in the US.
And so on point .. his multi layered thought process even though he took a few seconds more to say, he spoke with immense clarity and precision. And the best part he could make people laugh, while not blinking even once.
I was thinking of writing an essay on his Life sometime, lets see.
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Oh, I’d love to read at the intersection of your awareness and his!
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Pingback: The Cost of Attention A Beautiful Story that can Transform Children into Conscious Adults | Vinayvaidya's Blog
your stories open up more space inside me, & i see & relate to what is seen with a heart that is being taught to open more fully & to see even more inclusively. there is more space inside for awareness to be. please do continue to share the teaching stories as you feel appropriate!🙏🏼❤️🙏🏼🤗🤗🤗
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With gratitude, thank you for the most beautiful comment. Shiva and the divine mother, however they want, things will flow from me. I am only happy that we are connecting.
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👍🏼🙏🏼🤗🙏🏼👍🏼 such archetypal stories as you tell have power that transcends time & culture
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Makes me happy and satisfying that my time that I invest here comes and might come of use in future too. Thank you. Comment means much to me.
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accidentally sent part of a message! so, such timeless stories are like a cache of yeast for bread. they help life nourish one more fully, on a deeper level beyond the alone🙏🏼❤️🙏🏼
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What a great story! If I survived that first year I would be black & blue & fit for nothing! Again, I’m reading “braiding Sweetgrass” by Robin Wall Kimmerer & in the chapter about learning the grammar of Animacy, she writes about learning to LISTEN to nature, to the earth.
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Thank you my dear Ashley, i looked up “Braiding Sweetgrass” and within a blink i seemed curious. I would like to read on it more and more so about Mr. Kimmerer.
And yes, a wonderful story with an important message for the generation.
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Ms Kimmerer. A native American exploring her roots. I keep returning to her book as her words hold us to account for the mess that we have made of our home. 🌏
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Narayan, I’m very conflicted about teaching awareness with the use of violence.
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You made me smile Rosa. Of course, violence cannot be the way you know, and about this story the bait is a metaphor for striking, for retelling your mind again and again whenever he goes directionless. Tell me, the best of meditators like Osho or many a Yogis, they were hard on themselves, not violent to attain to that supreme consciousness. So its just a way to tell a child to keep practising being aware, there are many ways and once anyone is on this way, the way will appear.
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Thanks for the clarification, Narayan. Beating as a metaphor brought up unhappy childhood memories of being beaten to avoid wayward ways and infractions. In our time, we humans need different stories and metaphors if we are to break the cycle of violence and war that has plagued us throughout the centuries of human civilization.
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Absolutely, we need better stories for the times have changed. That was a time of the Kings and Wars, and parents must have been harder on their children. but i agree with you. Thank you, dear Rosa.
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I don’t like t he story, because I feel there are better ways to teach a child/teenager/adult/apprentice other than violence. Beatings on our body also leave scars on our soul.
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Oh, dear happy Quitter, of course there must be better ways, but you see in olden times of the Kings and Wars, Violence was a way to get to the throne. In today’s world though, this story must work as a metaphor. Not for the bait be used on body but that memory of coming back to awareness every time it goes off to wander. I personally hate it too.
Thank you much for sharing your thought.
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Thanks for making me a little more aware.
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Thank you, dear Geoff.
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I’ve not had anyone in my life who has told me stories like this one from your grandfather. But—I’m finishing a book now called The Untethered Soul. I’m still wrapping my head around it, but it seems much like the moral of your grandfather’s story.
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Apologies for taking this long a time to write back to yopur beautiful comment dear Crystal.
Also, i hope this site covers that feeling of being a repository of tales of grandmothers and fathers in times to come, where I can keep archiving stories from all the grandmothers and grandfathers of the world(as much as I can) in years to come.
And Yes its an importantly beautiful story to get that spine straight and seek that focus. 🙂
Hope you and family are doing things happily, healthily.
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❤️
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Dear Crystal, please do consider from now on me and this website to tell you stories from all the grandmothers and grandfathers of the world(as much as I can) 🙂 Yes its an important story to get that spine straight and seek that focus.
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We learn from great stories through pondering and thinking about them. We uncover the layers of wisdom.
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Apologies for taking time to write back on this story dear Jay. You are absolutely right, learning from great stories is probably the wisest way of observing our thoughts and where they lead us to!
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This is a wonderful story, Narayan. Makes me stop and think about how aware I really am of things going on around me.
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Apologies for taking this time to write back dear Dwight, it was/is an important story. Thank you.
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No problem at all. You are welcome.
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But how will you communicate this to your students. I am intrigued by this question ❓⁉️ You may be old enough to assimilate the idea of alertness but are they? With so many distractions around? The Grand Master taught his pupils in the silences of the mountains. Here in cities chaos resides. To be aware of awareness is not only difficult to practice but also difficult to understand. Even we as seniors cannot practice it for long. How will they with their intense curiosity in everything at such young age? We must appreciate the difference in the backdrop of the story and reality. Just a thought…nothing to bog you down. You may ignore this comment if you choose to.
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Gita, apologies for completely missing this most important question, seriously. Reading it sent a smile to my face, a genuinely curious question. I did narrate it as was the story but had to make a ground for them to understand. Like a story before a story. For them to understand focus and alertness.
And in a way you are right, such a young age, i am certain their grasp won’t be as much or intense but somewhere I trust my children here, and even if they dont really understand the hidden meaning behind, i was certain that they will remember the story and might come back to it sometime in their lives.
Hope you are doing good, and enjoying the good weather now, GC 🙂
Just yesterday we organised a farewell part for the going class. Next time i shall invite you, come pay a visit!
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How nice! Thanks for taking trouble of replying to me. It shows somebody gives importance to my random mutterings. 😊
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This such a great story. Anita
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Apologies for taking this much time to say, thank you dear Anita. I love this story as much. Thanks again.
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What a wonderful share and story. This is so beautiful to read, especially when you interject the scene as you remember it, with the oil lamp, within your narration. Hearing another’s thoughts? What do you think of it?
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Previous comment was from me, Ka. I don’t know why it didn’t take my login.
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Yes, i had started wondering, thank you, you mentioned it. I remembered my grandfather’s face half lit shadows becoming and leaving, but i would like to know your question better dear Ka, what do i think of, what?
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A great story that your grandfather told!
I see a teacher like the portal – like Yoganandaji says – he can point you in the right direction, take you to a certain place, but if we don’t have the longing, neither teacher nor portal can do anything for us. But I am sure that a really good teacher can stir the longing in a pupil.
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Oh Stella, thank you. You are absolutely right. A teacher can dive in and stir that purpose, meaningfulness, longing as we know in anybody.
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I was looking for your email but I couldn’t find. Wanted to share something with you about Yogananda Ji. That when he went to the US and promoted Dharma there. An organisation known as Anand Sangha was founded. Its on Youtube by the same name, and one particular orator that i love is Murali Venkatrao, who is a fascinating storyteller. Think you might like hearing some of there stories and songs.
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My email is birgit.heesemann@gmail.com
I am following the Self Realization Fellowship that he founded.
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Lovely, sent you a mail.
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Thank you for the mail, but there weren’t any links in it. Did Google filter them out?
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Great story and I love the way you have linked it to you Grandfather
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Thank you, dear Kate.
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I really liked your story ….
This is so powerful
‘Awareness is a process, it’s a journey of being more and more awake.’
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A powerful story indeed, dear Roksana, thank you.
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Thank you for sharing ♥️♥️♥️
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NICE post 💯
Blessings from 🇪🇸
Greetings pk 🌎
I hope visit my blog and GROW towether 💯 thanks
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Yes growing together PK ❤️
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Yes, surely.
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