Schizophrenia/ A father looks at drugs: October 2014

Thursday, October 02, 2014

Goddess Saraswathi, My Grandmother's story

Today they are celebrating Saraswathi Pooja in Tamilnadu while Karnataka celebrated the pooja yesterday. This brought to my mind the story my grand mother told when I was studying 2nd or 3rd class about the Goddess. I was asked to mug up mathematical tables from 1 to 12 by my teacher. I found ti very difficult but some how managed. Then when I wanted my Grandma to check, she said I must mug up tables upto 16. I found this a tall order and I asked her will it ever end? Then she recounted the following story about an arrogant Brahmin and the Goddess.

There was this Brahmin who could recite all the four Vedas and all the Upanishads by heart and all written things available at that time. This proud Brahmin asked every one and all the elders what more he has to learn and they could not answer and finally an aged Yogi asked him to do Taps to Goddess of Learning Saraswathi who could guide him.Accordingly he did the tapas and Goddess appeared and the Brahmin put the same question to Her. The Goddess then took the Brahmin to the sea shore and took a handful of sand and said to him that though She is the Goddess of learning, her knowledge is only this handful and the whole seashore is there to learn which I am trying to do constantly. Then the Goddess told the Brahmin that he has only mugged up the texts while not LEARNT the first thing which comes out of learning which is humility. Then the Goddess asked the shamed Brahmin to Learn and not read the texts without learning.