Sunday, April 01, 2012

மகா பெரியவா- 19

Here is an incident that reflects MahaPeriava's sense of humour.

Some decades ago, a learned gentleman from Chennai who was well-versed in Bhagavad Gita wanted to share his knowledge and was very keen to teach Gita. He met Mahaperiaval, expressed his desire to teach Gita and asked for Mahaperiava's guidance on on how he should go about it. Mahaperiaval asked him where he lived. He said, "Gopalapuram." So, Mahaperiava advised him to start his lectures at the nearby Gopalapuram Krishnan temple.

As advised, the pandit began his Gita lectures at the temple on an auspicious day. At the beginning, there a sizeable audience to his lectures and the pandit was happy. As days went by, the numbers in the audience started steadily decreasing to single digits. The pandit was very disappointed at the dwindling numbers in his audience.

He met Mahaperiaval again, vented out his frustration at the people's lack of interest in his Gita classes, and asked Mahaperiava, "How can I lecture to just 3 or 4 people?"

Mahaperiaval smiled at him and said - "You are indeed very lucky - you had at least three or four people to listen to you. You know very well that Bhagawan Sri Krishna had only one person to listen to his teachings and yet he continued with His teaching!".

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