Compiled by london swaminathan

Post No.2249

Date: 16 October 2015

Time uploaded in London: 17-13

Thanks for the pictures.

Don’t use pictures. Don’t reblog for at least a week.

A lesson learnt!

In a village there lived a couple. The husband was often given to quarrelling with his wife. Whenever they quarrelled the husband would hold out a threat to his wife that he would renounce his home and become a Sadhu. The wife led a miserable life owing to her husband’s behaviour.

On the outskirts of the village a sadhu lived in his hut engaged in meditation and in imparting in spiritual advice to aspirants who went to him in the evenings. Among them, this young man was one.

One day when the husband was away to a neighbouring village on some business, his wife paid a visit to the sadhu and complained to him about how her husband threatened her that he would run away from home , and become a sadhu. The sadhu advised her that when her husband next held out the threat, she should tell him to go away and do what he liked.

After some days the husband again had sharp differences with his wife and as was his vogue said that he would become a Sadhu and run away from home. The wife retorted that he might do as he pleased. The husband, in a huff, left home and went straight to the sadhu in the hut. The man told the sadhu that he had cut off all relationships with his home and the world and spend rest of his life in the service of the sadhu. The sadhu welcomed him and asked him to be seated.

Lunch time was approaching. The sadhu instructed one of his disciples to bring a good quantity of neem leaves. These leaves are very bitter. He was asked to grind them and make Laddus out of them. The disciple did not take much time to get the Laddus ready. The man who had quarrelled with his wife was closely watching the situation.

Meanwhile the sadhu held a discourse on the efficacy of Neem (Margosa) leaves. He said for improving health and observing Brahmacharya (chastity) , neem leaves are most efficacious and added that he had decided to have for food on that day and the next day the diet of Laddus made of neem leaves. At the suggestion of the Guru, Laddus were at once served to the devotees who were present in the hut at that time. A big Laddu fell to the share of the irascible visitor. The visitor had no other go than to eat the Laddu with a wry face. The same food was served also in the evening, and the next morning. Before noon next day the visitor strangely disappeared and found himself at his home, as quiet and tame as one could be under the circumstances. From that time he neither quarrelled with his wife nor threatened her as he did before.
Story told by Swami Ramdas of Anandashram