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By: Harold Sequeira yogaschoolonline@gmail.com KISOGOTAMI'S SORROWThe starting point of Gautama's own search for Nirvana was the realisation that sorrow is a condition of life, that one cannot avoid it, only rise above it., and this theme occurs frequently in the story of his career. One of the best-known episodes on this theme is that of the bereaved mother and the mustard seed Kisagotami was a young woman from a well-to-do family who was married to a wealthy merchant in Savatthi. When their first-born child was about a year old it fell ill and died before a physician could be summoned. Kisagotami was beside herself with grief and began roaming the streets of Savatthi asking people if they knew of a medicine that would restore her child to life. Some people merely ignored her, others thought she had gone out of her mind and laughed at her, but no one could offer her help. Finally she met a wise man who told her: 'There is only one person in the world who can perform the miracle you ask. He is the Buddha, and at the moment he is staying at the Jetavana monastery. Go and ask him to help you.' Kisagotami went to the Buddha and, placing the body of her child at his feet, told him her sad story. The Buddha listened to her with patience and kindness and then said: 'My sister, there is only way to heal your affliction. Go down to the city and bring me back a mustard seen from any house in which there has never been a death.' Kisagotami felt a great elation and immediately set off for the city. She stopped at the first house she saw and said: 'I have been told by the Buddha to fetch a mustered seed from a house, which was never known death.' 'Alas,' she was told, 'many people have died in this house.' She went to the next house and was told: 'There have been countless deaths in our family.' And so to a third house and a fourth until she had been right through the city without being able to fulfil the Buddha's condition. Now she realised what the Buddha had intended her to discover Ð that death comes to all. Reconciled to this sad reality she took the body of her child to the charnel ground for disposal and returned to the monastery. 'Have you brought the mustard seed?' asked the Buddha. 'No,' she said, 'nor shall I try to find it any longer. Now I understand the lesson you were trying to teach me. My grief had made me blind, and I throughout only I had suffered at the hands of death.' 'So why have you come back here?' asked the Buddha. 'To ask you to teach me the truth,' she replied. Whereupon the Buddha began to instruct her, saying: 'In all the world of men, and of the gods too, there is only one law that all things are impermanent.' Kisagotami joined the Sangha and, eventually achieved Nirvana. H. Sequeira ********************************* Bio-note: H. Sequeira, born in 1937, in Mangalore India, studied at various universities in India (arts, commerce, law etc) and yoga training (The Yoga Institute) and set up Yoga Centers in Canada, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Spain. He teaches classic Yoga of Patanjali as well as many other traditions of Yoga. He has written many books including Patanjali Yoga Sutra (English and Spanish). He now lives in Bombay but travels extensively conducting yoga workshops. ********************************* |
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