By: Rajeswari Somasekhar
Recently, a child in Uttar Pradesh was suspended by his school principal for bringing biryani in his lunch box. Around the same time, an elderly man on a train in Maharashtra was assaulted for carrying meat. In such an environment, it is wise to recall how Sai Maharaj quoted our Hindu scriptures, particularly the Vyadha Gita or Butcher’s Gita, a story within the Mahabharata.
A sage called Kaushika was very learned but had anger management issues. Once, a bird pooped on him while he was meditating. In a fit of rage, he cursed it, and it dropped dead. On another occasion, a woman kept him waiting at her door, and he admonished her. She then lectured him on how real wisdom came not from parroting the scriptures but from living them. She advised him to go meet Dharmavyadha, the butcher of Mithila, to understand the real meaning of righteous living. Though surprised, Kaushika was humble enough to follow her advice. Sure enough, his life transformed.
The epics and myths within our scriptures and Sai Satcharitra are sources of deep ideas that cut through the boring predictable rational mind into subtle spaces that challenge you to navigate the paradox of existence. How else would Sainath Parabrahman explain that a scavenger crow called Kakbhushundi unfolded the entire Ramayana to Garuda Deva, the king of the birds? Tulsidas was turning hierarchies and certitudes on his head.
These stories suggest that you can find wisdom in the most unlikely places – like from a butcher 
or a crow. Truth reveals itself occasionally – sometimes playfully, often momentarily if you are open and willing to pause. It is like that miniature painting of a tree with pretty white flowers falling to the ground. It is a simple pastoral image. But when you observe it closely and join the dots, the flowers form an image of Krishna, a metaphor for playfulness and wisdom and the ultimate Truth of all things.
The embarrassingly ruthless Hinduism that periodically dominates the narrative of what is an inclusive, expansive faith in its essence, has little to do with Hinduism. The Sai Satcharitra and Upanishads are about the unity of all beings and rely on gorgeous metaphors from nature: While bees gather nectar from many different flowers, honey is one. Within the deceptively linear storyline of epics like the Mahabharata and Ramayana lie embedded many hologram stories filled with a magic realism that subtly nudges you into challenging yourself and rising above your biases, beyond binary thought, into a higher way of thinking. But these are never prescriptions, they are disguised in hints and riddles that first throw you off and then, if you are lucky, tweak the infrastructure of your thoughts into leading a far more harmonious, rewarding life.
According to Sai Satcharitra, no one is good or bad, right or wrong, there is simply consequence governed by the laws of the universe – the same laws that make the sunrise every day and the apple fall from the tree. Gravity does not matter whether you are rich or poor, or left or right-leaning. In the end, there is only a vast undifferentiated consciousness of Sainath Parabrahman from which all beings come and into which we all dissolve the honey we all secretly crave.
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