Animals, insects and other things that we see daily and do not give a second thought about, taught Dattatreya many valuable lessons which helped him to walk the divine path. We learn today the lessons from the remaining Gurus of Dattatreya.
Snake: The snake always lives in solitude. It shuns people and stays away from crowds. The snake is always conscious and aware of changes in the surroundings and protects itself. Dattatreya learnt from the snake that the wise man should live in solitude mentally and should shun the noises of the crowds of thoughts in the mind. Our mind is like a market place where thoughts come and go and shout and scream without logic or intelligence. When we move away from this crowd that is within, we move towards the serene peace of the uncluttered state of consciousness. We should not hold on to anything in our mind. We must let go of all thoughts and emotions and live in the present moment. This will help us to keep our awareness and consciousness totally in every moment, unaffected and unconditioned by the past and yesterdays.
The snake also taught Dattatreya other lessons. The snake does not build a dwelling place of its own. It occupies abandoned anthills. The worldly people labour hard to build grand homes which they are not able to enjoy for long as they spent too much time in labouring to build it. In the end, their time is up and they have not enjoyed their homes and also lose time for self reflection and moving towards God. The monk does not build homes. He lives in dilapidated huts and temples or under shady trees. He uses all his energy and time in self transformation and walking the divine path.
The snake moults and leaves its old skin effortlessly. In the same way, the Yogi leaves his old body with full consciousness and awareness of his real self. He is not grieved or frightened of death. He lets go of his old body like we cast off old clothes.
Spider: Dattatreya observed the spider and saw it spit out saliva and weave a web from it. When it wanted, it took back the saliva within self. This reminded him of the Brahman, the Universal Consciousness which created the Cosmos from within and takes it back within at the time of dissolution.
Similarly the Individual Soul bears the senses and the mind within itself. When it is born it projects them out as sense organs and organs of action and the whole body. As per its karma and tendencies, the being gathers means and objects needed for its living. At the end of its life time, the soul again withdraws the senses and mind and tendencies into itself.
Wasp – the wasp has a unique method of creating a new being like itself. It picks up a small worm and then builds a mud nest around it. Every now and then the wasp comes in and stings the worm. The worm lives in terror and fear of the wasp and keeps on thinking of the wasp and the sting. And the wasp visits the worm on regular basis and stings it. The worm which keeps on thinking or meditating about the wasp soon takes on the characteristics of the wasp and becomes a wasp.
Similarly the true disciple is so over awed and charmed with the divine effluence of the ParamGuru that all the time his attention is focussed on the ParamGuru. Over a period of time, the disciple takes on the qualities of the ParamGuru and blossoms into a great spiritual master himself. Asuras like Kamsa who forever thought of Sri Krishna with great fear and one pointed focus attained liberation. By constantly contemplation of the Divine, we become Divine. This was the lesson learnt by Dattatreya from the wasp.
