What do you fill your inner space with?

This article shall be my last article for 2015 before I head off to Phuket for the 21-day Yoga retreat known as Nithyanandoham 1008 to be conducted by my master, Paramahamsa Nithyananda. What could be a better way to end the year with one of my favourite story?! This story is about “Filling the house with a gold coin” from the Mahabharata, an epic from Vedic culture which is timeless and an excellent reminder for all of us.

The story goes like this:

Once the elders of the family wanted to test who is more intelligent – the Kaurava kids or the Pandava kids. So they had a competition for the children: they gave each group one gold coin and told them that they have to fill a house with that gold coin.

The Kauravas took their gold coin and sat together. They were a hundred brothers! Naturally, a hundred messy brains trying to work together will mess up anything. You can have a hundred hands, but not a hundred brains. Be very clear, all great things are done by a hundred hands and a hundred legs, but not a hundred brains. The brain should be only one. But unfortunately, we usually have thousands and thousands of brains but not a single hand!

So, these hundred brains sat together, discussed left and right, argued, shouted and even fought among themselves, saying ‘How can we fill the whole house with just one gold coin? They finally came to the conclusion – ‘The elders are all cheats, they are abusing us, they are trying to exploit us, they want to make us feel we are failures!’

After this whole drama, they finally decided that for one gold coin, they can get nothing but hay! So all of them went to the market and bought loads and loads of hay. They filled the whole house with hay, and in the end, all of them were standing outside the house!

The five Pandavas also sat together and discussed. One good thing with the Pandavas is, even though each of them has specialized in one field, they all align under Dharmaraja, under the brother, Yudhishthira. Bhima represents physical valor, Arjuna represents physiological power. Nakula represents intelligence while Sahadeva is the aligner of time, he is a great astrologer. But because all of them are always aligned under Yudhishthira, it is like one brain with ten hands.

So they sat together and discussed, “What will fill the whole house? How to fill the whole house with just one gold coin? When our elders say – it is possible, it must be possible.”

Look at both thought trends:

The Kauravas: These elders are all cranky. They don’t know what they are asking us to do, just trying to prove we are small fellows. This is the thought-trend of the Kauravas.

The Pandavas: When the elders say, there must a way. They are trying to teach us something, they are trying to educate us through this. When the elders say, it must be possible.

So finally the Pandavas also decided to fill the house with one gold coin. How they did it?

The time had come for the final inspection. All the elders arrived for the inspection. All the elders like Bhishma, Drona and other elders. They first went to Kauravas’ house. The moment they reached there, they saw that the whole house was filled with hay and all the Kauravas were standing outside of the house because they could not even get into the house.

Bhishma asked, ‘What happened? Why are you guys standing outside?’

The Kauravas replied, ‘What do you mean? You told us that we have to fill the whole house with one gold coin. What else can we buy with one gold coin which will fill the whole house? This is the cheapest item in the market.’

So all the fellows were standing outside, neither were they able to enter the house nor were the elders who had come to inspect it!

Dhritarashtra, the father of the Kauravas was very happy and said ‘See my sons and their intelligence. They filled the whole house with just one gold coin! They should be declared victorious. They have won the game.’

But Bhishma said ‘No, no! Let us go to the other house too.’

So they went to the other house to see how the Pandavas had filled it. There they saw that the whole house was filled with light and fragrance! For that one gold coin, the Pandavas had bought lamps, oil and incense and filled the whole house with light and fragrance. The moment the elders arrived, the Pandavas washed their feet, invited them in, gave them seats and paid their respects to them. The elders were very pleased and declared that the Pandavas had won the game!

Here are the lessons I learned from this story

  • The right thought trend in life plays a major role in the way we live our life.
  • With incompletion or hangover from the past, our inner space gets too overcrowded, just like Kauravas’s house, which does not even allow our Being to live with fulfilment.
  • With completion, we radiate higher intelligence and our very space gives out light and fragrance, just like Pandava’s house, which is so delightful to live in.

In essence, it is completion that keeps us full of light and also gives us the space to live with fulfilment. Namaste 😀