Burning of the Khandava Forest

Part 7: Story of Sarang Birds (continued)

In the last article, we saw how Jarita was crying over what she thought would befall her children. She and her children were unaware that Agni had promised Mandapala that he would not burn the young birds. Even though their mother was in deep anguish and was worried about their fate, the young birds were wise and intelligent. After all, they were the children of a rishi who had practised great austerity. They tried to convince their mother to leave them in the forest and run away herself.

They told her: “Try to drop your attachment to us and go to a place of safety where the fire cannot hurt you. If we, your children, die you can always have children again, this way our lineage will not be wiped out. Our father has had children to fulfil his obligation, let not this act go in vain. If our lineage is destroyed then his efforts will be useless.”

Previously in many articles we have spoken of purifying the emotional centre. In Sanskrit, we say we have two kinds of emotions, namely (1) laagni and (2) bhaav. In English we could say lower and higher emotions. The lower emotions are those that easily get attached; the higher emotions just objectively love. With attachment comes possessiveness leading to jealousy and violence. The higher emotion can never be violent. The lower emotions are selective in that they love someone and hate someone and this arrangement can reciprocate at any time. The higher emotions are like lamps of bright light and the light just falls on whomsoever with no choice of whether the light likes or dislikes a person.

In the story, the young birds are telling their mother that it was time for her to free herself of the attachment towards them. To the modern mind, this is difficult to understand – to love our children without imposing our possessiveness on them; only through practice one can reach that level of love. The children tell their mother that she can have children again implying that if attachment is dropped only then will one have an opportunity to work towards love. As we shall see in the story, it is nearly impossible for a mother to sacrifice the attachment she has for her children.

The mother told the children that nearby was a rat-hole and all of them could hide in it, which she would then cover with mud. She also told them that once the fire has burnt out, she would come and remove the mud and free them. The young birds argued that they were still incapable of defending themselves and that the rats would eat them up, and so they would not hide there. They told their mother that even if she tried to fly away with them, the flames of the fire would reach unto her and they would all die.

The rat-hole signifies samskaras lying in our unconscious mind and flying in the air symbolises escaping into day-dreaming. Agni was going to burn the forest and the children are telling the mother that this is the time to purify her emotions, but the mind wants to escape – it does not want to work on self. But our lower or logical mind is cunning and lazy – it too does not want to work on itself and so looks for excuses and arguments. Similar to Jarita’s stance, we always escape into old memories or imagination when it is actually the time to purify our emotions.

The mother Jarita tells her children that the rat that lived in the hole was taken away as food by a kite a few days ago and so they would have nothing to fear about hiding there. The children are wise and tell their mother not to waste time in useless arguments but to fly away and have children again. We all have a logical intelligence and an intuitive one. The intuitive intelligence is buried deep in our psychic nature and must be dug out by meditative practices. Usually we spend our lives living with and relying on our logical mind. To go back to intuition we must become innocent like young children, represented here by the young birds speaking words of wisdom to their mother.

Further then, the young ones speak even deeper words. They tell their mother: “Your mind is not steady, it is coloured by your attachment to us and so any decision or solution you offer can only be wrong as it comes from a disturbed mind. The parents do not give birth to the child but the child decides to be born to these parents. Thus, the total responsibility is ours. You do not know who we are and where we have come from and so you only speak from your limited vision. Please go and leave us to our fate in this burning forest.”

Here, we see that there are two dimensions to life – the seen and the unseen. To penetrate into the unseen, one needs a different kind of perception and thinking. My guru called this as spiritual reading. In the seen, every child feels it is the parents who are responsible for calling them but if we could penetrate a little deeper, we realise that the child actually chooses the parents. If only children could see and realise this, then most parent-child conflicts would not exist. It would give children a new responsibility about their lives and would change their attitudes completely.

Jarita understood that even though her children were young they spoke very wisely and she decided to follow what they said. She flew away to a place of safety. The flames of Agni were now very close and it was just a matter of time before the four young birds would be burnt to cinders. They were not frightened and they decide to invoke Agni’s grace by reciting a prayer – they knew in their hearts that Agni would grace them and not take their lives.

In the next article, we will recite the conversation between Agni and the four young birds. The great Rishi Vyasa has also written that whosoever recites these words will be free of suffering and good fortune would grace their lives.