Remember, He is Omnipresent!
Thiruppandar was a great devotee of lord Shiva. Once he happened
to visit a famous pilgrim center dedicated to his favorite Lord. After
the darshan of Siva, he felt that he was too exhausted and weak to
walk further, and therefore rested for the night in the temple itself.
Early in the morning, the priest entered the temple with a potful of
water to perform abhishek to the Lingam. To his utter consternation,
he found an aged man sleeping right in front of the shrine with legs
stretched towards the sanctum sanctorum. He got wild at the sight and,
in indignation, he sprinkled some water on the face of the old man.
But, there was no sign of any movement. So, he bent down and tried to
lift the old man's legs. Immediately the old man opened his eyes and
said in an appealing tone, "My dear Son! Why are you pulling my legs?"
The priest shouted "Oh! For your age, is it not shameful on your part
to indulge in such a sacrilegious act of stretching your legs towards
God?" The old man said calmly, "My dear son, I feel a cramp in my legs
and cannot get up. Will you place my two feet in a direction you like,
where God is not? I shall certainly get up after a while." The priest
did not want to waste time in arguing with the man. So, he held the
two feet of the man, lifted them up and placed them in the opposite
direction. Suddenly, there sprang out a lingam from underneath the
feet! The priest tried to place the old man's feet in another
position, but there again sprang up another lingam! In a minute, the
place was full of lingams! The priest fell at the feet of the old man
and said "Oh revered one! You must be a realised soul. Pardon me for
my insulting words and actions." The old man got up and said "My dear
son, have you not read in the scriptures that God is omnipresent? Can
you limit God to a place and to an image or a picture or in a frame?
Of course we have temples with idols and pictures of worship; but they
only help devotees to direct their faith and devotion to God as
embodiments of the various Divine shaktis in this vast boundless
universe. The Supreme Creator, the Almighty God is only one, and
remember, He is Omnipresent."
Category: Chinna Katha
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