A swamy used to quote
several moral stories in between his speeches. To this amusement his
disciple questioned the sage once “will people get motivated
instantly after listening these moral stories? and become moralistic?
Responding to this swamy said “while watching TV you come across
some toothpaste ads and you will immediately remember that your
toothpaste is over, but you never go out then and there to purchase
it, you buy it whenever you go out for shopping and you remember the
toothpaste ad and will purchase the same brand which was shown on TV.
In similar way the moral stories are. When we encounter the situation
similar to moral story, we think about the possibility of applying
the moral values of the story.
Swamy went on to say a
story in which a thief went to temple to steal, but at that time a
discourse on “Bhagavatham” was being explained to devotees. Thief
was not interested in that though he happened to listen a statement
that says “whenever Goddess walks her feet will not touch the
ground”. He left the temple premises and when on to loot the kings
treasure and was successful.
The news spread out and
king ordered his spies to find the thief who did. Earlier spies heard
that thieves fear a lot for Goddesses. So they devised a plan and
dressed an young woman as goddess and left asked her to walk on
streets. Once the news spread about this many thieves surrendered to
king. But the thief who really looted the king's treasury approached
that woman and observed her feet were not touching the ground unlike
what he heard in the discourse about goddesses. He was relieved and
neither surrendered to the king nor he was caught in the hands of
spies.
After sometime thief
realized that just for listening one statement he was successful in
escaping from trouble, then what would be if he had listened the
total discourse. Since that time he started attending discourses
regularly which resulted in change of his lifestyle.
