The Mouse and the Gita

Sham S. Misri

A guru had a Brahmin disciple.  He ordered the Brahmin that he should perform Bhakti by reading Gita every day.  So he sat in a cave, reading the Bhagavad-Gita.  But there was a small mouse that came to nibble at the Gita, when it was not being read.  He became tired of scaring the mouse away, so he thought, "I need to get a cat to take care of the mouse."  And he got a cat.  The cat kept away the mouse, but it started making sounds because it was hungry.  Now he had to feed the cat.  Then he thought, "I need a cow in order to feed the cat milk."  He had to take care of the cow.  Gradually he started giving less and less time for his reading of the holy book Gita.  As he had to give the cow so much attention, he thought, "I need someone to take care of the cow," and he hired a man.  The man took care of the cow, but he found that he had to have someone to watch the man; otherwise he would not do his work properly.  He thought, "This is becoming a little complicated.  I have to get married, and then the wife will watch over the man who will take care of the cow, who will feed the milk to the cat, to keep away the mouse."  He got married, but his wife wanted certain things.  So there were children, and now he needed some money.  He started some business enterprise and brought some land.  One day, the guru came back to see his disciple.  He said, "What happened?  I had  ordered you to read the holy book Gita, but I see you have got wife, children, family, business, workers and so many things.  You have forgotten the Gita?  Tell me what happened."  He replied, "Gurudev, I am simply doing all this in the service of the Gita.  In order to read the Gita, I had to do all this.  This is all Gita-samsara."