Devotional Impostors

A clever villager used to enter the village temple in the early hours of the day and sit with eyes closed in the hope that people will honor him as a great devotee. Since he did not get up and go about his business until about mid­-noon, the temple priest was hard put to close the doors and go home for his daily tasks there. So he struck upon a plan to stop the nuisance. He knew that the closed‑eye session of dhyana [meditation] was all a pretense. He hid himself behind the idol of the deity, and when the villager was well set in his pretense of deep medi­tation, he said in an imposing sonorous voice, “Listen! Excellent devotee! I am mightily pleased by your asceticism and your steadfastness. Come I shall merge you into Myself.” At this the fellow ran fast out from the temple, leaving no trace of where he had gone!

The devotion and sense of surrender of many are similar to those of this impos­tor. Faith is weak, discipline is absent, and earnestness is lacking.

                                                         ~ Baba
Source: Chinna Katha