Once Bhaskarananda was supposed to give a talk. A special stage had been built for the speaker, and it was decorated extremely beautifully. There were hundreds of people attending the meeting. Before the Master began his talk he said, “Where is Lakshman Mala ? I want Lakshman Mala to be here.”

Most of the people did not know who Lakshman Mala was, but somebody said he was a fisherman. Such respected and learned people were there! Who would think that the Master would ask to see a fisherman? But everybody began looking for him. Everybody started calling, “Lakshman! Lakshman!”

Lakshman had been almost afraid to come to this big gathering because so many educated people were there, so he was sitting at the back. When they found him, they escorted him to the Master, who showed him much affection and love. Then Bhaskarananda said, “During my talk, he has to be with me.”

So Lakshman stood beside Bhaskarananda with folded hands, swimming in the sea of devotion and surrender. During the talk the Master highly appreciated Lakshman. He said, “You people are learned, cultured, great. But true greatness lies in pure devotion.”

When the meeting was over, Lakshman followed the Master home, and from then on he stayed at the Master’s house.

Commentary:

The intellectual mind does not know and cannot know what God’s Compassion-Reality is. It is only the devoted heart of the seeker that knows perfectly well what God’s Compassion is. It also goes one step farther. The seeker grows into the very image of his Master by virtue of his heart’s devoted oneness with his beloved. The mind always experiences sad defeat when it tries to fathom the mysteries of the inner world, but the heart never fails in discovering the wealth of the inner world. For the heart, there is no such thing as the inner world and the outer world. The heart has only one world: God the world. To the soulful heart the world itself is God.

Sri Chinmoy