It is faith that ultimately matters

As the sky blushed with pre-dawn light, the seeker from the Land of Lady Liberty sat absorbed in meditation on the edge of a still lake in Janakpur.
 After some time, he noticed another presence by his side. As he looked around with a semi-opened gaze, he noticed a handsome sadhu dressed in spotlessly clean robes.

“Beware of scorpions in the guise of butterflies!” the yogi growled to the first aspirant who was thoroughly rattled out of his meditative calm by now: the stranger’s speech rang with accents of Queen’s English. “Why are you saying this?” the sadhaka asked the enigmatic sadhu who went on to stare back intently without saying anything for long.

“Don’t open yourself to demons in the disguise of holy men or you may discover your life in ruins, only when it’s too late”.

The handsome sadhu whose name turned out to be Vasudeva invited the American seeker to travel with him on foot for three days to reach an obscure holy place. The pair begged for food while journeying through the countryside. Each day they would receive some rice and dal which Vasudeva would cook with an artist’s finesse. Whomever the duo met along the way seemed to be charmed by Vasudeva’s gentle nature.

“But something puzzled me,” the Chicago-born seeker who later became known as Radhanath Swami told your columnist during the recent launch of his autobiography, The Journey Home. “Behind a mask of cheerfulness, I sensed my learned friend (a professor with a Ph D belonging to a wealthy family in his pre-sanyas days) was a tormented man.” It turned out that he was being pursued by a Tantrik Guru who was alleged to be adept in the so-called black arts.

“I knew from what I had observed in India that many gurus had strong powers, including the power to sway followers to do whatever they asked,” Radhanath Swami added. “I was more terrified of what my companion had revealed to me than I had been of the pack of rabid dogs (which had attacked the American Swami just a few weeks earlier). The dogs I had at least been able to see and fend off. But how does one fend off forces of evil menacing seekers of the spiritual path?”

Soon after he’d left Vasudeva, Radhanath Swami saw a big Yankee being terrorised by monkeys into dropping his groceries. Seconds later he also saw a skinny Nepali boy chasing the simians away. The moral was clear: Only fear fear. Ultimately it was not the size but the fight in the boy and faith that had won the day.
Source economictimes.indiatimes.com