http://www.speakingtree.in/blog/can-puranas-parables-be-termed-as-just-cock-bull-stories
An open-minded person will neither deny nor admit
that Puranas and Parables are mere Cock and Bull stories. For he will have
understood that they provide solace to the question asked by the young minds.
He is bright enough to know that these stories satisfy the queries of the young
minds for the time being, and would not provide them the Truth. He also knows
that the young minds would keep inquiring deeper and deeper to find out the
Truth by themselves. And if those puranas and parables failed to give them a
valid reply, they change their dimension of thinking. Hence, those puranas and
parables have flooded with many different stories for the young minds to
understand at different stages of evolution. At one stage after listening to
those puranas and parables the young mind is no longer interested in them and
tries to venture into knowing the Truth by contemplation. Rational thinking
comes naturally as the young mind start to attempt to think out of the box. But
before that emotional resilience has to be induced in the young minds and
puranas and parables are handy for that.
A civilized person might find these stories a little
stupid a child's mind would relish them. As a child when there was loud thunder
in the sky my granny would say that Lord Krishna is set out on his chariot
taking Arjuna hence the sound. She would advise me to chant “Krishna Krishna”
probably at that age and with the limited thinking capacity I had, that was
enough to satisfy my doubt on the sound that I heard from the sky. And as I
grew up and I noticed that the before I heard the sound of thunder there was a
bright light that struck in the sky. When I questioned about it my granny told
me it was Indra welding his weapon called Vajayudha. Then she told me the story
of the fight between Indra and Krishna from the “Tulasi Mahatmya” episode and
in that story I came to know the difference between Rukmini’s devotion and
Sathyabhama’s obsession, and how a small Tulasi leaf offered to Lord with
devotion is more than the pomp and show we generally display at festivals.
After some years I stopped asking for the answers
and by that time I had the inputs from all the puranas and parables. That was
the time when I started thinking that Sri Rama or Lord Krishna were not only
powerful enough to kill demons in the world outside, but instead those stories
were meant for me to kill the demons inside me. The transition from enjoying
the stories to understanding the significance of them set in. Every story in
the puranas and parables has something to say if I am willing to listen to
them, instead of just pushing them off as mere cock and bull stories. For me it
was stories from puranas and then the iconography and from there it was way of
life which put me on the path in that order. At one stage I would admire the
heroics of all the Gods in the puranas and they were my idols with so many
great characters they possessed, but as the time passed I came to know that
Absolute is the one who has surpassed the word character and is beyond Factor,
Fame, Form and Name.
If my granny had talked about how the positive ions
and negative ions attract and repel each other to build up electrical charge
and become the cause for lightning and thunder maybe I would not have
understood at that age. Well on the lighter vein, I will not say so with the
kids of the younger generation as they know very well how scientifically things
happen!!!
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