Here is a tale from the Ramayana that I came across circulating in the social media today:
Strolling through the streets of Lanka at night, Hanuman was taken aback when he heard the chants of Sriram coming from a home.
They were not loud but whispers through the windows.
Hanuman wondered who could be chanting my Lord’s name in the city ruled by Ravan.
The house had a cluster of Tulsi plants outside and the walls had signs of Sri Hari.
Just then a man opened the front door and came out chanting the holy name .
The sky was starlit and it was couple of hours before dawn. The man offered water to the Tulsi plants while performing a circumambulation.
Hanuman hopped and stood before him folding his hands.
The man introduced himself as Vibhishana, brother of Ravan.
Hanuman asked “it baffles me” you are a devotee and a noble soul. How on earth you live among these demons?”
Vibhishan smiled and said “just as the tongue lives in the mouth”.
With thirty two teeth biting and grinding, around it, not only does the tongue remain untouched, it enjoys all the taste. The very food that sits and rolls on the tongue is chewed to a pulp by the teeth and yet this snaky little thing escapes unscathed.
Only time it is hurt is when we have a lapse of mindfulness.
Why?
Philosophically the chief difference is flexibility. The tongue’s flexibility is the key to its longevity. That’s why it gets the taste while the teeth get root canals and cavities They fall too or are pulled out! But no one loses their tongue.
The tongue teaches..others may grind and bite but you can still enjoy life if you are flexible. Everything will hurt less, bother less if we loosen up a bit..then an avalanche of peace and joy is triggered.
Speak sweetly, respectfully. The world around cares for truth but it cares a lot more about how you tell the truth. If you want lasting peace and joy learn from your tongue and live like it. Befriend it, tame it… for it has a great bearing on your relationships.
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Now here below is a thought of mine that flashed across my mind after I had read the tale about the tongue:
The tongue is such a versatile dual-function organ … it is verily the seat of the faculty of taste; and it is also the seat of the faculty of speech .
The irony however is while the tongue has the capacity to taste everything that passes past it and can easily tell the difference between sweet, bitter, sour, pungent or rancid, it is however utterly incapable of telling the difference between tasteful and the distasteful of the millions of words that tumble past it and out of the human mouth.
If only Nature had designed the human tongue to be able to censor distasteful speech emitting out as well as it rejects all distasteful food going in , how much more delight indeed would there be to savour in spoken word as in eaten morsel…. and how much less hurt, pain , sadness and anger in our world?!
Sudarshan Madabushi