After explaining the eight Gurus to King Yadu, Dattatreya Ji talked about the ninth Guru, the pigeon. He recollected an incident and narrated the same.
Once there lived a pigeon couple on a tree in their nest. In spring, Mrs. pigeon laid eggs and, soon baby pigeons emerged. One day, the couple left their baby pigeons in the nest to collect food. Soon, a hunter came and spread his net. The bay pigeons fell to the ground. The couple returned and found their babies struggling on the ground. The mother pigeon leaped to embrace her chick out of attachment and got stuck in the net. As Mr. Pigeon saw the scene, it leaped as well and met the same fate; lost its freedom.
As the pigeons lost their chicks and even their lives out of attachment, similarly, we lose our precious lives, being attached to impermanent things.
Dattatreya Ji sighed and said that he learned detachment from the pigeons. He continued saying that detachment could make him unite with Unity.
Then, he talked about the tenth Guru, the King cobra. He observed the life cycle of the cobra. He found that it did not come out of its hole to explore the world for food. It came out quite rarely, collected a rodent or two, and re-entered the hole. It never bothered about accumulating resources for the next day. It had belief in terms of Lord, as Lord loved it seventy times a mother’s love. Dattatreya Ji learned to keep unstirred faith in the Divine laws. He elaborated that dependence on the inner self was true independence and detachment.
He continued saying that people worried about the next moment, but the cobra never bothered about life. It lived lavishly, in peace.
Then, Dattatreya Ji talked about the moth, his eleventh Guru. He saw the moth hovering near the light of an oil lamp and soon leaped into the oil, out of attraction towards the glittering object, but met death. He explained that people felt attracted towards the worldly impermanent glow, but soon they lost their lives. Tendencies to attain worldly glitters sought no gold except sufferings.