Dattatreya Ji told about his twenty-first Guru, a little girl wearing several bangles and stamping paddy in the mortar. Once there was a girl who stamped paddy seeds for dehusking them in a mortar. She had to dehusk the paddy seeds classically, viz, using mortar and pestle. She often wore several bangles in both hands. When she used to move her hands to stamp the pestle, the bangles jingled. She felt irritated listening to the sounds. When she used to give alms to the saints, she suffered the same agony of jingling bangles. One day she thought of removing most of the bangles, leaving two in each hand. She resumed her job, but she still felt uncomfortable with the bangles. She removed the remaining bangles and soon began enjoying the job. She could easily stamp the pestle into the mortar and even give them alms without giving alarms to her neighbors (her neighbors could not know that she served the saints).
Dattatreya Ji learned to remain far away from the distractions while practicing meditation and even while performing other chores. We need to surrender our greatest distraction, the mind, to Lord. He even learned to perform silent charity without letting the other hand know.
Then, he talked about a lady dancer who earned her livelihood by dancing and entertaining others. One day, she adorned herself with a new saree, a lot of jewelry, and other beauty accessories. She went to the hall to demonstrate her talent. But, no one appeared to see her dance. She felt depressed. The lady removed all her decorations and felt guilty for earning money in the wrong way. She felt dispassionate for the world and renounced worldly means at that instant. Soon, she became a yogi.
Dattatreya Ji learned simplicity from her life. Unnecessary baggage and decorations yielded no fruits except doom. He taught us a beautiful phrase, “Simplicity is perfection.”
(It is unvirtuous to earn the livelihood by wrong means.)
Seeing a wasp, Dattatreya Ji rejoiced and told about it to King Yadu. He talked about the life cycle of the wasp. He said that the wasp collected worms from distant places and brought them to its nest. Then, it produced unusual sounds for a long duration. The worms felt that they were to behave like the wasp. The worms transformed into wasps and began singing the same song.
Dattatreya Ji said that though the worms were not wasps, the company transformed them into true wasps. He learned that if he lived in the company of the Self, he would realize the Self.
(We become the company we keep. We cannot change the company we keep, but we can avoid imbibing the bad qualities. We should only imbibe good qualities. If we practice goodness, others can imbibe goodness from us.)
Then, he told about the last Guru, the mountain. Dattatreya Ji adopted the quality of stability from the mountain. The stable mountain holds all the resources of nature, that is, the grand food chain; from the tiniest herb to the largest banyan, from a fish to a tiger. It is firm. He learned to keep firm faith and remain dependent on Lord.
(Our body and the mind are unstable, but the soul is firm thus, we need to rely on firmness. Remaining close to nature is the way to rely on firmness. One-pointed devotion and dependence are important.)
Dattatreya Ji didn’t see faults in nature but found the flawless Lord within himself by seeing flawlessness in nature. He saw goodness in every speck of dust.