nasty qualities snakes n ladders

[singh khalistan da]

There's a Sant near our village in India, my aunt was saying that a

young woman was 'possessed' by some evil spirit. No-one could cure

her, she used to walk about like a mad-woman, talking with the deep

voice of a man. The family eventually ran out of healers to go to

and turned to the Sant as the last hope. Apparantly he managed to

talk to the spirit inside the woman. It turned out to be the spirit

of a Yogi doing black magic while he sat in his cave. Some people

from the village had paid him to put a curse on the woman.

Sitting in his cave, the Yogi spoke through the girl, to the Sant.

The Yogi got quite arrogant and told the Sant 'you are only a few

steps higher than me on the spiritual ladder, but I'll topple you

soon enough'. The Sant shrugged it off like water off a duck's back

replying 'what's the point in competing, spirituality isn't a game,

besides Guru Gobind Singh jee is sitting at the top of the ladder

like a father watching us children!'

The Sant gave them some shabads, seva and sangat to do and the

Yogi's evil spirit left the woman.

Maybe you believe in curses or maybe you dont,(if you do naam

simran, seva and go sadh-sangat you'll be naturally protected

anyway) but the interesting thing for me was the use of the ladder

analogy.

Guru Sahib says that the path of the Saints is to climb the ladder

of religion ..'Sant Ka marag, dharam kee pauree'. But only a a few

rare one have such a greatly blessed destiny....'Koe vad-bhagee pai'.

So climb the ladder of religious righteous deeds and rise above the

coiled snakes hissing at your heels, let them reap their own rewards

as they rot in their dark, damp cave-like life.

[SinghMunda]

Interesting analogy...and it would be really bad to end up as a snake.