The Pig and the Paramahamsa

Ones upon a time Lord Indra, who was the king of heaven offended his guru. And was cursed by his guru who is Brihaspati, a guru of all the demigods. He cursed Indra to take birth on Earth as a pig. So, immediately the curse was in a fact and Indra was born pig society, in a pig pen, and grew up and married, had children, pig-wife, piglets, living in their little pig pen, enjoying life. He forgot everything. He forgot he was the king of heaven, about his responsibilities of ruling heaven, the Emporia of heaven and went on happily in his pig-life. But in his absence things were not going well in heaven. The throne was vacant. Things were not operating well without him. And the gods went and petitioned to Lord Brahma, “Please, do something because we need Indra to come back, it's time to come back, now he can resume the throne”. So Lord Brahma took it upon himself and in the service of the demigods went to locate Indra. He had that mystic power to see which one of the pigs on Earth was Indra.

So, he've found Indra and went and spoke to him, "Lord Indra, you are not a pig! Come out of your pig-life now, it's time to go to heaven. You are the king of heaven". And Lord Indra was so bewildered, and under the influence of pig-conditioning, under the influence of Maya, forgot everything and was very involved in his pig-life and becoming, like, a leader of the pigs. And was, he was not responding well to Lord Brahma's call and told Lord Brahma, "Leave me alone, I'm happy. My life and... Can't you see, missis pig and all my children, we're living happily, eating stool, enjoying ourselves, happy as can be".

So after some time... There's a few versions to this story, one is that, Brahma one by one drowned all of his piglets and his pig-wife and then Indra [Brahma] himself killed them all to bring Indra back to his senses. Another version is Brahma slashed of the head of Indra, and his, Indra's body appeared. One way or another, Lord Brahma through some very extreme measures brought Indra back to his senses. Brought him back to Indra-Loka and showed him, like, real time, what he was like on Earth as a pig, pig-family and piglets, they were also demigods that joined him. And they saw what happen - completely loss consciousness and became engrossed in that existence, forgetting about heaven and all our opulence.

And this story illustrates the power of material nature, the covering, the influence and spell of Maya upon the living entity. Even Indra can become so influenced and so bewildered and lost, what to speak of tiny conditioned souls like us? And even if we promise something better, in the next life, we're still fighting for our material existence. Trying to maintain this temporary bodies in this material world. Power of illusion can only be overcome by the devotees, the Lord coming to rescue us and save us from the plight of material existence.

One of our devotees likes to tell this in classes, how… There's only two living entities in this world that are happy, two kinds of living beings. One is the Paramahamsa, the pure devotee, the unalloyed, saint, who's above material nature and free from ignorance. And the other extreme is the pig. They're so ignorant and indiscriminant, and thinking they're enjoining life to the extreme, you see they have these little smiles on their faces. If you've ever noticed and been to Vrindavan, see all the pigs living in the any puddle of water or mud, in the drains. They also have their own little pig-sties all over the place, sitting in swamps, with this little smiles on their faces. Loving life, because they're so ignorant. Two extremes - one, free from ignorance, one - completely engrossed with ignorance. And anything in between, there's distress, there's suffering, knowingly some pain, and difficulty.

And so we hear that two living entities are happy. So, we have a choice, don't we? Do we want to live the life of the Paramahamsa, to strive for that, to be become free from ignorance, to come out of illusion? Or do we want to resort to pig life? Live indiscriminately in complete ignorance, eating stool, etcetera. We have a choice. So, we know in our Vaishnava culture, another name of the vaishnava culture is Paramahamsa-dharma, the duty in the way of a Paramahamsa, Swan-like devotee. Sanatana Dharma, is another name. Jaiva Dharma - the religion of the heart. That is life-worth living. Something worth pursuing, Paramahamsa Dharma. We may be so far from that ideal, but we can begin whoever we are, wherever we are, we can begin practicing this.

So, this is our life and it's a happy life. By the grace of our gurus, and the Supreme Lord everything is possible.