The Wanderer with Twenty-Four Teachers

Near the end of his life on earth, Krishna told his friend Uddhava an old story.

Long ago, he said, King Yadu met a young brahmin on the road who owned nothing at all. He wandered like a child, or a madman, and looked happier than any king.

Yadu got down and bowed to him.

"Tell me," he said. "Most men are on fire with wanting things, like elephants in a burning forest. You stand in the middle of the fire and it does not touch you. Who taught you to live like this?"

"I have had many teachers," said the wanderer. "Twenty-four of them. Listen, and I will tell you what I learned from each."

"The earth taught me patience. People dig her and burn her and build on her, and she bears it all. The wind taught me to go everywhere and cling to nothing. The sky taught me that the self is in everything and is stained by nothing, as the sky has clouds pass through it and keeps no mark. Water taught me to be clear and to make others clean. Fire taught me to take whatever is offered and burn it up and stay pure. The moon taught me that it is the body that waxes and wanes, and not the one who lives in it. The sun taught me to take and give back, as he draws up water and returns it as rain."

"Then there was a pigeon," the wanderer went on. "He and his wife had a nest, and chicks, and loved them. A hunter caught the chicks in his net, and the mother flew in after them, and then the father, who could not bear to live without them. The hunter took them all. That is what attachment does."

"A python taught me to lie still and eat what comes, and not to go hunting for more. The sea taught me to stay calm whether the rivers pour in or not. A moth flying into a flame taught me what the eye's desire does. A bee taught me to take a little from many flowers and harm none. But another bee hoarded its honey, and a honey gatherer came and took it all, so I learned not to hoard."

"An elephant is caught with a she-elephant for a lure, a deer by music, a fish by the bait. An osprey with a piece of meat in its beak is chased by every other bird, until it drops the meat and is left in peace."

"And there was Pingala," said the wanderer. "She was a courtesan in Videha. One night she stood at her door, waiting for a rich lover, and every man who passed she thought was him, and none was. She waited until midnight. Then, all at once, she was tired of hoping. She said to herself, 'What a fool I have been,' and went in and lay down, and slept in peace. From her I learned that hope is the greatest unhappiness, and giving it up the greatest happiness."

"A child taught me to be carefree. A girl taught me to live alone. Her family were away, and guests came to ask for her hand, and she went in to pound rice for them. Her bangles clattered, and she was ashamed of the noise, so she broke them one by one until only one was left on each wrist. Two together still made a sound. One alone was silent."

"An arrow-maker was so absorbed in his work that a king's procession went past him and he never saw it. A snake lives alone in holes others have made. A spider spins its web out of its own body and draws it back in again, as the lord makes the world and takes it back. And a caterpillar, carried off by a wasp, thinks so hard about the wasp that it becomes one."

"My own body taught me the rest," he said. "It is born and dies, and I learned not to hold it too tight."

Then the wanderer said goodbye to the king and walked on, and Yadu stood in the road and watched him go, and was free of something himself.