Twenty-Four Lessons Learned

By Sanmarga Pal

Why do well-built arms seem so heavy?

Pity to the princely heart drowning with somber, 

The footsteps of the augustly youth felt utterly heavy, 

The heart that wields the iron sword is now all shattered.

He just wants to run away and be free.

The cozy couch passed, and so does the palace, 

He managed to escape the magnificent gate.

With some pleasant stroke of wind, 

He just needs to get a new swing.

But alas! The sweet breeze did not answer.

The upset royal blood looked forward; 

And he just moved into the woods inward.

Unknown to  responses for which he was bubbling,

His mind kept on quizzing.

The golden bracelets and amulets seemed like weights,

Completely disillusioned, he started throwing them at every step.

Oblivious of an else’s presence he stood awestruck;

 Absolutely enchanted by an unknown heavy voice.

The mysterious voice slowly came forward.

The man who pierced the darkness of the woods suddenly showed up.  

He was full of tranquility with an empathetic smile towards the prince. 

Slowly a strange calmness sprinkled inside him.

The newly met master astonished the latter, 

As if he read his face and understood his matter

Thus, the ascetic passed the knowledge learned from twenty-four teachers. 

The king was already boggled so he prayed to quench his thirst.

The great soul named his first mentor is our mother Earth;

 Whose every particle symbolizes the patient duty she does.

The wind is the second teacher with its unending motion, 

It taught the seer the habit to be calm and move on.

Sky, the third instructor has no boundaries to draw, 

It presents the eternal lesson that every soul is infinite in nature.

Both of these teachers induce the spirit to set free.

The seer then turned to a stream of river the fourth master, 

Who douses everyone’s thirst but also stays down to the earth. 

The fifth revered element is fire which teaches to torch  the dark, 

The sixth mentor being the queen of night, 

Moon is her name which reminds about the transiency of life.

The king who provides the day light is the seventh master; 

The King and queen together establish a  sense of care.

The mystic once discovered a pigeon couple got caught by hunter so sly,

The possessive pigeons, the eighth master, got trapped and failed to fly.

Stay satisfied with whatever you get to consume as knowledge,

The ninth rector is the python who taught the acclaimed cognizance. 

They must be taught to keep an open mind.

Next the master accepted a buzzing honey bee as his tenth master, 

Who taught us to collect the essence of knowledge without hurting scriptural flowers.

The honey bee collects its honey but can’t use it; 

The eleventh master honey collector got hold of it.

Together they draw a new lesson of utilizing the present’s benefits.

The world of possessions are the source of misery; 

The twelfth master is a flock of birds who fights for berries.

The sea which is pacific never crosses its boundary, 

It is the thirteenth teacher who silently makes pearls in an estuary. 

The lesson masters taught is the path is to get over overwhelming feelings very weary.

Next comes the fourteenth teacher, a fire obsessed moth;

 It is attracted by the flame and burns in the end.

An elephant that is filled by lust taught master the fifteenth lesson, 

The more it tries to chase it falls inside the dearth.

In a duel these mentors teach on how fatal is fetish.

A deer mistakes a hunter’s whistle to be music, 

The sixteenth lesson imparted by its hamartia.

Such is the fish, who cannot put girdle to its tongue, 

Thus the seventeenth mentor gets hooked to the ill fate unsung.

Both give live lessons so as not to leave the abode of lore.

The seer recollected the memory of his eighteenth mentor Pingala, 

Abandonment of hope is the key to happiness was taught by this lady of Videha.

Even the suckling child is the master’s little master whose number is  nineteen

He too imparted the feeling of security and glee.

Even though the lady and the child had different worlds they taught to be  free.

The twentieth teacher is a little maiden who was catering her guests, 

Her bangles started to jingle;she got off them to let the mind rest.

The serpent never dwells upon and thus he is the twenty-first one;

It just knows how to move on and thus gives up all possession.

The two creatures have nothing in common yet they taught the song of freedom.

The master recollected about his twenty-second master; the old arrow maker, 

Whose fletching job teaches man to stay focused within his mind’s care.

The spider who weaves its cobwebs is the seer’s twenty-third teacher, 

It says to say consolidated to the bull’s eye for the rest of the world is clamorous. 

The mentor finds the need to resolute as life’s genuine engineers.

The last mentor is the  caterpillar that grows within cocoon,

Everyday passes its will to become a butterfly gets stronger.

Finally from the cocoon beautiful and colourful wings are unfurled,

Teaching the lesson of patience and determination to the world

That’s all the seer had to offer to the prince leading him to the gateway of  self-realization.

By Sanmarga Pal