THE HIEROPHANT CHRONICLE

The heart swells you up. Again, the heart sinks you down. Feelings of elation or depression, that of joys and sorrows spring out of it. If the heart upbeats at times, it sinks low on other occasions. You are impelled and elated by feelings for the welfare of the nation, for the love of humanity, but often you go down with feelings of hatred, jealousy and revenge. With positive feelings, you are apt to rise high but negative emotions hurl you to the ground and you are buried with shame and disgrace. As the thoughts are in the heart, so is the man. It is the feelings that grow up in the heart that constitute the personality of an individual take the example of Shivaji. His father worked under the mogul emperor. However, his mother never allowed her son to bow down before the moguls. Instead, she filled her son’s heart with the love for the country and Hindu dharma. As Shivaji grew up, he conquered many mogul fortresses. Nevertheless, the mother desired that he should defeat the moguls by conquering the strongest fortress of Toran. In addition, Shivaji after conquering this fortress went to his mother for her blessings and putting the sword down on her feet, asked what more she wanted from him. The reply of the mother is to be noted here. She said your body is mine, and I do not need your money, I only ask for your heart, a heart that will ever cling to my ideal.

    How much can we speak about a heart whose glories are tremendous? It has a magical power beyond words. In whichever direction it swings, it forces one to work. Good feelings raise the person to the heights while bad feelings push him to the ground. Anger, lust vengeance, jealousy and hatred can pull down a person, while love, compassion and understanding can raise him high… All these feelings, good or bad, take birth only in the heart. It is a place that is pure, a place where God resides.
   We are born with a heart that is pure. Then gradually as we grow up it begins to gather dust. Unpleasant ideas and thoughts crop up. We more than often fail in choosing a right direction, though it becomes a primary duty on our part to control the heart and put it on the right path. Here I am reminded of an instance in the life of Shriven Kumar. He had a feeling of devotion for his blind old parents. On their request he took them both on a pilgrimage. Ill-treatment given to his parents by his wife further pushed Shriven Kumar’s heart to take them away. His heart was happy that he was on a noble mission, to serve his parents. He went around to some places, when all of a sudden his heart took a strange turn. He was overtaken by a feeling of disgust. What was he doing? Only he was ruining his life. Those were the days for him to enjoy. He was young. He had a wife who loved him and he had lovely children. He should be spending time with them. Youth meant pleasure. He ran away fast, listening to this voice of the heart, immediately putting down the scale on which he carried the parents, as he feared that he might not change his decision.Running, he got tired. He happened to see a group of men and women who were being addressed by a yogi. He also sat down there to take breath as he was panting. The yogi was trying to elaborate and explain the episode of Gnash, who circled round his parents and felt that he had traversed the whole world .Lord Shankar was then trying to explain to Kartiki and others present there that Gnash was absolutely right , because one cannot achieve anything more in this world than by serving the old parents. Shravan Kumar got a big jolt on hearing this. He got highly annoyed with the feelings of his heart that tempted him to leave his parents. He ran back to the place where he had left his parents. He took the rod of the scale on which the parents sat and went on to the pilgrimage with greater joy and satisfaction.

As the heart is, so is the man.