THE CURSE OF BRAHMA by Jagmohan Bhanver Page B

now.
Why was Shiva giving him a lecture on Brahman energy
, he wondered.
    Shiva interrupted him. ‘Used properly, the force of Brahman keeps revitalizing your dead cells on an ongoing basis, which is why one never grows old. Have you wondered then, why you have steadily continued to age with time, despite having the knowledge of Brahman?’
    Brahma was speechless. It was true that he had always wondered why it was that he alone had continued to grow older in appearance while Shiva and Vishnu still retained their youthful charm. He had put it down to the fact that they probably had more knowledge of Brahman than he had. After all, they were the ones who had a million years ago initiated him into the use of Bal and Atibal, the two defining mantras necessary to wield the vital force of Brahman. While he had grown older over time, he had been content that he still retained his energy levels and strength, while the devas, who only had recourse to amrit (life-enhancing nectar) had a life span of just a few thousand years. It was wrongly believed by some that the amrit could give you infinite life. It just extended your life by a few thousand years; that too since Vishnu had energized the potion with some of the force of Brahman before the devas drank it, ages ago. However, the presence of the Brahman force in the potion was not sufficient to give infinite life. This is why, once in a while, some deva or the other would grow old and finally die. But none of this still explained why Brahma was getting older with the years while the passage of time didn’t affect Shiva and Vishnu in the least.
    Shiva looked closely at Brahma as the latter did not answer his question. ‘You understand the knowledge of Brahman…but your senses are not attuned to it in perfect harmony.’
    Shiva held up his hand as Brahma attempted to interrupt him.
    ‘Don’t get me wrong, Brahma. You know as much about the theoretical aspects of Brahman as Vishnu and I do. But you have not prepared yourself to assimilate all that knowledge in the way it should be done. And that is why while you have benefitted from it, those benefits are nowhere as large as they could have been.’
    ‘I don’t understand, My Lord. What have I done wrong?’ Brahma was completely nonplussed now. Shiva changed his tactic. ‘Tell me what would happen if you tried to fill an empty bucket with water?’
    Brahma arched his eyebrows. Much as he respected Shiva, he was beginning to feel that Shiva had been spending too much time alone in the sun. It was beginning to affect his mind, he thought.
    Shiva laughed all of a sudden, and Brahma realized rather belatedly that Shiva had read his thoughts through cosmic telepathy.
Damn! Why do I always forget to shield my thoughts when I am with him
? Brahma mentally berated himself.
    ‘No I haven’t lost it, if that’s what you are thinking,’ Shiva smiled. ‘But answer my question—what would happen if you tried to fill an empty bucket with water?’
    Brahma sighed in resignation. ‘The bucket would fill in sometime My Lord.’
    ‘Absolutely!’ Shiva said animatedly. ‘Now if you were to poke multiple holes in the bucket, what would happen?’
    Brahma shifted his feet uneasily, beginning to get a faint idea of where Shiva was going with this. ‘The bucket would take a lot of time to fill…water would continuously need to be poured into the bucket, and yet, if the holes are too large, the bucket may never get filled completely. It would be a huge waste of water, My Lord.’
    ‘Exactly! So what would you need to do to stop the water from being wasted?’ He looked at Brahma with a twinkle in his eyes.
    ‘It would make sense to put a stopper to all the holes immediately...,’ Brahma stopped mid-sentence as he realized what Shiva was trying to tell him.
    Shiva smiled benignly at the man that Vishnu and he had tutored close to a thousand millennia ago.
    ‘So why aren’t you plugging the holes in your system, my friend?’
    Brahma