Parable of Butter Hidden in Milk

The young daughter had gone to her village home for the first time from her city-dwelling. At night before retiring to bed, her mother opened a pot in which there was good cow's milk and poured a little buttermilk. The girl asked her mother: "Mother, that was butter milk; and why have you mixed it with milk? The milk may get spoiled!"

"Child!", answered the mother, "that is the way to prepare the milk in order that we might get butter out of it."

"But where is butter in it, mother?"

"It is in every drop of the milk, dear; but you can't see it now. I will show you in the morning."

In the morning the daughter saw that what was liquid the night before had become solid overnight. Mother put a churning rod into it and started churning the curd vigorously. Butter began to float on the surface of the curd. Then she gathered it all up and presented it to the astonishment of the daughter. The mother explained: "The addition of the buttermilk curdles the milk. Milk is transformed into curd. Then you have to churn it. By this process the butter which was all-pervasively hidden in the milk is obtained. At first you were not able to see it; it was hidden. From where has it come now? Only from the milk. Therefore, you understand now that it was there all the time. It awaited the process of churning to reveal itself to your great joy." The daughter, too, followed the same process and got the butter, for herself.

Similarly, a worldly man approaches a Mahatma and asks him: "O Sadhu, why have you renounced the world, and poured this new element of 'Vairagya' and 'Tyaga' into your life? Why don't you let the life take its natural course?"

The Sadhu replies: "Brother, I do so in order to realise God?", "Where is God?", "He is all-pervading." The worldly man does not see and is not convinced. The Sadhu then explains how the inner personality, which is fickle and outflowing should be made solid and firm. Then the churning rod of one-pointed concentration and meditation should be taken hold of, and this solid 'Antahkarana' should be very well churned. Then God is realised. He is all-pervading, in every atom of creation. But He is not visible to the naked eye nor is He realisable by a man except through this process called 'Sadhana'.

Just as a mother was necessary for her daughter to learn that butter exists in milk and that churning will bring it out, even so a Guru is necessary for a man to know that God is, that He is all-pervading, and that He is attained through Sadhana. If the aspirant follows the Guru's instructions, he too, can realise God.

Parables Of Sivananda - The Divine Life Society

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