The great sage Vasishtha sat one morning outside his hermitage as his
students gathered around him for the day's lesson. The forest was loud with
birdsong, and the cattle lowed softly in the meadow beyond.
Down the path came his devoted disciples — boys and young men who loved him,
who brought him fruit and firewood and hung on his every word. Vasishtha
greeted them with a quiet, kind smile and a steady, welcoming gaze.
Then, a little later, another figure appeared at the edge of the clearing.
The students stiffened. It was Vishvamitra — the fierce sage who had once
been Vasishtha's bitter rival, who in the old days had wronged Vasishtha
deeply, who had wished him harm and brought him grief. The young students
glanced anxiously at their teacher, expecting his face to harden, expecting
cold words or a turned shoulder.
But Vasishtha rose and greeted Vishvamitra with the very same quiet smile and
the very same steady, welcoming gaze he had given his most loving disciple.
No flicker of old anger crossed his face. No coldness. No false sweetness
either — just the same calm warmth, exactly as if a friend had arrived.
When Vishvamitra had gone on his way, the boldest of the students could not
hold his question.
"Master," he burst out, "that man once tried to ruin you! How can you look at
him just as gently as you look at us, who love you? Does it not anger you even
a little?"
Vasishtha set down the cup he was holding and looked around at all their
young faces.
"When I look at any of you," he said, "what do I see? I see the one bright
Self, the same in every heart. It shines in the student who loves me, and it
shines no less in the man who once hated me. The love and the hatred are like
weather passing over the sky — clouds one day, sun the next. But the sky
itself does not change, and neither does the Self behind every face. The one
who can keep his eye on that — friend or foe, saint or sinner, all the same —
he has climbed the highest of all. Why would I let an old quarrel blind me to
the same light I love in you?"
The students were silent, and the forest sang on around them.
