Shrine

Every morning, the illiterate peasant woman visited the burial shrine of a great saint. There she surrendered her heart. And for the rest of each day and night she remained in that state of perfect surrender, caring for her children and husband, sweeping the dust from people's doorways, offering every deed of her humble work into the fire that burned in her heart.

Surrendering all karma as devotional sacrifice, she became enlightened. Others saw her as a poor working woman, but in her own perception, each action she performed was suspended in the radiant stillness of the Divine, like a stream of ghee poured into a sea of gold.

Eventually the whole countryside recognized her saintliness, though she paid no attention to the world's opinion. Bathing each deed in the light of God, she exhausted herself with humble work. Her days were monuments of spiritual beauty... until the shocking discovery.

A group of village Brahmins came to break the terrible news. Some of them were secretly jealous of her and had to suppress their delight beneath false tears. They had discovered something that would destroy the old woman's enlightenment: they showed her the bone. "This is conclusive proof," they declared, "that it is not a saint who is buried in that shrine, but a donkey."

The old woman closed her eyes and sank into deep silence. The Brahmins stole away without another word. Then the old lady began to laugh. Tears of bliss poured from her eyes. Uproariously she laughed, wild as a lioness.

For her, the Brahmins' message was mahavakya, the final word of liberation. Thus spent the rest of her days in even deeper sweetness. She was living proof that divine Light shines in the quality of the heart's surrender, not in the object...

When the old woman entered her final samadhi, they buried her in a grave which became a shrine of devotion even more popular than the one she used to visit. But after all, who really knows whether she is buried there, or a donkey?