Tuesday 12 January 2010

Monday, January 11th, 2010

Leaving Imprints

Thunder Bay, Ontario

If you ever try to track something down, it can be the easiest thing to do after a fresh snowfall. That’s exactly what happened last night. The white blanket left a perfect fingerprint for the feet. I spotted the prints of a two hoofed creature – the deer. Before long, on Mountain Road, a second set of deer hooves appeared along side the first. The second set were much tinier than the first. Surely they were traces left by a doe and a fawn.

The larger prints maintained a more focused track while the smaller ones seemed to end up hither and thither. That would indicate the frivolity of the young one. Not but a few minutes walking further on and I could detect what were fox feet. It’s quite exciting. It’s like reading tea leaves.

In the book, Bhagavatam, we read of how the gopis (milk maids) speculated on the foot prints of Radha and Krishna and at some point through reading the foot marks in the earth that two footprint tracks became one, indicating that Krishna hoisted Radha in the air and then carried Her.

Another tale told is of Ram and Sita in the Ramayana. Ram was searching for the kidnapped Sita. Ravana, the abductor, left foot prints in the forest floor which Ram detected as his. He also spotted Sita’s footprints. As He stepped further along in the foreboding Dadaka Forest, He saw both images of feet become muddled, indicating some struggle. This left Ram to imagine the worst because Ravana’s reputation as ruler of a cannibal race was not put into question. So much can be told merely by reading the footprints as examples have been given.

How relevant is all of this to our lives? Well, there is something to be said about following in the footsteps of the great saints. These steps may not necessarily be fossilized, etched in stone or left as imprints in the snow or mud. But when we say “follow in the footsteps”, we refer to ‘doing’ as the great souls have done.

That’s always a good guideline to follow, isn’t it?

7 Km

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