Don’t be a Donkey

Once a sculptor in a village made a beautiful deity of Kṛṣṇa and thought of selling it at a good price in the city. So he loaded the deity on his donkey and started towards the city. When he was going through the village, the villagers bowed in front of the deity. Whichever street he crossed, a crowd would bow in front of the deity.
But a strange thing happened. The donkey, which was carrying the deity, thought that he was special and that was the reason why people were bowing to him. He was thrilled with his newfound respect.
Soon the sculptor returned after selling the deity. While he was crossing the village, the donkey stopped in the middle of the road, expecting a warm welcome. But nobody paid attention to him. The donkey felt insulted and started braying, so much so, that the villagers drove him away.

Moral:

The same mistake, what the donkey did, is what most of us do. When we are on the divine path of self-realization, with Kṛṣṇa’s grace, a glow enters our demeanor and we stand out in the crowd. People respect such persons and often bow in respect. But we should realize that people are bowing not to us but to that glimpse of Kṛṣṇa whom they realize resides within us. So the credit of this respect goes, solely to Kṛṣṇa, not to us. If we start taking the credit, we cross the thin line of demarcation and enter into an area of false ego, which Kṛṣṇa dislikes most.
The basic difference between material and devotional lifestyle is that, in material life the more we progress, the more ego we develop. In a devotional lifestyle, the more we progress, the more ego we shed.

In the purport of Bhagavad-gītā 3.27 Śrīla Prabhupāda writes :
“The person in material consciousness is convinced by false ego that he is the doer of everything. He does not know that the mechanism of the body is produced by material nature, which works under the supervision of the Supreme Lord. The materialistic person has no knowledge that ultimately he is under the control of Kṛṣṇa. The person in false ego takes all credit for doing everything independantly, and that is the symptom of his nescience.
……..The ignorant man forgets that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is known as Hṛṣīkeśa, or the master of the senses of the material body, for due to his long misuse of the senses in sense gratification, he is factually bewildered by the false ego, which makes him forget his eternal relationship with Kṛṣṇa.”

Hare Kṛṣṇa !!!!