When Rama and Sita were exiled, they had to cross a river. A boatman took them across. Since they did not have anything else to give, Sita Mata offered him her precious gold ring.
The boatman refused.
So Rama asked him, “What is it you want? I must give you something.”
The boatman smiled and said, “I carried you across this river; now you carry me across this life.”
Rama smiled, and the smile said it all.
It is a beautiful episode that holds within itself the key to psychic bhakti. Psychic bhakti demands nothing from the Lord except his closeness, his service and freedom from ignorance. It knows that the latter is assured because he who gives himself to the Divine without reserve or demand of material goods finds that the Divine too gives Himself to such a devotee and takes over his burden upon Himself. For such a Bhakta the doors of highest liberation are opened.
This story also illustrates that blossoming of the seed of divinity does not depend upon outer qualifications, achievements or social status and position. Kewat, the Nishadraj is a boatman, an illiterate person not well verse in the shastras, yet his soul has awakened and the inner shastra has opened for him. Thus does he recognise the divinity of Rama that a Brahmin by birth and a pundit that Ravana is fails to see.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
