The Last Sermon

There was a place called Dongyung in the outskirts of Yumthangam. Its natural beauty was just unbelievable. It was a land of rugged mountains, deep valleys, dense forests, rivers, lakes, waterfalls pagoda style houses. It was sheer magic. The village presented a picturesque and serene repose in the lap of nature. The snow-capped lake mesmerized everyone who so ever visited that place. It was not that easy to reach that place. It was a small village with 60 to 65 houses scattered over the valley. People were simple, traditional, religious and away from the contact of witty people of the world. They were hard workers and farming and weaving were their only occupation. They were tribal.

In that village, there was an old pagoda style small temple near the frozen lake. Only on festivities or marriage or on the birth of a newborn baby, people used to come there to pay their tributes to their deity. It was an ancient temple and no one knew as to who had built it. As the place was far off and for reaching there one had to cross the dense forest full of tigers and wild beasts. Only during the day, one could dare to go there. There lived a Hermit, who was around seventy-year-old. His wrinkled face was enough to prove his hard journey in meditation near the frozen lake with temperature of minus eight degrees Celsius. He never wore any warm clothes and used to eat only once a day. All the time he was meditating with a rosary in his hand. People used to visit him once in a blue moon to take his blessings. People had blind faith on him. He got magical powers and was full of positive energy. He used his energy only to heel people without any motive. He used to get visions that always came true.

One day while he was meditating, he got disturbed after the vision he got. The man who used to serve him asked the reason. The Hermit did not tell anything. Tears were rolling down his cheeks. The servant got puzzled as it never had happened earlier. The Hermit asked him to get ready to move towards the village. They crossed the dense forest without uttering a single word. On reaching the village he stopped under a huge tree and sat there. He asked the man to collect alms from the village. He arranged his mat and started praying. After two hours the servant came back with food and fruits. Both of them had the food and slept. Around midnight the Hermit woke up for his prayers. He heard some whispers as if someone was giving him the clue of the future happenings. This continued for the next two days. He became more calm and peaceful. He looked more energetic than his age. The servant was watching all this from a distance and looked worried as if something serious was going to happen.

The second day when the servant was about to go to the village for alms, the Hermit called him. He told him about the vision he got. He told him that there was a beautiful, polite and cheerful girl in her teens in the village who was blind. And one boy of the same village fell in love with her. He proposed the girl and assured her that he would be with her throughout his life what may come. The girl replied that she would marry only after she gets her eye-sight back. The boy requested her to give him some time for the same. In the meantime, both used to spend time together and made many promises.

One day the boy came out of the village border and met the Hermit after seeing him there. At that time the servant had gone to collect alms. Hermit further told that the boy came to him and asked for a remedy. The Hermit told the boy that he had to sacrifice his own eye-sight for this and this deal would not be fruitful to him. The boy didn’t bother about this loss as he loved her from the core of his heart and wanted her to see this world. Then the Hermit chanted a few words while holding the boy’s hand. The boy became blind as he was not able to see anything and on the other hand the girl got the vision. She was happy to see the world from her eyes and was eager to meet the boy to marry. On seeing him blind the girl immediately refused to marry him. The boy told her the truth but even on hearing this her heart didn’t melt. She married another boy of the neighboring village.

The boy came to meet the Hermit when he was narrating this incident to the servant. He fell at his feet and cried. He said,” You were right. Now I came to know that she was materialistic world. She had never loved me the way I did. Please guide me.” The Hermit told him that he had already seen his condition in his vision and his selfless love made him cry in his prayers. He further said that his birth was not for running after the materialistic world but to serve the humanity.    He asked the boy to go along with them to their abode at frozen lake as their work was over. The boy got ready and three of them left the village and started meditating there. Years passed and one day the Hermit called the boy and told him that time had come for him to leave for heavenly abode. So he wanted to pass his positive energy to him to serve humanity.

The next day after taking a bath, the Hermit held the boy’s hand in his hand and asked him to close the eyes for ten minutes. He started chanting and rubbing the palm of the boy. The boy felt as if something was being passed into his body. After ten minutes when the boy opened his eyes he felt that his eye-sight was back and he could see everything now. When he turned towards the Hermit, he saw that he had already left for his heavenly abode. The servant helped the boy in cremating the dead body.

The boy became a monk and started giving sermons. He started moving from one village to another. Many people became his followers. One day he visited a village called Tsungmar. He taught people to serve humanity. When he was preaching, he found one pale and sad looking lady who was crying. He called her and asked the reason of his misery. She told him that she loved someone but as he became blind so she had refused to marry him as she wanted to enjoy her life.

But it was not her everlasting joy as her husband had left her for being barren. He married another girl. Now she was repenting for her deeds of refusing the boy who had sacrificed his eyes for her. She could never imagine that the monk was the same boy. When she looked at him, she fell at his feet. The monk just told her, “Desires always lead to disaster”. With these words, the monk moved on to another village. No one knew where he had gone. The words spoken at the last sermon of the monk had a great effect on the lady that she left all worldly comforts and started following the monk’s footsteps to serve humanity.