King - Seven sons - Fish not get dried - Spiritual Meaning of the story

I am not sure whether you heard this story or not. In India, this is very popular story. I listened to it lots of times and also told my children. Until I heard the talk given by Sri Garikapati Narasimha Rao garu, I was not aware of the spiritual significance of the story. You can listen to it in Telugu language from www.surasa.net/music/purana website. For people who don't know Telugu, I typed the story as far as I can. I gave the regular story first and the spiritual significance later.

Read and enjoy.

Story: Once upon a time, there was a king who had seven sons. One day they went for hunting and came back with seven fishes. They let them dry in the sun. One of the fish didn't dry. When they asked the fish why it didn't get dry, it said "Hay stack blocked it". When they asked why Hay Stack blocked the sun, it replied, cow didn't eat it. When they asked cow why it didn't ear the hay stack, it replied: "cowherd didn't allow it to eat". They go ask the cowherd, why he didn't allow cow to eat the grass, he replies that mom didn't fed him. They go to mother and ask why she didn't fed cowherd, she replies my little son cried. They again go to little boy and ask him why he cried, he replies ant bit him. When they ask ant, it says it bit him because he put his finger into the nest.

Garikapati garu says, when we question the first part itself, story doesn't';t hold any basis because King's sons went to hunt and came back with fish? He says, 7 fish are our vices (pride, avarice, Envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth). He said, the one which didn't dry is our Kama (direct meaning is lust, but he elaborated it to include all our desires). To get rid of it, we need Knowledge and haystack is the obstruction, which is our ignorance. To get rid of ignorance, we need knowledge, which we can get either by burning the haystack or remove it one at a time. Just like cow eating one straw at a time, each of our exposure to knowledge, we are removing one straw at a time. So to get this knowledge, we need a GURU (teacher). Teacher didn't give us this spiritual knowledge because mother of education (Saraswathi, Goddess of education) didn't tell him/her to give that to us. Mother of education went to take care of the child who is wailing to see her (he gave example of Ramakrishna, Indian spiritual saint). Ramakrishna was wailing for her darshan, and he was not looking to experience this Maya (iillusion- Ant) which tries to put this Material world on the person who puts their finger into it (Ant hill).

He also mentioned that just like Vivekananda, who was asking every saint about God and whether they can show him God. So someone refers him to go and visit RRamakrishna There were thousands of people waiting to see Ramakrishna. Vivekananda was waiting outside the Mandir/Temple. But Ramakrishna, who was inside sent his people to fetch Vivekananda to show him God. This is the example of Mother Goddess telling GURU to give knowledge to her child.