CLEVER GURU AND HUMBLE DISCIPLE – STORY
(A Pastime as heard from the lecture of H.H. Jayapataka Swami)
Nice pastime of Sri Kuresa (Great Sri Vaisnava Acharya) and his devotion and dedication to his guru Sri Ramanuja.
The chola king who is a Lord Siva devotee was angry that Sri Ramanuja was preaching Sri Vaishnavam in his kingdom. So, he planned to kill Sri Ramanuja by inviting him for a debate in his court.
To save his guru Srila Ramanujacharya from getting murdered by the Chola king for preaching Vaishnavism, Kuresa went to the Chola king’s court.
But, Kuresa was blinded by the chola king.
Later, when Srila Ramanujacarya returned back, he asked Kuresa to go to the Lord and get back his vision.
It was Kanchi Sri Varadaraja Swamy (A Popular Krishna temple in Kancheepuram, near Chennai, Tamilnadu) which Kuresa was worshiping at that time.
He went and prayed to the Lord and Lord appeared and asked about what boon does he want?
Kuresa requested the Lord to please forgive the king and other people who have committed offences on him and Srila Ramanujacharya. (Because he does not like to ask anything for his favour)
Like this, during many occasions when he had darshan of the Lord, he did not ask for anything for himself and continued to ask for blessings and forgiveness for others.
When Srila Ramanujacharya came to know about this, he asked Kuresa to pray to the Lord in the following way.
“My guru’s property has a defect and I request you to please correct the same”
Next time when Kuresa had the darshan of the Lord, he prayed in the same way Srila Ramanujacharya told.
The Lord was very pleased with the prayer and granted the vision back to Kuresa.
Since Kuresa was not asking for anything himself, his guru had to force him to ask in a particular way.
Since Kuresa has given everything and surrendered to Srila Ramnujacharya, he is a property of guru.
So that property has a defect – eyes are blind.
Thus Srila Ramanujacharya induced Kuresa to pray to Lord and get his vision back.