Judging Saints? That’s a Mortal Mistake
500 years back, the king of Jaipur desired to meet a saint. One of his ministers told him about saint Haridas, the most revered saint on earth at that time. The king decided to go and pay his respects to Him. The king wanted to take a very special gift for the renowned saint but could not decide what to take as saints normally do not accept material gifts.
As he was thinking of an appropriate gift, one of his subjects suggested taking a perfume as he had heard that Haridas Ji Maharaj liked good perfumes. Hearing this, the king got perplexed. He started thinking, "How is it possible that the one who has renounced all worldly comforts and lives such a simple life would like a perfume?” Anyway he ordered the most fragrant and exclusive perfume and took that with him as a gift.
When the king reached the ashram of Saint Haridas, Haridas Ji was singing holi bhajans. The king bowed down before Him and kept the fragrance at His feet. Saint Haridas picked it up with sweet smile, opened the bottle and poured it on the ground. Seeing this, the king was shocked and annoyed. Seeing the strange action, the king thought that the saint was crazy. "I brought such an expensive and special perfume for him. If he did not like it, he could have returned it to me or waited for me to leave before throwing it”. Thus his skeptical mind bothered him.
After the Satsang was over, saint Haridas asked one of his disciples to take the king to Banke-Bihari temple. No sooner did the king enter the temple, he smelt the same perfume, which Haridas Ji had spilled on the floor in his Ashram. Bow the king was perplexed. He did not understand anything and came back to saint Haridas. Saint Haridas was all knowing. Reading the king’s mind, Saint Haridas asked him, "What's the matter king? You look perplexed.” The king replied, “Yes Maharaj! I am totally confused. I did not smell anything, when you poured the entire bottle of perfume on the floor in your ashram, but I smelt the same sweet fragrance of the perfume in the temple more than a mile away from here. What is the secret behind this? Please explain and resolve my confusion”.
Saint Haridas said, 'King! You had brought the special perfume at a very opportune moment of Holi. Shri Radha was about to fill up Her water gun with colored water. I immediately poured the perfume in Her bucket of colored water. Shri Radha drenched Shri Krishna with the same fragrant water-color. That's why you smelt your perfume over there."
The king was deeply touched by Saint Haridas’s devotion. He felt extremely sorry for ignorantly judging a saint by his actions and begged for forgiveness by falling at the lotus feet of Saint Haridas.
MORAL
You should not use your mind to judge the actions of a real saint. They are fully surrendered servants of God. They act 100% in accordance with God's will at every moment. Even though their deeds resemble the actions of an ordinary material being, their intent is to please God alone. Whereas, material beings perform actions for self-enjoyment or material benefit. No wonder material beings cannot understand divine actions!