Who is the greatest saint of them all?

Today's story talks about egotism with a historical instance at the foreground...let's proceed...

There were 2 great saints in Maharashtra during the 1600s namely Sant Namdev and Ghora Kumbhara. Sant Namdev was a very deep spiritual saint who used to get daily visitations from Lord Vishnu himself. One day saint Ghora Kumbhara who was also a deep saint and a potter by profession, was asked by a few seers to keep his stick on every saint’s head to measure their depth in devotion to the Lord. Ghora Kumbhara placed his stick on Sant Namdev’s head and announced that his devotion was not very deep. Sant Namdev was immediately irked by the comment. He asked him how he dared to place his ordinary stick on his head and make an atrocious judgment like that. He said that he was one of the great saints of all times as Lord Vishnu himself visited him every day, so how could his devotion be half baked? He was then directed by another seer to go to the deep woods and meet a great Yogi to find the answer to his question.

Namdev thought within himself that all the saints present there were jealous of him and hence were asking him to perform this task. So he decided to go and meet the other Yogi thinking that he would prove to the other Yogi also that he was the greatest one. Thinking this he set out on his way and after walking for many many days reached a spot where an old man was sleeping with his feet placed on top of a Shiv Lingam. Seeing this Sant Namdev was furious and he told the old man to take his feet off of the Lingam. For this the old man said that he wouldn’t be able to do it as he didn’t have the strength for it. So he asked Namdev to help him move his feet away from the Lingam. So Namdev lifted his feet and placed it to the side and to his surprise another Lingam arose from the ground under the old man’s feet again. He moved his feet to a different location and the same thing happened. Seeing this Namdev realized his folly and understood how egotistical he had been all this time. He fell at the feet of the old man and begged for forgiveness.

This story teaches us an important lesson that in life no matter how great or how learned we are we should always remain humble and down to earth because that is the right way of living. No arguments on that one!