Someone Else Runs this Life

Saint Baba Maharaj Arvikar says that dharma is only for Rama. This is why:

Sarva Dharman Parityajya | Mamekam Sharanam Vraja || --- Bhagvad Gita

All of the things you do without disturbing your surrender to the divine, will be a sign of a dharmic, righteous character.

In Arvi, the village that Saint Baba Maharaj Arvikar grew up in, there was a harijan (a kind of sub-caste) who was a satputursh. 

Baba described him as a nice, sweet person. He had instruments commonly used in devotional singing, an ektari and a tambori, and would sing Saint Tukaram Maharaj's devotional hymns with great reverence and feeling. 

Since he was harijan, most people didn’t let him come close to them. But Saint Baba became good friends with him. He would sing some beautiful devotional songs for Baba (bhajans and abhangas).

There are many Shankar temples in Arvi. But the Kala Mahadev temple is the most famous. Baba would go there very often.

One day, the devotee of Krishna (Hari bhakta) also went up to the temple with Baba. But he stopped at the entrance.

Baba said to him, “Come on, let’s go inside.”

The devotee humbly and respectfully said, “God has only brought this life up to this point. In the next life, he will take me further ahead. I do not wish to break the boundary.”

While recounting this story, Saint Baba said that, his inner consciousness was so amazing. The attitude that, ‘God should take me. God has told me to stand here, so I will stay here.’ Baba said that he kindly told him to go into the temple. Seeing that man’s chitta, Baba felt so genuinely joyful and felt that a devotee of god is so innocent.

Baba then added that if the devotee had asked him, ‘Maharaj, can I come inside the temple?’ Baba would have told him that he should definitely come in. But before even asking, that man understood that it is someone else running our lives. We are not to go about in this world on our own feet. Faith in god is unique and unparalleled. This faith, this boundary, there is a reason behind it: freedom from pride. When one feels proud, boundaries are crossed. And when boundaries are crossed, purity is destroyed.

Broadly, this story is not one about caste or social difference. Rather, it is a story of accepting the life that has been given by God with joy, and surrendering to Him to such an extent that no matter what the case, one sincerely upholds and acts as per the belief: Whatever is acceptable to you, that's precisely what my moksha, my swanand (bliss) is. This devotee was so free from his pride, and one sadhan (tool/instrument) that the Lord had in fact handed to him in order to achieve such freedom was the restriction of caste. The card that one is dealt with in life is not merely a 'barrier' but rather a deliberate lesson for those graced by the Lord that may allow them to come closer to Him. Indeed, although it seemed from the outside that the devotee did not cross the boundary and did not enter the temple, he was already inside the temple, serving his Lord from within. External barriers are not barriers on the path to the supreme Divine. Rather, they are sadhans, tools to help us remove, overcome our internal barriers. This devotee's story, among other stories within other saints' lives, is a testament to this.