THE SMALL CLAY POT

While unfolding the Chandogya Upanishad, on one particular day Swamiji donned his ventriloquist’s hat and got engaged in a dialogue with a couple of clay pots:
Swamiji: (Holding a small clay pot in his hand): Who are you?
Small Pot: I am a pot.
Swamiji: What kind of a pot are you?
Small Pot: I am a small clay pot.
Swamiji: Where did you come from?
Small Pot: From Khaziabad.
Swamiji: When were you born?
Small Pot: I was born in 1996.
Swamiji: So you are one year old. How long do you think that you will live?
Small Pot: I may die any minute.
Swamiji: Why?
Small Pot: Because you are balancing me precariously with two fingers. I don’t trust you. You may drop me. Put me down.
Swamiji: Are you happy sitting down?
Small Pot: No.
Swamiji: Why?
Small Pot: Nobody looks at me.
Swamiji: And suppose people look at you, will you be happy?
Small Pot: Hope so.
Swamiji: (From a menagerie of props kept under his desk, Swamiji brings out a big clay pot and holding it in his other hand says to the small pot): Are you happy now?
Small Pot: No.
Swamiji: Why?
Small Pot: They are looking at that fellow also (meaning the big pot).
Swamiji: They look at you also. Why should you be unhappy when they look at this fellow?
Small Pot: Look at him, he is so big and I am so small.
Swamiji: So you want to be big?
Small Pot: Yes
Swamiji: How big?
Small Pot: B – I – G!
Swamiji: Why don’t you ask this fellow if he is happy?
Small Pot: (to the big pot) – Are you happy?
Big Pot: No. I am not.
Small pot: You should be. You are big.
Big Pot: Big! What does big mean? Nothing. I have no job satisfaction. I sit under the desk in the darkness all the time. Once in a while the Swami decides to bring me out. No one looks at me otherwise.
Small Pot: I look at you. I’m under the table too.
Big Pot: You are a midget, a Lilliput, a nobody. You looking at me means nothing. (At this small pot becomes very sad).
Swamiji: Do you want to be out of this sadness?
Small Pot: How can you do that? Maybe, I should go to America.
Swamiji: What will you do there?
Small Pot: There will be more opportunities.
Swamiji: Do you know your problem?
Small Pot: Yes. I know my problem.
Swamiji: What is it?
Small Pot: I am sad.
Swamiji: Is that the only problem? Perhaps it is different.
Small Pot: No I know. I am small and I am sad.
Swamiji: Do you know YOURSELF?
Small Pot: Don’t talk to me like a Vedantin. I am pot. What a question!
Swamiji: Who are you?
Small Pot: Who am I?
Swamiji: You should know your reality.
Small Pot: What reality? I am pot, that is real. I am small, that is real. I may fall out any moment and break, that is real. Before this happens I want to make it.
Swamiji: You are immortal. That is your reality. Know that.
Small Pot: What is immortal? What is this reality? (The small fellow yielded a little bit. So far he was denying and rejecting. Now he wants to know. This is desire, Iccha.)
Swamiji: Listen, do you sleep?
Small Pot: Generally I sleep all the time. It is so dark under the desk.
Swamiji: In sleep do you feel you are a pot?
Small Pot: No. That is why I like sleep.
Swamiji: In sleep do you exist?
Small Pot: Yeah.
Swamiji: How do you know?
Small Pot: Because I am there, I can say I slept.
Swamiji: All right. That means without thinking you are a small pot, you can exist.
Small Pot: Yes, that is true. In fact, whenever I think I am not a small pot, I am happy.
Swamiji: Maybe that is what you are – not small. That is why you can forget it. If it was real you couldn’t get rid of it.
Small Pot: So who am I?
Swamiji: You are clay.
Small Pot: What?
Swamiji: Clay.
Small Pot: For our world, clay is God.
Swamiji: Clay is God? How do you know?
Small Pot: That is what they say. I am born of clay, sustained by clay and go back to clay. Therefore clay is God.
Swamiji: Are you born of clay?
Small Pot: Yes.
Swamiji: Are you sustained by clay? And go back to it?
Small Pot: Yes.
Swamiji: Then you are clay.
Small Pot: Can you repeat that?
Swamiji: Tell me, before you were born, what were you?
Small Pot: I was clay.
Swamiji: If you are born of clay and sustained by it, are you clay or not?
Small Pot: Yes. I am clay.
Swamiji: Suppose this beg fellow goes, where will he go?
Small Pot: He’ll go back to clay.
Swamiji: Was he separate from clay in order to go back to clay?
Small Pot: No.
Swamiji: Then what is he?
Small Pot: He is clay.
Swamiji: Who are you?
Small Pot: I am a small clay pot. That is my reality.
Swamiji: Are you sad now?
Small Pot: No.
Swamiji: How come?
Small Pot: Because I know I am clay. He is also clay like me.
Swamiji: Are you jealous of him now?
Small Pot: How can I be? He is me.
Swamiji: How many of you are there in the clay world?
Small Pot: Only one. (To the big pot): You and I are the same. We are clay.
Big Pot: What did you say? You are clay? That makes you God.
Small Pot: Yes.
Big Pot: Look at this Lilliput! He is not even two inches and he says he is God.
Swamiji: (Referring to the big pot and putting him back under the table): This fellow cannot be taught.
RISHIKESH, INDIA, 1997. An excerpt from “Talks and Essays of Swami Dayananda – A collection”