Narada had been asking Krishna one question for as long as either of them could remember.

"What is maya?"

He had read everything written about it. Understood it perfectly as a concept. And never once experienced it.

One afternoon Krishna finally agreed to explain.

"Lie down in the shade of this tree and I will tell you everything.

But first — it is terribly hot. Would you get me some water from that village over there?"

Narada set off happily across the fields.

He reached the village.

He found a well.

And at the well there was a young woman.

And Narada — the immortal sage who had spent eternity chanting the name of God — completely forgot about Krishna.

What happened next took years. Half an hour passed.

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A king made a mistake.

Exhausted and thirsty after a hunt, he came upon a sage deep in meditation and asked for water.

The sage did not respond.

In a moment of frustration the king draped a dead snake around the sage's neck and left.

When the fog lifted he sat very still.

What had he done?

Before he could act, word arrived.

The sage's son had pronounced a curse — in seven days the serpent king Takshaka would come for him.

The king could have built a fortress. Surrounded himself with physicians and every snake-charmer in the land.

Instead he handed his kingdom to his son and walked to the banks of the Ganges.

And asked one question. "What is the best thing a person can do — when they know they are about to die?"

This is Episode 50 of The Long Thread.

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A sadhu was bathing in a river when he saw a scorpion drowning.

He reached in to save it.

The scorpion stung him.

He reached in again.

A hunter watching from the bank had one question.

"Why do you keep trying? You know it will sting you. That is its nature."

The sadhu's answer has been remembered for centuries.

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A man prayed the same prayer every night for decades.

"Why me? As far as I can see I am the most miserable person on earth. Everyone else manages perfectly well. I am not asking for bliss — just let me exchange my misery with anybody else's. Anybody will do."

One night God answered.

"Gather your miseries into a bundle. Bring it to the temple. Tell everyone to do the same."

The man woke up happy for the first time in years.

He arrived at the temple.

And stopped.

Because the bundles everyone else was carrying were the most enormous things he had ever seen.

The merchant who always smiled.

The woman who seemed to have everything.

The man whose laugh rang through the street every morning.

All of them carrying something he had never imagined.

Then God said — "Now choose any bundle you like."

What happened next has been retold for a thousand years.

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A monk named Malunkyaputta had had enough.

The Buddha had never answered the great questions.

Was the cosmos eternal or not?

Was the soul different from the body?

What happens after enlightenment - does the self continue or not?

He went to the Buddha with an ultimatum.

Answer these questions - or I leave.

The Buddha listened carefully.

Then told him a story about a man who had been shot with a poisoned arrow.

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His name was Thinnan.

He was a hunter. He had never set foot in a temple or learned a single mantra.

One day he found an ancient Shiva lingam alone in the forest.

And fell in love with it.

Every day he brought what he had — fresh meat, flowers from his hair, water carried in his mouth.

The Brahmin priest who maintained the shrine was horrified.

He complained to Shiva.

Shiva told him to hide. And watch.

What happened next — and what Shiva said when it was over — is one of the most quietly radical teachings on devotion in the entire Hindu tradition.

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A crow and his wife had built their nest in a great tree.

Every season a black snake lived at its base - and every season without fail, when their chicks had hatched and the nest was full of new life— The snake climbed up.

They could do nothing.

The snake was too large, too powerful, too indifferent to their distress to be fought or reasoned with.

So the crow went to his friend the jackal.

The jackal listened carefully.

Then asked one question.

The solution he gave had nothing to do with fighting the snake at all.

This 2000 year old story from the Panchatantra knows something about every problem that is too large to confront directly.

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A boy was born with eight curves in his body.

His father cursed him before he was born.

At twelve years old he walked into the most learned court in ancient India to win his father's freedom.

The moment he entered — the greatest scholars in the kingdom laughed at him.

Ashtavakra stopped.

Looked around at all of them.

And laughed back.

This story is the doorway to one of the most radical teachings on identity ever recorded anywhere.

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A farmer in drought-stricken India needed water for his crops.

His neighbor had a well and offered to sell it.

They agreed on a price.

The farmer paid every coin.

The neighbor shook his hand warmly and wished him well with his crops.

The next morning the farmer arrived at the well with his buckets.

His neighbor was already there.

What he said next was technically true, completely legal, and one of the most infuriating things one neighbour has ever said to another.

Birbal heard the case.

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A demon performed years of severe penance in the Himalayas.

Shiva appeared and offered him a boon.

He asked for the power to reduce to ash any living being whose head he touched.

Shiva granted it.

Bhasmasura immediately turned toward Shiva - hand outstretched.

The destroyer of the universe turned and ran.

This story from the Hindu Puranas has a phrase named after it in Sanskrit - used to describe any power that turns against the one who holds it.

You will recognize it immediately.

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