your bridge home
Tales of the Gods
Bhima found an old monkey lying across the forest path and told it to move. It asked him to lift its tail himself.
Bhima was walking through the forest, and there was an old monkey lying across the path.
He told it to move. It said it was tired, and asked him to lift its tail out of the way himself.
Bhima was the strongest man alive and he took hold of the tail and could not move it. Not that he could not move it easily. He could not move it at all. And that is when he understood who was lying in front of him.
Hold on to that scene, because it tells you the whole thing.
Bhima did not perform a rite. He did not fast, or find a priest, or wait for a lucky day. He was walking somewhere, on ordinary ground, and he met a god.
That is the usual set-up, and it is worth being clear about it.
You reach a god across a distance. It takes ritual, or the right day of the calendar, or a priest who knows the words. The god lives somewhere you cannot walk to, and worship is the work of closing that gap.
The rest of this story, read aloud, and a new one every day.