Implicit devotion to the words of the guru is one of the disciplines of a disciple. This value is conveyed through a poignant story in the Mahabharata. Rishi Ayoda Dhaumya had a disciple called Upamanyu. He called on him and asked him to protect the cows.
The boy went by day to take care of the cows and at dusk, he stood in front of his master. “How do you sustain yourself my child, you are so chubby?” the guru asked.
Upamanyu said he sought for alms. The guru’s testing began here. He said: “Don’t eat anything you sought from the alms that you have not offered to me.” The student promptly offered the food to his guru. He went back to attend to the cattle. Again, the teacher asked how he supported himself as he had taken away all the alms that he received. Upamanyu said, “After returning it to you, I go again for begging and I eat what I get.” The guru chided the disciple once more, and said he should not obtain food from householders two times.
Again the student came back the next day, and he was looking still the stout self he was earlier. When asked, he said he drank the milk of the cows. The guru again scolded him, and said: “The milk of the cows belongs to the calves and you could not deprive their share.”
Unrelentingly, Upamanyu listened to his teacher. Yet he was fine to look at the next day. When the teacher asked, he said he drank the froth that fell from the calves’ mouth after they had drunk milk from the cow’s udder. The guru continued in the same vein. The calves spat out froth out of love for Upamanyu and he should not take that too.
Upamanyu left again to take care of the cattle. With all modes of food being stopped under the directions of the guru, the hungry Upamanyu ate the leaves of the Arka tree in the forest. With the poisonous nature of the leaves, he became blind and fell into a well.
When Upamanyu did not return, the teacher went with his disciples in search of him to the forest and called out to him. “I have fallen into this well,” the lad shouted on hearing the teacher’s voice. The teacher advised him to sing a song in praise of the Ashwini Devatas.
He praised the twin divine physicians, and they were pleased with him and gave him a cake-shaped food to eat. He refused it saying he can’t eat it without offering it to his teacher. The twins said that earlier his teacher ate food without offering to his teacher, and entreated him to do the same. He still refused and the divine doctors were pleased. They gifted him the boon of gold teeth and restored his vision too.
The teacher, who was happy to hear this, said that it was a test for him. All the Vedas and codes of conduct would reveal themselves naturally to Upamanyu, the teacher blessed.
(www.sharanyachaitanya.blogspot.in)