Piṣṭapeṣaṇa nyāyaḥ (grinding flour)
The miller invests his labor to get flour by grinding grains. After that another man takes the same flour and puts it for grinding again, producing just the same flour and claiming the credit of producing the flour for himself.
It is good for nothing to imitate an activity already performed by someone else. Original is liked the best, whereas imitators are never much appreciated. We might smirk at this particular anecdote of grinding the flour, but when it comes to our billion times repeated same sense-gratification, not even a gleam of self-submission comes to our consciousness. We proudly claim, “I invented this. I created that. This is what I am doing and controlling. This is how I am. This is how I am doing.” That is a bleak dead-end direction. We stubbornly won't admit the original Creator and Actor of it all, the cause of all causes, īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ. Here, a few examples speak for it all. God creates Sun, man creates meager light by inventing the electric bulb. God creates birds, man invents clumsy airplanes. God creates fresh spring water, man pollutes water and creates unhealthy filtered water. God gives the brain to comprehend the Absolute Person, but we use the same brain to create a computer so that our brains can degenerate more in that way. The Supreme Lord Śrī Hari is asking us to be happy with what He created for us, the ability He gave us, all the resources, etc., and asked us to remember Him, by the constant performance of sacrifice of activities which He Himself originally performs to show us what and how to act so not to be boringly imitative. The secret lies in a conscious effort attitude to be mindful of the Lord's wish. That is the originality of each soul.
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