Once upon a time, there was a king who liked to chant the Vedas. He asked his Rajaguru to teach him the vedas. The Rajaguru refused under some pretext or the other. As the king became impatient after some months, Rajaguru said that the King was not yet ready to learn the vedas. He tried to explain that one has to go through a period of strict discipline and become eligible before the learning starts.
The king refused to believe it and found out another teacher in a nearby village. The King returned happily after a month and boasted to the Rajaguru that he had learnt chanting of the vedas.
The Rajaguru seemingly angry, shouted at the nearby body guard to slap the king hard. The court was stunned for a while and the body guard was perplexed. The Rajaguru again shouted at the body guard to slap the king. When this was repeated two or three times, the King got annoyed and shouted at the body guard to slap the Rajaguru hard. The body guard obliged and slapped the Rajaguru.
Then the Rajaguru told the king, "See, when I asked the bodyguard to slap he would not slap you inspite of the fact that I told him several times. He never listened to me and I wasted my energy. However, when you told, he immediately obliged. That is because you are eligible to say what you said and can see the effect of your words. Similarly, one has to be eligible to be able to say something or pray something in order the see the effect."
The King felt that he was slapped now and learnt an important lesson in life.
(as told by my dear friend Jayant Pande)
