The lonely goatherd...and cowherd

 

Most of us have heard the song, 'The lonely goatherd'. Here is the audio track:

The lonely goatherd

But, my point is this: how can a goatherd be lonely when they are surrounded by goats? Don't the goats love the goatherd and keep them company?

As opposed to the goatherd of Sound of Music, a Mahapurush narrated this story of another goatherd (and cowherd) who clearly was not lonely at all:

Many, many years ago, Agastha muni and his disciple were in deep meditation in the Himalayas. Agastha muni came down from the Himalayas and took hermitage in Kerala. His disciple, another accomplished Yogi himself, later went South in search of his Guru.

Once he reached what is now Tamilnadu, he found a herd of cows and goats crying inconsolably in a jungle. Elevated that he was, he found the reason of their grief. The goatherd who had brought them into the jungle for grazing had passed away all of a sudden. This goatherd (and cowherd) had never been lonely. The herd's collective grief knew no bounds. Moved by their crying, the Yogi went into the hollow of a huge tree and gave up his sukshma sharira and entered the body of the goatherd. The goatherd sprang back to life, The cows and goats were very happy and stopped crying. However, he was never the same goatherd thereafter. He started mumbling about Vedanta and other highly elevated spiritual talks. When folks from afar came upon him in the jungle, they asked him his name and identity. The man would only mutter spiritual mumblings. The folks not knowing what to do, named him 'Shri Shepherd', or, 'Tirumular' in Tamil.

Now, the folks found the body of the Yogi in the hollow of the huge tree. Not knowing anything about the deceased. they cremated the body. As would appear, the Yogi now had no way to back to his body and had to lead the rest of his life as Tirumular. When Tirumular -outwardly the deceased shepherd- went home that day, his wife found some strange behaviour in him. He did not go to the cow shed to tend to the cows. Instead, he went straight into a congregation of Sadhus. 

Narrating the story further, the Mahapurush said that Tirumular went on write the Thirumantiram, a collection of about three thousand Tamil verses that are essentially exposition on Vedanta and Shaiva Siddhanta. Among other things, the Mahapurush said that the verses contain how to make Samadhi of a Yogi when a Yogi passes away.