Once the great Sage Vyasa was sitting on the banks of the river Yamuna at Vrindavan. There were also a few milk maids who waited with their pots brimming with milk, curd and butter to be sold in the villages on the other bank of the river.
The milkmaids stood helpless to get on to the opposite bank as there was no ferry boat in sight. Hence they approached Sage Vyasa to seek his aid in order to cross the river. Sage Vyasa readily came forward to help them out, but first asked the maids if they could appease his hunger by parting away with a little of their condensed milk and curd. The maids gladly satiated his hunger and urged him to help them get to the other bank.
Sage Vyasa walked up to the stream and with folded hands prayed to Mother Yamuna asking her waters to give way if he had not eaten anything. The girls giggled at the sage's prayer as his belly was just filled with their milk and curd. But to their utter surprise the waters of the river parted to create a passage for them to safely pass through to her other bank. The sage thus led the girls across the river-bed to the opposite bank effortlessly.
Sage Vyasa was self realized. He dwelled unswervingly in the self that he did not associate himself with the body and the mind. He thoroughly knew and abided in the atman that though his body and mind and took part in the act of eating and drink in truth he had not.
(courtesy : http://living.oneindia.in/yoga-spirituality/anecdotes/2009/yamuna-self-realization-short-story-050209.html)
