Month: January 2012

Fill The Room

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A story that I heard from a Senior Acharya of  Pujya Gurudev Sri Sri Ravishankarji (Follow Him on @SriSri on Twitter)  – combination of imagination, compassion and morals. Enjoy!!!

There lived a businessman in the city. Everything was working for him. A great family – nice wife and three sons. Wife very loyal and caring to the core. Sons were dutiful, good at studies and very good assistants. Business was at its flourishing best. He was very active socially and was an acknowledged Philanthropist. No one went away from his doors without a dose of his hospitality and large-heartedness. There was nothing lacking in his life so to say.

But as the wise men asserted, nothing lasts forever good or bad times. He fell sick and his doctor told him that he was suffering from an incurable disease and the only way left for him was towards the Heaven (of course, that was the way the arrow pointed for his last journey – remember he always did a good turn to the society at large) . He accepted his fate and preapred for this journey. His only reason for worry was his business. He was pensive as to which of his sons could take best care of his business. He then thought of a nice little test

He called all his sons to his room, one day and gave them 100 rupees each. Asked them to go to the marketplace and buy something that could fill this room. The condition was that no money should be added to this and also that they had time only till sunset.

The first son returned by evening with a bundle of hay and spread it out. It covered two walls of the room and the old man was quite happy. Expectantly looked out for the next son to come in. 

The second son dragged in two huge sacks of Cotton, opened it and spread it out. Wow…it covered 3 walls of the room. Old man’s joy knew no bounds.

The last son came in almost empty handed and the old man totally taken aback asked him what he brought. The son replied, “Father, I fed a poor hungry child with a part of the money, a part of it I dropped it as offering in the temple that is being built and I was left with a rupee. I bought a tiny candle and saying so he lit it. 

All the four walls were now covered and the whole room was filled with the light from this tiny candle.

Let’s resolve to make service to the society and compassion a part of our nature and light up our inner walls. Whatever sense of despair we feel at happenings around us, We can be that Candle that can dispel darkness of the society. We can Light up and feel Light. Remember Angels can fly only because they live their lives light

Asatoma Satgamaya
Tamasoma Jyotirgamaya
Mrutyorma Amruthamgamaya
Om Shantih Shantih Shantih

Cool :-) Dont Worry Be Happy

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We find two types of people around us. One type, usually the majority are those who can never be happy – they look for ways and means to worry their hearts out. When things are going their way, they still worry whether things would change and even that happy moment would pass without them really enjoying. The second type are those, who have decided to be happy come what may. Even the worst of the situations fail to ruffle them or cause any worry to their immediate enjoyment – they have decided to stay happy even when things are terribly wrong. That is the difference between an optimist and a pessimist. Thanks to my Master, Pujya Gurudev Sri Sri Ravishankar (Follow HIM @SriSri on twitter )  who has shown me the way to stay happy and enjoy the present moment – I try to live the life of an optimist and rather add life to my years rather than year to my life. It is so damn tough to find someone who always can smile (I know of a person who lives abroad with her hubby) Hubby who is a worrying kind who relishes being unhappy for no reason, worrying about things. I had only this to say to him, it is really tough for a person to keep smiling and be happy all the while and the easiest thing anyone can do in this world is to pull them to a trough of self pity and unhappiness and raising them back is almost next to impossible. Here is a story on the outlook of two kinds of people that I sent him

An optimist sees the best in the world, while a pessimist sees only the worst. An optimist finds the positive in the negative, and a pessimist can only find the negative in the positive.

For example, an avid duck hunter was in the market for a new bird dog. His search ended when he found a dog that could actually walk on water to retrieve a duck. Shocked by his find, he was sure none of his friends would ever believe him.

He decided to try to break the news to a friend of his, a pessimist by nature, and invited him to hunt with him and his new dog.

As they waited by the shore, a flock of ducks flew by. they fired, and a duck fell. The dog responded and jumped into the water. The dog, however, did not sink but instead walked across the water to retrieve the bird, never getting more than his paws wet. This continued all day long; each time a duck fell, the dog walked across the surface of the water to retrieve it.

The pessimist watched carefully, saw everything, but did not say a single word.

On the drive home the hunter asked his friend, “Did you notice anything unusual about my new dog?”

“I sure did,” responded the pessimist. “He can’t swim.”

Yes, it is almost a cinch, this guy would drown, let alone being unable to swim with this attitude. While Optimist sees the donut, pessimist sees the hole. while optimist sees the glass half full, the pessismist sees the glass half empty.

Despite the corruption, scams and everyting gloomy, on the Republic day, I still am the eternal optimist, loads of hope for every Bharateeya and I am absolutely sure that Glory of Bharat would be restored sooner than later.

Happy Republic day! Vande Mataram and Jai Bharath Mata

Criticism – Taker gets it

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My next story. For me (see PS) it is a Oriental Buddhist story irrespective of what the world says. Football of other’s opinion.

On one of his globe trotting expeditions, Buddha and a couple of his disciples reached a village a hot summer afternoon begging for alms. Remember that He had to beg for his living (as was the practice). Walking they reached a hut with the door that was slightly ajar. They could hear a lady who was pretty hassled trying to put a crying baby to sleep, with smell of something burnt on the cooking on the chulha (stove), washed clothes to be hung on the lines for drying and so on. The monks addressed the lady, begged for alms. She apparently did not hear this and the monks raised their pitch and the lady of the house came out in a fit of rage and gave the monk a piece of her mind…”You fit for nothing fellows….go and beg elsewhere and I am hassled as it is and dont need any more of troubles like you etc etc and she went on and on and verbally abused them to an extent when the disciples were getting really worked up. Ultimately she just turned them away. In those days, it was considered duty of every household to serve the monks who come begging for alms. The disciples were very surprised to find that the Master as usual remained stoic with a serene smile on his face all along. So who were they to react… The monks then came away and proceeded on their way toward some other home where they could expect some alms.


The disciples could not control any longer and one of them asked, “O Master!!! That wretched lady insulted you no ends and still you dont bother. Why is it that you never reacted? I am boiling inside with anger and if you permit me, would like to go back and return the words that she gave us and more”

In reply, the Master gave the Kamandal(a bowl) to the disciple which the disciple dutifully took from the Master.

Master asked him, “Where is the Kamandal?

Disciple replied, “It is with me”

Master : “Why is it with you?”

Disciple : “Because you gave it to me”

Master: “No…. not because I gave it to you, because you took it when I gave it to you.

The Master then replied, “Similarly, I dont have anything to return to the lady since I never took anything from her, If you still feel that you took something from her, go and return by all means

The words of this story is mine so may not be very “Vikram Seth”ish or “Jeffery Archer”ish but I guess it conveys what I intend to state here.

The lesson that we learn from Buddha’s response is that – “NO ONE CAN INSULT YOU WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION”. It’s only when you internalize the insult that you feel bad. Why should someone else’s opinion kill you (kill you internally I mean)

Listen to Guruji Sri Sri Ravishankar (follow HIM @SriSri on Twitter) talk on OPINIONS and their worth In a nutshell, Guruji’s take on Opinions – it is not worth a tinker’s damn and not worth the ink and paper it is written with…. ha ha ha…. (these are not his words, He is never this curt or brusque)

PS:

With due respects to the Americans who happen to read this post, I wish to say that, Like every good thing in this world – the saying “NOBODY CAN CRITICIZE ME WITHOUT MY PERMISSION” is being hijacked and attributed it to Eleanour Roosevelt. Which is so obvious by the irrelevance of the context in which she is supposed to have made this statement.I keyed in this statement into websearch string just before posting it and was astounded to find this attributed to her albeit in a different context