Company of good and Wise People ( Story)

A master; a guru taught his disciple all that he knew. Having taught all the scriptures, he told the disciple that for the final teaching he would have to go to a nearby ashram. He told the disciple to go to another guru there for the final teaching. The disciple was wondering why his guru would send him to another guru. He was much more knowledgeable than the other guru.

Though in a dilemma; he decided to obey his guru and went to the nearby ashram to meet the other guru. To his surprise; the other guru had stopped teaching. He was engrossed in serving food to his disciples with love, cleaning up the left overs as well as washing the dishes.

The disciple saw this and learnt what it meant to serve out of love. Later he noticed something profound. The guru himself washed the dishes and kept them in order before he went to sleep.

Next morning, he used to take out the dishes, washed them again and started cooking. The disciple was wondering as to why the guru should wash the dishes all over again in the morning while they were already been washed thoroughly earlier in the night and that dishes were not dusty either. He observed all such details and came back to narrate to his earlier guru.

He narrated, ‘I cannot understand this strange fact of why should the guru in the ashram wash the already cleaned vessels again in the morning, why should he do that?”

To which his guru replied, “Yes, this is the understanding that I wanted you to observe and get totally.”

You cleanse your mind regularly but your mind starts collecting dust along the way in the form of a clutter, foggy and unclear understanding. Please do not say that you do meditation once and stop at that. So long as your mind gathers dust it has to be cleansed. It is a constant process of cleansing and purifying our mind.

Essence

Goal of every human is to realize his/her true self and finally merge in Him or the source. When we are so much entangled in our daily duties, relationships and other activities of the world; we seldom have time or even bother to ponder about our actual self. We always associate ourselves with our body and relationships we have built around us. Later when we lose these relationships or even when this body suffers we are so unhappy.

This is because we chase after something which is impermanent. True, it is no easy to understand this and it is easier said than done. But ‘satsang’ or company of good, wise people at least propels us to think about who we are and what is the ultimate goal of life? Without a Master or good company it is not easy for one to proceed into this self inquiry. So company of good is the first step towards the path of self realization. If we begin now; we know not when or in how many lifetimes we will achieve our goal. But we would have at least begun the journey on this path.

For Students

It is said; “Tell me your company and i will tell who you are”. It is very important to have good company and friends from young age. One rotten fruit can spoil the entire basket of fruits. So one must be careful in choosing their friends. The values which children develop at a younger age remains with them throughout their lives. Hence company of good friends and value based education from an early age is very vital

The 7 Wonders

Anna was a 9-year-old girl from the small village. She finished attending elementary school till 4th grade at her village. For the 5th grade onward, she will have to get an admission in a school at a city nearby. She got very happy knowing that she was accepted in a very reputed school in a city. Today was the first day of her school and she was waiting for her school bus. Once the bus came, she got in it quickly. She was very excited.

Once the bus reached to her school, all students started going to their classes. Anna also made it to her classroom after asking fellow students for direction. Upon seeing her simple clothing and knowing she is from a small village, other students started making fun of her. The teacher soon arrived and she asked everyone to keep quiet. She introduced Anna to the class and told that she will be studying with them only from today.

Then the teacher told the students to be ready for the surprise test now! She told everyone to write down the 7 wonders of the world. Everyone started writing the answer quickly. Anna started to write the answer slowly.

When everyone except Anna had submitted their answer paper, the teacher came and asked Anna, “What happened Dear? Don’t worry, Just write what you know as other students have learned about it just a couple of days back”.

Anna replied, “I was thinking that there are so many things, which 7 I can pick to write!” And, then she handed her answer paper to the teacher. The teacher started reading everyone’s answers and the majority had answered them correctly such as The Great Wall of China, Colosseum, Stonehedge, Great Pyramid of Giza, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Tajmahal, Hanging Gardens of Babylon etc.

The teacher was happy as students had remembered what she had taught them. At last the teacher picked up Anna’s answer paper and started reading.

“The 7 Wonders are – To be able to See, To be able to Hear, To be able to Feel, To Laugh, To Think, To be Kind, To Love!” The teacher stood stunned and the whole class was speechless. Today, a girl from the small village reminded them about the precious gifts that god has given us, which are truly a wonder.

Value what you have, use what you have, trust what you have. You don’t always have to look away to find an inspiration. God has given you all the strength to reach your goals.

By avoiding any situation one cannot face the challenges of life (Story)

Once upon a time, there was a tortoise who lived on a ship. One day the ship sank. After swimming for a long time, the tortoise reached a deserted land surrounded by water on all three sides. The landward side led up to a big, steep, craggy mountain.

The tortoise was tired from the long swimming, looked. For food, but there was nothing in that land for the tortoise to eat. To avoid starving to death, the tortoise decided to climb to the top of the mountain, hoping that on the other side of the mountain he would find something to eat.

As he got to the snow-covered summit of the mountain, he was freezing cold. Suddenly a snow storm started. He struggled hard and managed to make out a small pathway leading towards the other side of the mountain.snow

But the path was guarded by a big monster which were making lots of noise. The tortoise was terrified to death hearing the noises and wanted to hide his head inside his shell, but he controlled his fear and looked around him. He saw that many other animals were lying dead. The tortoise understood that those animals had died due to the unbearable cold. So the tortoise didn’t go into his shell for he understood that he too would die if he did not find a way to escape from that place.

He rallied his spirit and gathered courage to make his long journey towards the other side, which meant he had to cross the monsters.

As the tortoise started towards the monsters, the monsters changed their shapes. The tortoise came very close to the monster. Suddenly, the tortoise realized that it was actually a large pile of rocks and not monsters at all. The rocks were actually formed in the shape like monsters. As for the, the tortoise realized this was just the sound of the wind blowing through a small cave.

The tortoise felt confident and carried on with journey, and eventually descended into a beautiful valley. The valley was filled with woods, and plenty of food. The tortoise lived in that valley very happily, and became known to the others in the valley as the Brave Little Tortoise.

By avoiding any situation one cannot face the challenges of life. Something or the other will challenging us. It will create fear and insecurity in us. The only way to deal with the fear is to face it with all strength and faith. Most of the fears will be imaginary. Every problem has a solution. When our mind is clouded with fear we cannot act rationally and wisely.

Permanent residence in heaven ( Story )

One day a young man came to the Buddha, very upset. ‘What happened?’ asked the #Buddha. The young man said: ‘Sir, yesterday my father died. I have come to you with a special request. Please do something for my dead father. When ordinary priests perform some rites or rituals, he gains access to heaven. Sir, if a great man like you performs any rites or rituals for my father, he will gain not only entry but a permanent residence in heaven.

Buddha

Please sir, do something for my #father!’ He was so unbalanced, so emotional. The Buddha knew that any kind of rational argument would have no effect at this stage but he had his own way of explaining things. He asked the young man to go to the market and buy two earthen pots. The young man happily went and bought them, thinking that this was to prepare for some ritual. The Buddha asked him to fill one with butter and the other with stones and pebbles. He did all this.

The Buddha told him to close and seal them properly, and put them both in a nearby pond. He did so and both the pots sank to the bottom. The Buddha now told him to bring a stout stick, strike at them, and break them open. He did so, thinking that now the Buddha would perform a wonderful ritual for his father. #India is a vast and ancient land, full of diversities and extremes. There are people who have attained full enlightenment like the Buddha, and on the other hand, there are people in deep ignorance, immersed in blind faiths, beliefs, and dogmas. One belief is that when a parent dies, the son must take the corpse, put it on the funeral pyre and burn it; when it is half burned, he must take a strong stick, and break open the skull. The belief is that, as the skull is broken on earth, so the gateway of heaven is broken above, and the parent enters heaven. The young man thought that, as his father was already dead and cremated yesterday, the Buddha was asking him to break open these earthen pots as a substitute.

As he did so, the butter escaped from the first and floated to the surface; the pebbles escaped from the second pot and settled at the bottom. ‘Now,’ said the Buddha, ‘this much I have done. Now call all your priests. Let them come here and pray: ‘Oh pebbles, rise to the surface! Oh butter, sink to the bottom!’’ ‘Are you joking, sir? How is this possible? It is against the law of nature, sir. The pebbles are heavier than water; they are bound to stay down, they can’t float. Butter is lighter than water, it is bound to float; it cannot go down.’ ‘Young man, you know so much about the law of nature, and yet you do not want to understand the law that is applicable to one and all. If your father kept performing actions like pebbles and stones, he was bound to go down.

Who can pull him up? If he kept performing actions which are light like butter, he is bound to go up. Who can push him down?’ Our difficulty is that we think that some invisible power will somehow favor us, even though we do nothing to change our own behavior pattern, our own actions. When we understand this eternal law of nature—that the fruits depend on our actions—we will be careful about our actions. This discourse was given by the Buddha to Mahānāma the Sakyan.

Learn to not judge things too quickly ( Story )

There was a man who had four sons. He wanted his sons to learn to not judge things too quickly. So he sent them each on a quest, in turn, to go and look at a pear tree that was a great distance away.

The first son went in the winter, the second in the spring, the third in summer, and the youngest son in the fall. When they had all gone and come back, he called them together to describe what they had seen.
 

The first son said that the tree was ugly, bent, and twisted.

The second son said no – it was covered with green buds and full of promise.

The third son disagreed, he said it was laden with blossoms that smelled so sweet and looked so beautiful, it was the most graceful thing he had ever seen.

The last son disagreed with all of them; he said it was ripe and drooping with fruit, full of life and fulfillment.

The man then explained to his sons that they were all right, because they had each seen but one season in the tree’s life.


He told them that you cannot judge a tree, or a person, by only one season, and that the essence of who they are – and the pleasure, joy, and love that come from that life – can only be measured at the end, when all the seasons are up.

If you give up when it’s winter, you will miss the promise of your spring, the beauty of your summer, fulfillment of your fall.

Don’t judge a life by one difficult season. Don’t let the pain of one season destroy the joy of all the rest.