Offer from God !

A Sufi mystic, Bayazid meditated for years. God was very, very compassionate towards him. Bayazid had made such great efforts, arduous was his search, intense was his prayer. So God sent an angel to him.

The angel approached Bayazid and said, "God is very happy with you. So whatsoever you want He is ready to give you. Your days of seeking and inquiry are finished. Just ask for anything!"

Bayazid said, "No, I don't want to get anything so cheaply because in my life I have been deceived due to such cheap possibility. You cannot deceive me anymore. Convey it to God that I will earn the hard way."

The angel said, "You are foolish! God is just waiting to burn the innermost light of your being. You just ask!"

But Bayazid was firm, he said, "I thank both of you, but I am not going to ask for anything because, whatever I ask for, it will be borrowed from God. So, let me seek and search for it myself!"

The angel said, "God will feel offended. Such a thing has never happened in human history. So God’s offer has to be accepted."

Then Bayazid thought for a moment and looked around. He had a small lamp and the oil in the lamp was almost over.

Bayazid said, "If God really wants to light something, request Him on my behalf to light my small lamp.  The oil is almost over and the night is dark. I have still to meditate. Just this much will do. You just request God to give me one blessing that, the oil in my lamp should not get over so I can meditate the whole night....!"

That's all Bayazid asked for. It seems God was very happy and He said, "This is the right way."

Moral of the Story ....

Yes, that was the right way to desiring! If Bayazid would have accepted the offer and asked for anything other than this, he would have missed.

Friends, whatsoever comes to us without our earning, it is never our own. One possesses only that which one has lived, which one has known and which one has earned.

Have a Blissful Day Friends !

Evil rebounds

Friends, here is a Story from Dhammapada … 


Please Reflect on the contents ….


Early one morning, a hunter was on his way out to hunt with his dogs, when he saw a monk on his alms round. Not particularly fond of monks, he thought that meeting one on the way would only bring him bad luck and he would probably not catch anything at all.
Indeed, as he feared, his bag remained empty all day. On his way back home, the hunter happened to come across the same monk he had seen earlier in the day. Still sore at the monk for having spoiled his hunt, he sought revenge by setting his dogs on the poor monk.
The innocent monk could barely made it into the branches of a nearby tree when the dogs arrived snarling and snapping wildly at him. The monk sat there safely on the tree out of the dogs’ reach until the hunter came along and started poking the monk’s feet with the sharp end of one of his arrows. This made the poor monk keep jumping about to avoid injury. While he was doing so, his robe became undone and started slipping off him….
The monk was now unable to hang on to the robe anymore and could not keep his balance on the tree at the same time. So finally, the robe fell on the hunter standing below, covering him up completely. When the dogs saw the yellow robe, they mistook their master for the monk and attacked mercilessly on him, mauling him to death.
Subsequently, the monk became fraught with guilt, feeling that it was his fault that the hunter got killed. He went to seek the Buddha’s advice.
The Buddha assured him that it was the hunter and not he, who was at fault, for the hunter had tried to harm someone who had done no wrong to him in any way. The Buddha explained to the poor monk that, the hunter came to face an unfortunate death because of his wrong doings.


Moral of the Story ….
Like  fine dust thrown against the wind, evil falls back upon the fool who offends a harmless, pure and innocent man.

Friends, we need to be the master of our thoughts. Never do any harm to others. It is violent and we need to be conscious about it. If we harm the others the harm will come back sooner or later. That's the whole theory of karma ....Whatsoever one does to others will be done to him. So, one should do to others only that which one would like to be done to himself.

Have a Wonderful Day Friends!

Conclusions!

A young widower, who loved his five year old son very much, was away on business when bandits came and burned down the whole village and also took his son away.

When the man returned, he saw the ruins and panicked. He took a burnt corpse of a child to be his son and cried uncontrollably. Then he organised his cremation, collected the ashes and put them in a beautiful ivory box which he always kept with him.

Soon his real son escaped from the bandits and found his way home. He arrived at his father's new house at around midnight and knocked at the door. The father, still grieving, asked,  "Who is it?" The child answered, “It is me papa, please open the door!"

In his agitated and traumatic state of mind, convinced that his son was dead, the father thought that some young boy was making fun of him. He shouted at the child, “Go away and leave me alone!" The man then continued his crying.

The child waited outside the closed doors for a long time and then left crying ... never to return....

Father and son never met each other again....!

Moral of the Story ....

Friends, sometime, somewhere, we take something to be the truth and cling to it so much that, even if the truth comes in person and knocks at our door, we don’t bother even to check.

Everything around us is changing fast, but the mind cannot change so fast. Mind keeps clinging to the past, while everything changes every moment. As time changes, rights change, wrongs change. Every moment things keep changing, but we remain clinging to our fixed ideas and thus life becomes dead.

Thus, we can never be spontaneous and can never be in a right relationship with the situations existing in front of us. We are unable even to act out of responsibility and keep functioning out of our old conclusions which may not be relevant in the present situation. Friends, most of the times we are not even available to look at the situation itself.

Piece of Cake – A Story

fFrom an email forwarded by Ravi Ghatole

Poem. Rabindranath Tagore

  

                             

Club 99!!

Once upon a time, there lived a King who, despite his luxurious lifestyle, was neither happy nor content.

One day, the King came upon a servant who was singing happily while he worked. This fascinated the King; why was he, the Supreme Ruler of the Land, unhappy and gloomy, while a lowly servant had so much joy.

The King asked the servant, 'Why are you so happy?'

The man replied, 'Your Majesty, I am nothing but a servant, but my family and I don't need too much - just a roof over our heads and warm food to fill our tummies.'

The king was not satisfied with that reply. Later in the day, he sought the advice of his most trusted advisor. After hearing the King's woes and the servant's story, the advisor said, 'Your Majesty, I believe that the servant Has not been made part of The 99 Club.'

'The 99 Club? And what exactly is that?' the King inquired.

The advisor replied, 'Your Majesty, to truly know what The 99 Club is, place 99 Gold coins in a bag and leave it at this servant's doorstep.'

When the servant saw the bag, he took it into his house. When he opened the bag, he let out a great shout of joy... So many gold coins!

He began to count them. After several counts, he was at last convinced that there were 99 coins. He wondered, 'What could've happened to that last gold coin? Surely, no one would leave 99 coins!'

He looked everywhere he could, but that final coin was elusive. Finally, exhausted he decided that he was going to have to work harder than ever to earn that gold coin and complete his collection.

From that day, the servant's life was changed. He was overworked, horribly grumpy, and castigated his family for not helping him make that 100th gold coin. He stopped singing while he worked.

Witnessing this drastic transformation, the King was puzzled. When he sought his advisor's help, the advisor said, 'Your Majesty, the servant has now officially joined The 99 Club.'

He continued, 'The 99 Club is a name given to those people who have enough to be happy but are never contented, because they're always yearning and Striving for that extra ‘1’, saying to themselves: 'Let me get that one final thing and then I will be happy for life.' We can be happy, even with very little in our lives, but the minute we're given something bigger and better, we want even more! We lose our sleep, our happiness, we hurt the people around us; all these as a price for our growing needs and desires.

Compassion is Therapeutic!!

When the great Zen Master Bankei held his seclusion-weeks of meditation, students from many parts of Japan came to attend. During one of these gatherings a student was caught stealing. The matter was reported to Master Bankei with the request that, the culprit be expelled. Bankei ignored the case.

Later the same student was caught stealing again, but again the Master disregarded the matter. This angered the other students, who drew up a petition asking for the dismissal of the thief, stating that, otherwise they would all leave Bankei and would study at some other place.

When Bankei had read the petition, he called all his students together. "You are wise brothers," he told them, "You know what is right and what is wrong. You may leave me and may go somewhere else to study if you wish. But this poor brother does not even know right from wrong. Who will teach him if I don’t? I am going to keep him here even if all of you leave."

A torrent of tears cleansed the face of the student who was stealing…. All the desire to steal had now vanished….

Moral of the Story …

Friends, when a flower blooms it releases fragrance. But a flower has limitations, as it is rooted in a bondage. But the fragrance has no bondage. It simply moves and rides on the winds, as it has no moorings in the earth.

Similarly, until and unless the inner being of a man flowers, the fragrance of compassion can not spread. Just like a fragrance, compassion is uncontaminated by any desire or any conditioning. It is uncorrupted by any motivation.

Compassion is not a discipline, hence it cannot be practiced. Friends, compassion is therapeutic, it is the purest form of love. When the consciousness blooms, compassion, grace and blissfulness simply follow behind as a shadow...!!

Have a Great Day Friends!!

The Goat And The Horse. Corporate story

 

There was a farmer who collected horses; he only needed one more breed to complete his collection. 
                                                                        
One day, he found out that his neighbor had the particular horse breed he needed. So, he constantly bothered his neighbor until he sold it to him. 
                                                             
A month later, the horse became ill and he called the veterinarian, who said:- Well, your horse has a virus. He must take this medicine for three days. I'll come back on the 3rd day and if he's not better, we're going to have to put him down.



Nearby, the goat listened closely to their conversation.


                                                                         
The next day, they gave him the medicine and left. The goat approached the horse and said:
- Be strong, my friend. Get up or else they're going to put you to sleep!

On the second day, they gave him the medicine and left. The goat came back and said:
- Come on buddy, get up or else you're going to die! Come on, I'll help you get up. Let's go! One, two, three...


On the third day, they came to give him the medicine and the vet said:
- Unfortunately, we're going to have to put him down tomorrow. Otherwise, the virus might spread and infect the other horses.


After they left, the goat approached the horse and said:
- Listen pal, it's now or never! Get up, come on! Have courage! Come on! Get up! Get up! That's it, slowly! Great! Come on, one, two, three... Good, good. Now faster, come on.... Fantastic! Run, run more!
Yes! Yay! Yes! You did it, you're a champion!!! 
All of a sudden, the owner came back, saw the horse running in the field and began shouting:


- It's a miracle! My horse is cured. This deserves a party. Let's kill the goat!


Points for reflection:

This often happens in the workplace. Nobody
truly knows which employee actually deserves the merit of success, or who's actually contributing the necessary support to make things
happen.


LEARNING TO LIVE WITHOUT RECOGNITION IS A SKILL!
If anyone ever tells you that your work is unprofessional, remember: amateurs built the Ark and professionals built the Titanic.


From an email sent by Francis Joseph

The Absurd Mind!

In a Chinese town there was one big restaurant, very rich and the most beautiful restaurant in the town. Next to that restaurant lived a poor man, who was running a small laundry.

Obviously, he could never visit that restaurant, it was too costly and impossible for him. But the smell of the food, the aroma of the variety of dishes prepared in its kitchen used to keep him sit in the corner and sniff it. Whenever he took his lunch or dinner he used to pull his chair out of his house and used to sit as close to the restaurant as possible and would sniff the aroma of the food that was emanating from the restaurant. Thus he would eat his food and would really enjoy it.

One day he was enjoying his food in the background aroma of the restaurant kitchen and there came the owner of the restaurant. He was holding a bill for enjoying the aroma of the food prepared in his restaurant. The poor man was surprised, but thinking for a moment, he immediately ran into his house. He returned with his tiny money box, rattled it in the ears of the restaurant owner, smiled and said, "Hereby I pay for the aroma of your food, by the sound of my money!"

Moral of the Story ....

Friends, our mind is just like the aroma and sound in the above story, nothing real, nothing authentic. The mind, in fact, is not our reality, it is only a false interpretation.

If one can see this whole procession of meaningless, fruitless effort leading nowhere and if one becomes aware of this whole nonsense as if in a flash of lightning, then one will laugh at the absurdity of the human mind.

Friends, mind is a prison. It cannot find any freedom anywhere, because we are identified with it and hence we never allow the mind to die. But one should realize that, only through no-mind can blossom the flowers of unselfishness, love, compassion and sharing....!!

Have a Fulfilling Day Friends!

Unburden Yourself

Aldous Huxley had a great library. It was his whole life’s efforts. He had collected many rare books.

One day the library caught fire. The whole library burnt, many valuable manuscripts, art pieces, statues, paintings, were burnt. Aldous Huxley had really been a great seeker of beautiful things, but they were all burnt down to ashes. He was just standing and watching the fire, as nothing could be done.

Someone asked him, “You must be feeling quite sad !”

Aldous Huxley said, “I am surprised at what I am feeling. In fact, I am simply feeling very clean, as if the whole burden is gone. I have never felt so clean and unburdened. Suddenly, seeing everything going into flames, I am really feeling weightless!”

Moral of the Story ….

Friends similarly, when we can throw our old conditioning and beliefs to the fire, we can feel very clean and light. It is a non-essential burden, it can not help. Although we know what is right, we always do what is wrong. We know what should be done, but we never do it, we do just the opposite.

We know where the door is but even then we always go on trying to get out through the wall. We stumble and get knocked down, we even hurt our own being, but again and again we keep trying to get out through the wall. We say, “We know the door”, but we have simply heard about the door, but we don’t know it.

Friends, such a door exists only in our fantasy, not in reality….!

Enjoy each Moment of Life Friends !