Lite is Beautiful If You Stay Cool
It was a beautiful night. Poets lay awake, drawing inspiration from the star- spangled sky. Lovers drew closer, gazing at the moon. The elderly came out to feel the cool breeze. Children were playing in the moonlight. One man watched all this with increasing despair. He was a thief. If nobody slept, how was he to do what he wanted to do? The entire community was awake. He waited endlessly. Somehow the people of this town were just not sleepy that night. Hours of waiting and strolling around in search of a dark sleeping household made the thief very tired. As the night gave way to dawn, he lay down under a tree and within seconds, he was fast asleep. Even the sun's sharp i rays failed to rouse the thief from his deep sleep. A drunkard tottered along and seeing the man lying curled up beneath the tree he muttered: "This guy must be my master. He must have drunk so much that he is still not able to get up. Stupid fellow doesn't know his limits...". Another passerby, a professional gambler, stopped and bent down to check the sleeping man's pockets. Finding them empty, he checked his own and was satisfied that his cash was safe. "Poor guy!" he thought to himself. "He must have gambled all night to his last paisa. Too bad he didn't know when to stop...his wife wouldn't have let him in the house and so the poor fella must have fallen asleep here...". The day was gathering momentum. The sun was really sharp and yet the thief was asleep. A few schoolchildren were playing football. A passerby cautioned them, "Look children there is a man sleeping here. Be careful not to disturb him." Having advised the children the man who was also a thief went closer to the sleeping man. "He must be a thief like me who having found nothing all night is trying to sleep off his frustration." "The greatest truth is that a single person or fact can be looked at in many dif ferent ways," says Acharya Mahapragya. We saw how one sleeping man evoked so many different reactions. Similarly, any one incident or utterance can be interpreted to mean very many different things. To be able to accept the possibility that other perceptions may also be true or plausible is the philosophy of anekanta. and this is the basis for advocating practice of no violence or ahimsa. When you go into a garden and see different kinds of flowers in full bloom, you marvel at nature and enjoy the beauty of each flower, its unique shape, colour and perfume. But when you walk into a room full of peo- ple, each holding a view different from yours, you find it difficult to accept. Truth is never unidimensional. It is relative and de pendent on time, place, matter and the state in which you are. Mahavira tau ght not just to ght not just to too patronising he also advised all to give equal weightage to other possibili ties and look for a solution that incorporates all of them in one way or other. To do this one needs to have control over one's emotions. One sees in others what one perceives as the cause. This idea of what can be the cause emerges from one's own personal experience. True knowledge is said to be that where you only know, not experience. Poetry, for instance, is emotion recollected at leisure-in a tranquil frame of mind. Life, too, can be a beautiful poem if only we learn to tranquillise our emotions.
DISCLAIMER:
The views expressed in the Article above are Sudhamahi Regunathan personal views and kashmiribhatta.in is not in any way responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article. The article belongs to its respective owner or owners and this site does not claim any right over it.
Courtesy: Sudhamahi Regunathan and Speaking Tree ,Times of India
Lite is Beautiful If You Stay Cool
It was a beautiful night. Poets lay awake, drawing inspiration from the star- spangled sky. Lovers drew closer, gazing at the moon. The elderly came out to feel the cool breeze. Children were playing in the moonlight. One man watched all this with increasing despair. He was a thief. If nobody slept, how was he to do what he wanted to do? The entire community was awake. He waited endlessly. Somehow the people of this town were just not sleepy that night. Hours of waiting and strolling around in search of a dark sleeping household made the thief very tired. As the night gave way to dawn, he lay down under a tree and within seconds, he was fast asleep. Even the sun's sharp i rays failed to rouse the thief from his deep sleep. A drunkard tottered along and seeing the man lying curled up beneath the tree he muttered: "This guy must be my master. He must have drunk so much that he is still not able to get up. Stupid fellow doesn't know his limits...". Another passerby, a professional gambler, stopped and bent down to check the sleeping man's pockets. Finding them empty, he checked his own and was satisfied that his cash was safe. "Poor guy!" he thought to himself. "He must have gambled all night to his last paisa. Too bad he didn't know when to stop...his wife wouldn't have let him in the house and so the poor fella must have fallen asleep here...". The day was gathering momentum. The sun was really sharp and yet the thief was asleep. A few schoolchildren were playing football. A passerby cautioned them, "Look children there is a man sleeping here. Be careful not to disturb him." Having advised the children the man who was also a thief went closer to the sleeping man. "He must be a thief like me who having found nothing all night is trying to sleep off his frustration." "The greatest truth is that a single person or fact can be looked at in many dif ferent ways," says Acharya Mahapragya. We saw how one sleeping man evoked so many different reactions. Similarly, any one incident or utterance can be interpreted to mean very many different things. To be able to accept the possibility that other perceptions may also be true or plausible is the philosophy of anekanta. and this is the basis for advocating practice of no violence or ahimsa. When you go into a garden and see different kinds of flowers in full bloom, you marvel at nature and enjoy the beauty of each flower, its unique shape, colour and perfume. But when you walk into a room full of peo- ple, each holding a view different from yours, you find it difficult to accept. Truth is never unidimensional. It is relative and de pendent on time, place, matter and the state in which you are. Mahavira tau ght not just to ght not just to too patronising he also advised all to give equal weightage to other possibili ties and look for a solution that incorporates all of them in one way or other. To do this one needs to have control over one's emotions. One sees in others what one perceives as the cause. This idea of what can be the cause emerges from one's own personal experience. True knowledge is said to be that where you only know, not experience. Poetry, for instance, is emotion recollected at leisure-in a tranquil frame of mind. Life, too, can be a beautiful poem if only we learn to tranquillise our emotions.
DISCLAIMER:
The views expressed in the Article above are Sudhamahi Regunathan personal views and kashmiribhatta.in is not in any way responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article. The article belongs to its respective owner or owners and this site does not claim any right over it.
Courtesy: Sudhamahi Regunathan and Speaking Tree ,Times of India