A Haiku

I AM SO POOR.
I WOULD HAVE LOVED
TO GIVE THIS MOON TO THAT THIEF,
BUT I DON'T POSSESS IT.
-Zen Haiku

A Zen master lived in a cottage on a faraway hill, many miles away from the town. One fullmoon night a thief entered. The master became very worried because there was nothing that could be stolen except one blanket, and he was wearing that blanket, so what to do? He became so worried that when the thief came in he put the blanket just by the door and hid himself in a corner.

The thief looked all around but in the dark he couldn't see the blanket -- there was nothing. Dejected, frustrated, he was going to leave. So the master shouted, "Wait! Take that blanket! And I am very sorry, because you came such a long way, the night is cold, and there is nothing in this house. Next time you come please inform me beforehand. I will arrange something. I am a poor man, but I will make some arrangements so you can steal. But have pity on me, otherwise I will feel very upset: you take that blanket -- and don't say no!" The thief could not believe what was happening. He was apprehensive; this man seemed strange, nobody had behaved this way before. He simply took the blanket and ran away.

The master wrote a poem that night. Sitting by his window -- the night is cold, the full moon is in the sky -- he wrote a poem, and the gist of the poem was "What a beautiful moon! I would like to give this moon to that thief!" And tears were flowing from his eyes, he was weeping and crying and feeling, "That poor man came from so far away!”
:)

Harsha Bhogle's Note

Harsha Bhogle's note after Ind-SA match:


Remember when you failed an examination. How many people recall that, your class, friends, relatives? You failed to make it to the IITs or IIMs. Who remembers. How many times have you had the feeling of being the best in your class, school, university, state…, you failed to get a visa stamped this quarter…, you missed a promotion this year…, how did it feel when you dad told you in your early twenties that you are good for nothing…..and now your boss tell you the same...


You keep introspecting and go into a shell when people most of whom don’t matter a dime in your life criticize you, back bite you, make fun of you. You are left sad and shattered and you cry when your own kin scoffs at you. You say I am feeling low today. It takes a lot from us to come out of these everyday situations and move on. A lot??? really?


Now here’s a man standing on the third man boundary in the last over of a world cup match. The bowler just has to bowl sensibly to win this game. What the man at the boundary sees is 4 rank bad bowls bowled without any sense of focus, planning or regret. India loses, yet again in those circumstances when he has done just about everything right.


He does not cry. Does not show any emotion. Just keeps his head down and leaves the field. He has seen these failures for 22 years now. And not just his class, relatives, friends but the whole world has seen these failures. We are too immature to even imagine what goes on in that mind and heart of his. That’s why I would never want to be Sachin.

True, he has single handedly lifted to moods of this entire nation umpteen number of times. He has been an inspiration to rise above our mediocrity. Nobody who has ever lifted the willow even comes close to this man’s genius. His dedication and metal strength is unparallel. This is specially for those people who would have made fun of him again last night when India lost. They are people who are mediocre in their own lives. Who just scoff at others to create cheap fun. Who have lived in a small hole throughout their lives and thought they have seen the oceans.


Think about the man himself. He is 37 years of age. He has been playing almost non stop for 22 years. The way he was running and diving around the field last night would have put 22 year olds to shame. The way he played the best opening quickies in the world was breathtaking. He just keeps getting better which is by the way humanly impossible. Its not for nothing that people call him GOD.


But still I don’t want to be in those shoes. We struggle in keeping our monotonous lives straight, lives which affect a limited number of people. Imagine what would be the magnitude of the inner struggle for him, pain both mental and physical, tears that have frozen with time, knees and ankles and every other joint in the body that is either bandaged or needs to be attended to every night, eyes that don’t sleep before a big game, bats that have scored 99 international tons and still see expectations from a billion people.


And he just converts those expectations into reality. We watch in awe, feel privileged.


Well I think its time that his team realizes that enough is enough. They have an obligation, not towards their country alone but towards sachin. They need to win this one for him. Stay assured that he himself will still deliver and leave no stone unturned to make sure India wins this cup.


This is not just a game, and he is not just a sportsman. Its much more than this. Words fail here.....


--- HARSHA BHOGLE

Trust

"A man just got married and was returning home with his wife. They were crossing a lake in a boat when suddenly a great storm arose. The man was a warrior, but the woman became very much afraid because it seemed almost hopeless -- THE BOAT WAS SMALL AND THE STORM WAS REALLY HUGE, AND ANY MOMENT THEY WERE GOING TO BE DROWNED. But the man sat silently, calm and quiet, as if nothing was happening.

The woman was trembling and she said, "Are you not afraid? This may be our last moment of life! IT DOESN'T SEEM THAT WE WILL BE ABLE TO REACH THE OTHER SHORE. Only some miracle can save us, otherwise death is certain. Are you not afraid? Are you mad or something? Are you a stone or something?"


THE MAN LAUGHED AND TOOK THE SWORD OUT OF ITS SHEATH. The woman was even more puzzled -- what he is doing? Then he brought the naked sword close to the woman's neck -- so close that just a small gap was there, it was almost touching her neck.


He said, "ARE YOU AFRAID?"


She started to giggle and laugh and said, "WHY SHOULD I BE AFRAID? If the sword is in your hands, why should I be afraid? I know you love me."


He put the sword back and said, "This is my answer. I know God loves me, and the sword is in His hands, and the storm is in His hands -- so WHATSOEVER IS GOING TO HAPPEN IS GOING TO BE GOOD. If we survive, good; if we don't survive, good -- because EVERYTHING IS IN HIS HANDS, AND HE CANNOT DO ANYTHING WRONG."


This is the trust one needs to imbibe. SUCH TREMENDOUS TRUST IS CAPABLE OF TRANSFORMING YOUR WHOLE LIFE! And ONLY such tremendous trust is capable of transforming your life -- less than that won't do."

Your Love Is Your Destiny

Bauls say,

HONEY IS HIDDEN WITHIN THE LOTUS BLOOM - BUT THE BEE KNOWS IT.

DUNG-BEETLES NESTLE IN DUNG, DISCOUNTING HONEY.

Become a bee; become a lover. Because the bee LOVES honey, it finds the way.

Why cannot the dung-beetle find the way? It finds a certain way; it finds the way to the dung.Because love is the way.

"Whatsoever you love you become, and whatsoever is your love you will find."

So be alert about your love: don't love a car, don't love a house, don't love a bank
balance - because you will become like that. You will become a dung-beetle. Don't love
dung.

If you are to love, then love something of the divine, something...something that
transcends things, something that transcends forms, something for which you will have to
raise your eyes to the sky. Love a GOURISHANKAR; love the Himalayan peaks. If you
love something like dung, you will move into dung because we always find the way.
Wherever our love moves, we move behind it. The bee loves the lotus; it finds it. The
very love is the path. Howsoever the lotus is hiding, the bee will find it.

There is a story about Solomon:

A woman came; the woman was the queen of Ethiopia. She wanted to love Solomon, she

wanted to become his beloved. She was very beautiful, but she wanted to love the wisest

man in the world. So she tried a few tests on Solomon, about whether he was really as

wise as he was said to be. She did many experiments; one of the experiments was this:

she brought one false flower made of paper, but made so beautifully that it was almost

impossible to detect that it was false.

She went into the court of Solomon, she stood far away from Solomon, and she said,

"I have a flower in my hand. Can you say from that far away whether it is real or unreal?"

Solomon said, "Light is not enough, and I'm an old man, and I cannot see rightly. Please

open the windows." The windows were opened. He waited for two minutes and said,

"No, it is false."

Then the woman brought another flower from her bag and she said, "What about this?" It

was exactly like the first, but it was real. Solomon pretended to look at it and then he said,

"Yes, this is a real flower."

The woman was astounded. The whole court was astounded: "What has happened?" They

asked him, "How could you find it?"

He said, "Easy - I opened the windows for the bees to come in. They decided.

For the first flower, no bee came in; for the second they immediately rushed in.

"When you love something, you have a supra-sense about where it is. Your love monitors
you, it leads you, it becomes your guide."

A bee can smell from miles far away where the flowers are. Much experiment and
research has been done with bees about how they find their way. Miles away the flowers
have bloomed, and bees will come rushing. Almost a supra-sense exists in them; that
supra-sense is-nothing but love.

You will find your way to the object you love, so be very cautious about your object of
love because that is going to decide your destiny. Your love is your destiny. Love
something superb; love something of the supra-existence; love something of the divine,
and you will find your way.

Bauls say,

"When there is no fear, just the love is enough; it will monitor you and it will
guide you."

HONEY IS HIDDEN WITHIN THE LOTUS BLOOM - BUT THE BEE KNOWS IT.

DUNG-BEETLES NESTLE IN DUNG, DISCOUNTING HONEY.

Source: The Beloved

Life is like Fire

The senses are like Fire. Your life is like Fire. Whatever you put into the fire of the senses burns. If you burn a tire, it creates pollution and a foul smell. But if you burn sandalwood, it creates fragrance. Some fires pollute and others purify.

Celebration happens around the bonfire. Grief happens around the cremation fire. The same fire that supports life in winter also destroys.

You are like Fire. Are you the fire that produces smoke and pollution, or the flame of camphor that creates light and fragrance? A saint is a camphor flame that creates light and the fragrance of love. He is the friend of life.

The highest quality fire creates light and warmth. A medium quality fire creates light but also a little smoke. The lowest quality fire produces only smoke and darkness. Learn to distinguish the different fires. If your senses are engaged in goodness, you will create light and fragrance. If engaged in impurity, you produce smoke and darkness. It is samyama (control, control of the mind) that transforms the quality of fire in you.

source: Celebrating Silence - Sri Sri Ravishankar

If GOD exist , why there so much of pain?

I went to a barbershop to have his hair cut .


As the barber began to work, I began to have a good conversation. We talked about so many things and various subjects. When we eventually touched on the subject of God, the barber said:
“I don’t believe that God exists.”


“Why do you say that?” I asked .


Barber :
“Well, you just have to go out in the street to realize that God doesn’t exist. Tell me, if God  exists, would there be so many sick people? 
would there be abandoned children?
If God existed, there would be neither suffering nor pain.
I can’t imagine a loving God who would allow all of these things.”


I thought for a moment, but didn’t respond because I didn’t want to start an argument.


The barber finished his job and I left the shop.


Just after I left the barbershop, I saw a man in the street with long, stringy, dirty hair and an untrimmed beard. He looked dirty and unkempt.


I turned back and entered the barber shop again and said to the barber: “You know what? Barbers do not exist.”


“How can you say that?” asked the surprised barber.
“I am here, and I am a barber. And I just worked on you!”


“No!” I exclaimed. “Barbers don’t exist because if they did, there would be no people with dirty long hair and untrimmed beards, like that man outside.”


“Ah, but barbers DO exist! That’s what happens when people do not come to me.”


“Exactly!” I affirmed . “That’s the point! God, too, DOES exist! That’s what happens when people do not go to Him and don’t look to Him for help. That’s! why there’s so much pain and suffering in the world.”


:)

A Mouse Story

A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package.

“What food might this contain?” The mouse wondered - he was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.

Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning.

“There is a mousetrap in the house!

There is a mousetrap in the house!”

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said,

“Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you

but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it.”

The mouse turned to the pig and told him,

“There is a mousetrap in the house!

There is a mousetrap in the house!”

The pig sympathized, but said,

“I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it

but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers.”

The mouse turned to the cow and said,

“There is a mousetrap in the house!

There is a mousetrap in the house!”

The cow said, “Wow, Mr. Mouse. I’m sorry for you,

but it’s no skin off my nose.”

So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer’s mousetrap– alone.

That very night a sound was heard throughout the house – like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey.

The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. 

In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught.

The snake bit the farmer’s wife.

The farmer rushed her to the hospital and she returned home with a fever.

Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup’s main ingredient.

But his wife’s sickness continued,

so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.

The farmer’s wife did not get well; she died.

So many people came for her funeral, the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them.

The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness.

So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn’t concern you,

remember — when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk.

We are all involved in this journey called life.

We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage one another.

:)