''I can only rise every time I fall''

I would like to share one of the parables ' Donkey in the well ' as it is learning lesson to face life for success in most difficult times. 

One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally he decided the animal was old, that the well needed to be covered anyway and that it just wasn't worth retrieving the donkey. 

So he invited all his neighbours to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to every one's amazement, he quietened down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well and was astonished at what he saw. 

With every shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up. As the farmer's neighbours continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone were amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and trotted off! 

Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up.

I feel this story is applicable in every walk of my life, whether dealing with people, at personal, social or professional level. 

Every time I fail I should shift my failure from my thoughts to my legs and step on it further and further without looking back only to aim and achieve.

''I can only rise every time I fall''

Control your attention, and you control your mind.

I would like to share this little story ''The Elephant and the fly'' to all my readers written by Remez Sasson which I feel is very inspiring and lesson we can learn from something that is so basic yet true.

A disciple and his teacher were walking through the forest. The disciple was disturbed by the fact that his mind was in constant unrest.

He asked his teacher: "Why most people's minds are restless, and only a few possess a calm mind? What can one do to still the mind?"

The teacher looked at the disciple, smiled and said:
"I will tell you a story. An elephant was standing and picking leaves from a tree. A small fly came, flying and buzzing near his ear. The elephant waved it away with his long ears. Then the fly came again, and the elephant waved it away once more".

This was repeated several times. Then the elephant asked the fly:
"Why are you so restless and noisy? Why can't you stay for a while in one place?"

The fly answered: "I am attracted to whatever I see, hear or smell. My five senses pull me constantly in all directions and I cannot resist them. What is your secret? How can you stay so calm and still?"

The elephant stopped eating and said:
"My five senses do not rule my attention. Whatever I do, I get immersed in it. Now that I am eating, I am completely immersed in eating. In this way I can enjoy my food and chew it better. I rule and control my attention, and not the other way around."

Upon hearing these words, the disciple's eyes opened wide and a smile appeared on his face. He looked at his teacher and said:
"I understand! If my five senses are in control of my mind and attention, then my mind is in constant unrest. If I am in charge of my five senses and attention, then my mind becomes calm".

"Yes, that's right", answered the teacher, " The mind is restless and goes wherever the attention is. Control your attention, and you control your mind".

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lesson for life in bullet points

20 years ago my math teacher screamed at me for scoring poor in class, I always consider her rude without realising that I got only better from the day I was told off.
19 years ago I met my best friend who still is my best friend even though miles away, I have no answers to why I always liked her.
18 years ago I hated that new tall girl in my class as she made me second to the tallest, but I forgot to appreciate the fact that I had more friends even then.
17 years ago I easily showed off to my friends about my dad's extra love for me as he always stood by me in every event of my school days, forgetting that my act could hurt and mislead my friends and they could then doubt on love their parents had to offer.

16 years back I made new friend and enjoyed spending more time with her, I forgot to involve or think about my best friend who must have felt left out.
15 years back I prayed all day so I could score good points in exams, time I spent praying I forgot I could have study.
14 years back I met my first love of my life, I am still glad that my love taught me to use my heartbeats before words. I don't remember if I gave anything in return.
13 years back I was happy that I successfully got into university to complete my graduation and I was glad I don't have to go to school everyday, I am still ashamed that I forgot to thank all those teachers in my school who made my journey possible.

12 years back I decided to fall out of my first love as I got feelings that our love will only get cold over the years, I was so inconsiderate as I decided without consulting and made stories for easy fall out.
11 years back I was so glad as my brother was growing tall and strong and so took him out with my friends more often, I was so stupid to avoid him before as I missed on all those good times I could have had with my only brother.
10years back I was getting more attracted to new technologies never realised that it was pulling me away from basic existence of human life.

9 years ago I was spending good time with my grandparents as they had plenty of stories and their experiences to share. I thought their experiences were stories without realising that those stories were their hardship and my existence was only possible because they faced those hardships.
8 years back I was happy as I got job in financial sector. Not until today I thought of thanking that math teacher who I considered rude in those days when I was only 8.
7 years back I got promoted where I was working, I never realised it was leading to start of my materialistic lifestyle.
6 years back I met my soul mate and promised to live with him forever in good and bad, it was very easy to promise but can get difficult. I never thought I actually stood strong in good and bad, this only makes me feel better.

5 years back I was very happy as I purchased house to make a home. I did not pray for those who had no homes or lost them in natural disasters.
4 years back I started getting more and more into things I wanted to buy, I did not think to find out if those things were reasons for my happiness .If I was happy without them.
3 years back I found that I was soon stepping into new responsibility for rest of my life as I was soon going to be mother. I can now relate to how my mum felt when I acted irresponsible every time.

2 years back I was thinking of buying bigger house and one more investment property, I never thought of reality that no matter how many properties I buy, I can only be happy to be and live around my husband and my son and sleep on one bed at a time and die and get buried in one coffin.
A year back I was thinking of people I am not in touch due to several reasons like anger, jealousy, selfishness, antagonism, carelessness but I only realised recently that it makes no difference if I was in talking terms with them. They are still where they are supposed to be and they will carry on with their lives with or without me. I am only carrying them in my thoughts.

20 years back I was only 8 years old and had very little understanding to what lessons I get to learn from my teachers who will be with me forever, events of my life in a big classroom of my thoughts.

I made bullet points of lessons I learnt from my past events of my life, so I could read them again and again every time I failed to remember real reasons of my existence.

* What I see it as rude is actually like alarm on my reminder. It is time to change myself.
* If I get along well with someone for years then it’s definitely worth to be treasured forever. Relationships work well because both know ins and outs of each other good or bad.
* It is good to come across people who are better than me, even though I get discouraged for a while but eventually I will get exposed to the reality. This world is full of good, better and best.
* I got to respect what others don't have. Showing off will one day put me down, as I will be graded as thoughtless person?
* It is good to meet new people, as it helps in growing inner self. But forgetting old people or friends is like getting uprooted from base.
* It is more important to get act together to perform than to sit back and assume my work will be done. To fulfil my dreams I need to act not sleep.
* Listen to my heartbeats, as it says many things without a word. I got to sometimes follow my instinct and trust my impressions.
* Never to forget that number 10 only comes after 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 and 9. No matter how successful I become in life, it was possible due to presence of all those people and events in the past. I should never forget where I started.
* Never to make decision based on assumptions when dealing with any relationships. If I have any sort of feelings discuss, talk it out, clear it out and then decide, not doing so will be like falsely accusing someone truly innocent. Any behaviour that comes out of assumptions is foolishness. Its a reminder for me that I m not a learned person if I do so.
* If I don't respect members in my family, I would never respect anyone. I got to like and show appreciation to everyone in the society, younger or older.
* Keep track of basic things as getting overly involved with new technologies can leave my brain to rot. For instance, using phone books for contact numbers and calculator for maths should be least done. Drawing with pencil is still fun to draw than those digital sticks.
* Always thank ancestors for my existence. I use telecommunication or maps today because they put hard work to it. We got satellite navigation in car. But our ancestors introduced maps. Never to forget that we are standing on giant shoulders, our ancestors.
* I am just a human having fragile memory system. If I forget my basic I can always remind myself. I may sometimes get carried away and take credits for everything I achieved. Its good to remind myself that number 10 only comes after 9.
* If I am not ambitious then I don't know to live life. It is good to be ambitious only for better living but not to get carried away forgetting main purpose of my life. Working, spending time with my family, appreciating nature and returning favours back to the society.
* Every single person contributes something in our society good or bad, well is to share and bad to learn from.
* To perform I have to promise. If I don't promise I may start looking for different escape routes. 
* It is not house that matters but its home that does. I can make home out of smallest space if I know true meaning of having home.   
* I am blessed with creativity so I can make things I need from natures resources. Peaceful mind, calm sunset, green grass, water puddle these all can be experienced or created for happiness. These are lot better than buying and piling them in house making place more and more confined.
* Though there is bit of generation gap between me and my parents and I don't relate to life like they do, they still can potentially be right from what they learnt in their life which I may only realise when I got to step in same shoes as theirs. 
* No matter how high I could fly, my flight always directs downwards when journey end. No matter how much I grow, I will always grow old.
* Its shame I only just realised that I am not in talking terms with someone because I am still carrying him or her in mind. Judging and executing people based on my thoughts of feeling angry, jealous or competent. It’s a shame.

Like people say, it’s better late than never. I m glad I at least realised what was I doing wrong, as I can now work on it only to make things better leading to peaceful mind.

Gia Guru Nayak

I would like to share beautiful short story by Anthony de Mello about how smallest things in life can give us great pleasure.

The Best Tea In Japan.

There was a group of elderly gentlemen in Japan who would meet to exchange news and drink tea. One of their diversions was to search for costly varieties of tea and create new blends that would delight the palate.
When it was the turn of the oldest member of the group to entertain the others, he served tea with the greatest ceremony, measuring out the leaves from a golden container. Everyone had the highest praise for the tea and demanded to know by what particular combination he had arrived at this exquisite blend.
The old man smiled and said, “Gentlemen, the tea that you find so delightful is the one that is drunk by the peasants on my farm. The finest things in life are neither costly nor hard to find.”

 

Puzzle to puzzle

I was shopping around in toyshop to buy some puzzle block games for my nearly 2 years old son. I ended up buying one for myself too in the end. I was very excited buying them because I remembered having those more than a decade ago when computer games or electronic games weren't as popular as they are these days.

I chose to pick Puzzle game with cardboard pieces having irregular shapes, sizes and colours which when integrated completes into a picture of world map. I organised myself to start putting those puzzle together on board.

I had two options; play to win meaning I could take as long as I like to win in the end. Potentially having all those pieces in place correctly. This method could help me to make decisions without rushing too much. Which means I could breath slowly without getting too judgemental. 

The other alternative to play to win was count down time, where I could time myself to finish my game in certain sensible time frame. Meaning I had to be quick to finish my game and put all those disintegrated pieces in place before I ran out of time. Which also means I had to take quick decisions, breathe fast, may be hastily leading to dislocation and incomplete work.

I was aware that I was at beginners level without mastering my skills I would find very difficult to time myself. So thought of opting for first option, that is win to play and then thought of playing with count down timer the next time. I felt doing so would be fair as I could possibly put them together with my past experience. Deep inside I was nervous with a thought of possibly failing to integrate them by seeing numerous tiny shapes, sizes and colours. But I convinced myself to start playing, as I knew that to get results I need to play, without playing I will never get to experience and learn new things from it.

Learning to put puzzle together was more important than winning or loosing. I then had to centralize as I was deciding on where to start? As I belong to east part of the world. I thought it made more sense for me to start from countries in the east part of the world. I was doing pretty good and was enjoying every minute of putting that puzzle together bit by bit.

When I finished east part, gradually I moved to integrate middle east I knew I wasn't quite as good with it, so I thought of gathering similar colours hoping I will eventually get there and move further to Middle east then European countries, once again I noticed I was struggling to put every single countries together as I was only getting on well with known countries.

I collected matching colours and sizes hoping I could put them together. This logic of gathering similar colours and shapes helped me in a way because then I had to only look for missing gaps to fix pieces of puzzle in.

In an hours time I managed to put all those puzzle pieces together to create a picture of world map. I knew I had few more hours left before my son could wake up so thought to carry on to next option for beginners level and that was timing myself.

As it took an hour last time I thought of timing my game for 45 minutes this time. I started with confidence, as I knew basic logic behind putting puzzle together with help of different colours and had got jut out over it for the first time. I noticed that as soon as time started ticking I got bit restless and in many instances I left countries unfinished and moved to next one. I was getting too judgemental and concluding results without noticing that I was making mistakes. I was nowhere close to finishing line when clock started ticking to the remaining10seconds.

After 45 minutes my puzzle board looked absolute mess. I realised I wrongly jumped to greater level so early. I thought I could time myself without mastering it in first place. I asked myself one question, is there a message to this event of putting puzzle together. I felt like connecting this event to my real life experience.

If my life was like those pieces of puzzle holding different colour – events, size – experience and shapes – my knowledge. I thought how could I possibly put them all together to make my life a meaningful life.

I realised that my life is not any different from those puzzle pieces. My life sits on one board, that is my existence with different colour, sizes, shapes or events, experiences and knowledge. How I live life or play my game is purely my decision. I surely need to dream or to start somewhere to know where I am going because without the start I would never know the results.

Time I give for every little event will only help me to breathe slow and make right decisions and not get impulsive when dealing with people or events of my life. As rushing, breathing fast, getting too judgemental could lead my life in complete mess similar to those puzzle pieces left on board.

Gia Guru Nayak