I have a friend who is undergoing a tough phase of her life
due to multiple medical conditions that has curtailed her mobility. Its sad to
see such a lovely and intelligent girl going through such difficult times but
at the same time it is so encouraging to see that she has the ability to make
full use of this time by collecting knowledge from everywhere which she might
not have been able to do had she been doing a 9 to 5 job and running around in
the ‘maya’ of life. It would not be wrong to say that she has turned this phase
into a blessing from God.
Although I wish to speak with her often but am able to do it
occasionally thanks to the ‘maya’ around me. She has wonderful stories and
anecdotes that she is able to remember at the right moment and share with
friends like me to understand life as it is happening. In our last conversation
we talked about various topics and how our brain tunes itself to be accepted
socially. And at times conscious efforts have to be made to get out of this.
She shared the story of the two monks who were asked by their guru/ master to
not touch any woman ever in their lives. Both of them had promised their guru
that they would never touch any woman ever in their lives. They lived a very
pious life following each and every teaching of their guru. They became famous
and started going to far off places for sermons. On one such occasion they had
to cross a shallow stream on foot as there were no boats or any bridge. As they
were about to start, a woman asked them for help to cross the river. Due to
past experiences in her life, she was scared of crossing a waterbody but was in
urgent need to do so now. She could not think of walking through the steam. They became perplexed as both the monks had
promised not to touch any woman. But then the first monk picked her up and
started to cross the river. The second monk got confused and angry seeing this
but followed both of them as he had to be there for the sermon. On reaching the
other side of the stream, the women parted ways after thanking the monk. Both
the monks continued on their journey but the second monk was not pleased with
the first monk for having touched the woman. He stopped himself from showing
his anger towards the first monk. They had a very good sermon session and then
continued to move to a different village. Unable to digest the incident the second
monk started distancing himself from the first monk as he believed that the
first monk had broken his promise.
As they were on the journey together for months, the second
monk gathered some strength and asked the first monk as to why he helped the
woman and broke the promise they had made with the guru? Did he not remember
the promise? To this the first monk gave a surprised look and smiled. He
answered ‘ I helped the woman in need and dropped her at the banks many days
ago but you are still carrying her on your head’. The first monk did break the promise technically but the second
monk kept the promise but forgot all the other teachings that the guru might
have given him. He kept the woman on his
head all this while and also the negative emotions against the first monk. He unnecessarily
had so much of burden on his head. But don’t we tend to behave like the second
monk and keep unnecessary things on our head many times knowingly or unknowingly.
I know it is difficult to let go of many things but maturity
is when you realise that keeping that thing in your head is not going to change
anything and learning to let it go. Let
it go to attain the freedom, let it go to enjoy the present and let it go to be
ready to receive better things in future. We have to keep our vessels empty to receive
as full vessels cannot keep more. Take lesson from incidents and empty the
vessel to be ready to have more experiences and lessons. Our past can be longer
than our future as we don’t know how much we will live. So why carry the past
to burden the future.
‘let go’ is the new mantra.
*Maya literally means ‘illusion’ or ‘magic’
Wonderful read
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