There are only two ways of looking at life

There are only two ways of looking at life, only two basic attitudes with which you view life-either as a problem or a situation. Those who are smart know the alchemy of converting problems into situations while a fool converts situations into problems.

Osho tells a great Sufi parable: A king wanted to appoint a prime minister. Four great thinkers of the country were called. They were put into a room and told that the door was going to be locked and that the lock was not an ordinary lock, but a mathematical puzzle. "Unless you solve the puzzle, you will not be able to open the door. If you solve the puzzle, you will be able to open the lock and come out."

The king went out and closed the door. Three of the four thinkers got down to work, immediately. They had brought paper and some guide books, and they started working really seriously. There were a few numbers written on the lock. They observed the numbers and noted them down. Then, they started working out the problem.

The fourth thinker simply sat in a corner. The three others thought he was mad. "What is he doing?" He was sitting there with his eyes shut. After a few minutes, he stood up, went to the door, pushed the door and it opened! And he went out...
The other scholars were still busy scratching their heads to solve the problem. They didn't even realise what had just happened. They were too preoccupied to see that the fourth person was already out.

Finally, the king came in with the fourth man. Addressing the three thinkers, he said, "Stop! The examination is over. I have chosen my prime minister. This is the man." They were jolted out of their stupor. They couldn't believe their eyes. They said, "How could this happen? He wasn't doing anything. He just sat in the corner. How could he solve it?"

And the man replied calmly, "There was no problem. I sat there, and the first thing, the basic thing, was to know whether the door was locked or not. I simply meditated silently. I just gathered my consciousness together. I became completely quiet and pondered over where to begin. The first thing an intelligent person always asks is whether there is really a problem or not. If there is a problem, it can be solved; if there is no problem there's nothing to be solved! And if you start solving, you will go into infinite regress. So I went just to check whether the door was really closed, and found that it wasn't."

The king said: "Yes, that was the trick. There was no lock at all. The door was left open. I was waiting for the man who would ask the first real question. You accepted the puzzle and you started solving it; that was where you missed the point. You could not have solved it even if you had worked on it for your entire life. This man knows how to be aware in a situation. He asked the right first question."

The Message in a Bottle

A man was strolling along the beach one day when he spotted a bottle washed up on the shore. He went over and picked it up, and noticed a message in the bottle. He popped the cork out and inside was a weathered treasure map indicating that there was buried treasure to be found in the shallow waters below. But the man thought it was a hoax, so he slipped the map back in and threw the bottle back into the ocean...

A little later, another man was walking along the beach and the bottle had washed upon the shore. He too picked up the bottle, popped out the cork, and found the treasure map. This man, however, was curious enough to wade into the water and hoped it was buried shallow enough to find. But once the cold ocean waters reached up to his thighs, he decided to quit. "This is not worth it!" he thought to himself. So he scrambled back to shore and chucked the bottle back into the ocean....

A third man was walking by the beach and noticed the bottle washed upon the shore. He went over, opened the bottle and found the map. The map looked authentic enough, and promised great treasure... So he got himself a small raft and set out into the ocean to claim the treasure..he rowed out far enough into the ocean where the "X" on the map was and to his surprise, he saw the glint of something shining in the waters below..he dove into the ocean and swam towards the shining object below..he could see that there was something that looked like a treasure chest, but he couldn't quite reach it and the deeper he went, the greater the cold and pressure on his body and his mind..," I am about to lose my breath, and the longer i take, my raft might be swept away!", he thought. So the man decided to give up the hunt so he would ensure his own life and safety..when he reached the shore once more, he took the bottle from the raft and tossed it back into the ocean...

Finally, one more man was walking along the beach. He noticed the bottle, went over, popped it open, and was excited to find a map promising great treasure. He noticed someone had left a raft by the water's edge, so he took it and paddled out. He too, got far enough to where the "X" marks the spot, and squinted into the waters and saw the shadow and glint of the treasure below. He took a deep breath and plunged into the waters. Like the man before him, the cold, darkness and pressure upon his senses increased as he got closer. He also realized that if he kept swimming, that he might lose his breath, the raft, and even his own life! But this treasure could be worth all the risk and he persisted. Just as he was about to give up, he grabbed the long chain that was binding the chest and pulled it up along with himself back to the surface. He broke the surface of the water gasping and exhausted but with the treasure chest safely in his grasp. He paddled back to the shore, opened up the treasure chest and found what the map had promised--gold, and precious diamonds and jewels that would make him secure for the rest of his life.

A relationship with God is a similar treasure hunt. People hear the same message, but the way they receive it will determine the reward they might find.

Eternal life is waiting for all those who are willing to take that risk to follow God all the way of life, where we find love, forgiveness and life everlasting. ... for eternity.

The Broken Pot...

A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water.
At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to his house.
Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.
After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. "I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you. I have been able to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house. Because of my flaws, you have to do a lot of this work, and you don't get full value from your efforts," the pot said.
The bearer said to the pot, "Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side? That's because I have always known about your flaw, and I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you've watered them.
For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house."

Moral:

Each of us has our own unique flaws. We're all cracked pots. But it's the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding.

The Bird that did not Talk

There is a story about a fellow who lived alone and went to a pet store to buy a parrot. He thought the bird might fill some of his lonely hours. The very next day, however, he came back to complain, "That bird doesn't talk."

The store owner asked if he had a mirror in its cage, and the man said he didn't.

"Oh, parrots love mirrors," he explained. "When he sees his reflection in the mirror, he'll just start talking away." So he sold him a birdcage mirror.

The bird owner was back the next day to gripe that his parrot still hadn't said a word. "That's very peculiar," allowed the pet expert. "How about a swing? Birds really love these little swings, and a happy parrot is a talkative parrot." So the man bought a swing, took it home, and installed it in the cage.

But he was back the next day with the same story. "Does he have a ladder to climb?" the salesman asked. "That just has to be the problem. Once he has a ladder, he'll probably talk your ear off!" So the fellow bought a ladder.

The man was back at the pet store when it opened the next day. From the look on his face, the owner knew something was wrong. "Didn't your parrot like the ladder?" he asked. His repeat customer looked up and said, "The parrot died."

"I'm so sorry," the stunned businessman said. "Did he ever say anything?" "Well, yes. He finally talked just before he died. In a weak little voice, he asked me, "don’t they sell any bird seed at that pet store?'"

Some of us have mistakenly thought that happiness consists of lining our cages with toys, gadgets, and other stuff. Excessive consumption has become the hallmark of our life. "Whoever has the most toys wins" seems to be the likely candidate to be the bumper sticker for an entire culture. But is it so?

There is a spiritual hunger in the human heart that can't be satisfied by seeing one's own image reflected back in vanity mirrors, playing with our grown-up toys, or climbing the corporate ladder. Our hearts need real nourishment. The love of family and friends, relationships over the pursuit of more things, personal integrity, a secure connection to God --these are the things that feed the soul.

Gandhi ji's Teachings: As relevant as ever

Mahatma Gandhi is one of the most influential persons of the 20th century. Albert Einstein, very aptly put it, when he said: "Generations will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth." He was not just a political leader, but a social reformer and a spiritual teacher, too.

Incidents from the Mahatma's life and his well-documented experiments with truth serve as a great way of inculcating values in our children. He stressed that one should always live one's philosophies, beliefs and faith, and he was a prime example of that.

Honesty is the best policy

In primary school, once during a school inspection, Gandhiji had spelt the word, 'kettle' wrong. When his teacher urged him to copy from others and correct the spelling, he refused as he was convinced that it was not the right thing to do. Honesty and truthfulness were qualities he came to embody throughout his lifetime.

In the modern world, we strive to make our children excel in academics, sports and the ways of life, but we must also pay great attention to these character-building attributes, which may seem a little old-fashioned.

Clothes do not a man make

When Gandhiji set out to England to study law, he had a brush with the sophisticated lifestyle of the British. In his pursuit of being an 'English gentleman' he tried dressing up like one. He busted money on fashionable clothes and even a chimney-pot hat in a desperate attempt to belong. He took lessons in dancing and elocution, but these infatuations lasted for a while before common sense dawned. Gandhiji realized that character, and not clothes, made a man.

Much later, his thoughts about dressing took him further in quite the opposite direction and he started dressing in loincloth to empathise with the poorest of the poor. In that, he used the symbolism of dressing as a conscious tool to shape public opinion.

It would be far-fetched to expect that we emulate him, but it would be worthwhile to interpret his experiences and experiments in clothing, in spirit. Teenagers today spend unnecessary time and money on the latest fashion and fads to the detriment of other things. They should be discouraged from such wasteful expenditure and preoccupation.

Ahimsa and Satyagraha

Gandhiji built his life's mission on the two pillars of non-violence and truth. He said: "I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills." His interpretation of non-violence was not limited to abstaining from physical violence; he maintained that faith without action and suffering injustice were forms of violence.

In a society that is getting more strife-torn and ghettoized, we cannot underscore enough these age-old qualities and must seek to inculcate the same in our children.

Work for the larger good

Gandhiji propounded the teachings of the Bhagvad Gita, emphasizing, "work without the expectation of fruits of the labour done". Through the symbols of charkha, the spinning wheel and khadi, the hand-spun fabric, he stressed the message of physical labour. The spinning symbolized harnessing of every idle minute for common productive work. Gandhiji always maintained that one should look beyond one's personal aspirations and needs and work for the common good of society at large.

We must ensure that in the pursuit of name, fame and money, our children do not lose sight of the larger purpose in life. We must teach them to be socially responsible individuals who give back to the society what they gain.

Religious co-existence

Gandhiji was a votary of multi-religious identity. He said: "Even as a tree has a single trunk but many branches and leaves, there is one religion - human religion- but any number of faiths." He maintained: "The essence of all religions is one, only their approaches are different."

Though he drew inspiration from the Bhagvad Gita and was a true Hindu by action, he always remained open to influences from all religions and culture. He said: "I want the cultures of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any."

Again, in an age where hate politics and 'us and them' sentiments ride high, Gandhiji's teachings which he practiced diligently stand in good stead for the young generation.

As relevant as ever

Gandhiji's teachings are as relevant today as ever. Every growing child should be acquainted with his life and times, his struggles to shape himself and his politics that so changed the way the world looks at things. For, as he maintained, his life is indeed his message.

Blind Ambition

Charlie Boswell has always been one of a great man in golf. He has inspired me and thousands of others to rise above circumstances and live our true passion. Charlie was blinded during World War II while rescuing his friend from a tank that was under fire. He was a great athlete before his accident and in a testimony to his talent and determination he decided to try a brand new sport, a sport he never imagined playing, even with his eyesight . . . golf!

Through determination and a deep love for the game he became the National Blind Golf Champion! He won that honor 13 times. One of his heroes was the great golfer Ben Hogan, so it truly was an honor for Charlie to win the Ben Hogan Award in 1958.

Upon meeting Ben Hogan, Charlie was awestruck and stated that he had one wish and it was to have one round of golf with the great Ben Hogan.

Mr. Hogan agreed that playing a round together would be an honor for him as well, as he had heard about all of Charlie's accomplishments and truly admired his skills.

"Would you like to play for money, Mr. Hogan?" blurted out Charlie.

"I can't play you for money, it wouldn't be fair!" said Mr. Hogan.

"Aw, come on, Mr. Hogan...$1,000 per hole!"

"I can't, what would people think of me, taking advantage of you and your circumstance," replied the sighted golfer.

"Chicken, Mr. Hogan?"

"Okay," blurted a frustrated Hogan, "but I am going to play my best!"

"I wouldn't expect anything else," said the confident Boswell.

"You're on Mr. Boswell, you name the time and the place!"

A very self-assured Boswell responded "10 o'clock . . . tonight!"

Five More Minutes

While at the park one day, a woman sat down next to a mid age man on a bench near a playground. That's my son over there, she said, pointing to a little boy in a red sweater who was gliding down the slide.

He's a fine looking boy, the man said. That's my son on the swing in the blue sweater. Then, looking at his watch, he called to his son. What do you say we go, Todd.

Todd pleaded, Just five more minutes, Dad. Please Just five more minutes. The man nodded and Todd continued to swing to his heart's content.

Minutes passed and the father stood and called again to his son. Time to go now Again Todd pleaded, Five more minutes, Dad. Just five more minutes.

The man smiled and said, O.K.

My, you certainly are a patient father, the woman responded.

The man smiled and then said, My older son Tommy was killed by a drunk driver last year while he was riding his bike near here. I never spent much time with Tommy and now I'd give anything for just five more minutes with him. I've vowed not to make the same mistake with Todd. He thinks he has five more minutes to swing. The truth is, I get Five more minutes to watch.