I came across this beautiful story on the net. Many of you would probably have heard of it but I think I'll share it here again.
There was a lecturer at a University who, one day, instead of bringing his lecture notes to the class came in with a fairly big glass jar and put it on the table. While his class was wondering what he was up to, he started to put large stones into the jar until he could get in no more. He then turned to the class and asked 'is the jar full?' and the class said 'Yes.'
He smiled, took another bag from under the desk which had smaller stones and managed to fit those in between the spaces of the big stones. Once he was done, again he asked, 'is the jar full?' They all shook their head and said 'No.'
He smiled again, took a third bag which contained sand and started pouring it in to the jar until he could get no more sand in. He asked once more, 'is the jar full?' And again the class said 'No.' Then, he got some water and poured that in. After he could get no more in, he stopped, and asked the class, What am I trying to prove here with this demonstration?' When the class could not give him any satisfactory answer, he said, ' What I was trying to show was if you want to fit the big stones in, fit them in first. Don't leave them to the last otherwise you'll never get them in.'
This story is about priorities. About what we should fit in our daily schedule or may be even life first of all. There are many things which many people realize as the big rocks of their lives - their family, relationships, dreams, ambitions, peace of mind, etc., and, sometimes we leave them to the end in our day, in our week or maybe in our life, we don't find the opportunity to fit them in. That's one of the reasons why happiness eludes us. The priorities are completely messed up. We should probably remember this story and put into our life what's important to us above all. The other things we can always fit in, but later.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Ignorance
Ignorance means not seeing things are they are. To many people who are well educated, its uneasy to think that they are ignorant. That applies to me too but of late, I realized that I had completely failed to understand the reality of things happening around me - the reality of life if you will. For instance, consider the situation of walking all alone on a road at the dead of night. We are familiar with what happens when we see a shape in the shadow of darkness - the quickening of our steps even though that shape might just be a short tree stump. It is our ignorance that creates a sense of panic and causes us to speed up. But, suppose there was some light, we would have noticed the tree stump and accepted it for what it was. There would have been no fear, no suffering because there would have been no ignorance.
To think that one has suffering, pain, grief, despair - that it is not fair and one needs only security and happiness stems from ignorance which makes things complicated and results in far greater problems. This ' ignorance' sows the seed for craving, hatred, jealousy, pride and what not. Much of human anguish which is empty and meaningless is also born out of ignorance It is because of this that the human mind tells us to annihilate things that lay in our path.
So long as we dont develop the ability to concentrate and open our minds to the true nature of things, we remain ignorant. But with the right conditions and training, the unerring nature of things are revealed and we no longer dwell in the abyss of ignorance.
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