Monday, April 12, 2004
Reaction A Reflection Of Life
Another One from Syllabus here,way back there was this story I had in School.As king of a kingdom held his court one day,as part of his chores he was attending to few law & order cases.He was presented with Three thieves all of who had committed robberies in separate incidents.King looks at first one inquires about his crime ,upon knowing the case tells the thief"This doesn't suit you,Take care in future,so saying he dismisses the case .In case of second thief,he asks one of the guard to give the thief two slaps & dismisses the case.for the third thief the king asks his men to paint the man's face black, shave off his head and parade him around the city on a Donkey.The courtiers of king were all puzzled ,but no one challenged kings authority & so everyone kept mum
King Read the courtiers eyes & addressed the court "I can see surprise in your eyes.All of you who are present here must be wondering,for same crime ,why I treated the three people differently." So saying he summoned three undercover agents in his service and asked them to shadow the three culprits and present the report to the court after two days.On the allocated day the Agents presented their report.Agent A reported " Your majesty the first thief whom you had verbally admonished,left this court and he locked himself in his residence for whole day yesterday ,today morning we found he had hanged himself to his roof.Agent B stepped forward "Your Highness ,The second thief whom you asked the guards to slap him left this place ,went to his house collected his possession,and left the city,apparently he was ashamed to live here anymore.Now every one waited for Agent C "Sir, The Third one whom you asked to be defaced and paraded around the capital on a donkey .as he was taken around ,people were spitting on him,hurling profanities ,kids throwing stones at him .As this procession went around somewhere in the crowds he spotted his wife,who was so ashamed that she was trying to disappear amidst the crowds.But he Hollered her "where are you trying to hide,let me show these morons few more quarters of the city,So you Go home and heat water for my bath ,he yelled at her "
The story was just another one of those "Portions of syllabus" then ,but looking back it puts a lots of things in perspective about Human Nature.How every individual responds to identical situations.tell so much about his/her character.Recently I was reading Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl .In this Biography of his Dr Frankl while accounting for his experiences in Nazi Concentration Camp has identical observation,under the similar circumstances of Oppression and Torture that all of them were subjected to some of the people around him were reduced to animals while some were posing as saints.
In history of Mankind so many people before him and so many after him saw poverty,suffering,illness and death,but how many of Siddharthas renounced the world in search of Meaning of Life and Became Gautama Only a handful.
In our day to day life ,so many incidents happen to us ,but how many of us really care to objectively look back upon them and soak the lessons of life and work on them moving forward in life.Kabirdas says in one of his poems "Its Animal who grazes all by itself while its Human who dies for sake of others" .Kabirdas would surely have thought twice before writing these lines in our times.
All the stuff thats written above may sound like pretty much of common sense statements .But the question is how many of us indeed make a conscious effort to make this common sense a common practice ?
I
Another One from Syllabus here,way back there was this story I had in School.As king of a kingdom held his court one day,as part of his chores he was attending to few law & order cases.He was presented with Three thieves all of who had committed robberies in separate incidents.King looks at first one inquires about his crime ,upon knowing the case tells the thief"This doesn't suit you,Take care in future,so saying he dismisses the case .In case of second thief,he asks one of the guard to give the thief two slaps & dismisses the case.for the third thief the king asks his men to paint the man's face black, shave off his head and parade him around the city on a Donkey.The courtiers of king were all puzzled ,but no one challenged kings authority & so everyone kept mum
King Read the courtiers eyes & addressed the court "I can see surprise in your eyes.All of you who are present here must be wondering,for same crime ,why I treated the three people differently." So saying he summoned three undercover agents in his service and asked them to shadow the three culprits and present the report to the court after two days.On the allocated day the Agents presented their report.Agent A reported " Your majesty the first thief whom you had verbally admonished,left this court and he locked himself in his residence for whole day yesterday ,today morning we found he had hanged himself to his roof.Agent B stepped forward "Your Highness ,The second thief whom you asked the guards to slap him left this place ,went to his house collected his possession,and left the city,apparently he was ashamed to live here anymore.Now every one waited for Agent C "Sir, The Third one whom you asked to be defaced and paraded around the capital on a donkey .as he was taken around ,people were spitting on him,hurling profanities ,kids throwing stones at him .As this procession went around somewhere in the crowds he spotted his wife,who was so ashamed that she was trying to disappear amidst the crowds.But he Hollered her "where are you trying to hide,let me show these morons few more quarters of the city,So you Go home and heat water for my bath ,he yelled at her "
The story was just another one of those "Portions of syllabus" then ,but looking back it puts a lots of things in perspective about Human Nature.How every individual responds to identical situations.tell so much about his/her character.Recently I was reading Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl .In this Biography of his Dr Frankl while accounting for his experiences in Nazi Concentration Camp has identical observation,under the similar circumstances of Oppression and Torture that all of them were subjected to some of the people around him were reduced to animals while some were posing as saints.
In history of Mankind so many people before him and so many after him saw poverty,suffering,illness and death,but how many of Siddharthas renounced the world in search of Meaning of Life and Became Gautama Only a handful.
In our day to day life ,so many incidents happen to us ,but how many of us really care to objectively look back upon them and soak the lessons of life and work on them moving forward in life.Kabirdas says in one of his poems "Its Animal who grazes all by itself while its Human who dies for sake of others" .Kabirdas would surely have thought twice before writing these lines in our times.
All the stuff thats written above may sound like pretty much of common sense statements .But the question is how many of us indeed make a conscious effort to make this common sense a common practice ?
I
Unsui 9:36 AM