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Once there lived three Sakula fishes who were great friends and constant companions. Among them, one had much foresight and forethought. Another was noted as possessing a great presence of mind. The third fish was simply a procrastinator.
One day a group of fishermen came to the lake and began to bale out its water to a lower ground through diverse outlets. Beholding the water of the lake gradually decreasing, the fish who had much forethought shouted to his two companions, “A great danger is about to overtake all the aquatic creatures living in this lake! Let us speedily go to some other place before our path becomes obstructed! Let’s leave this place at once!”
Then, the fish who was the procrastinator replied, “It is well said. There is however, no need of such haste.”
Turning towards his procrastinating companion, the fish who was noted for his great presence of mind spoke, “When the time for anything comes, I never fail to provide for it according to the situation.”
Hearing the answers of his two companions, he of great forethought and foresight immediately left his companions and raced towards another deep lake.
Meanwhile, the fishermen sensing that all the water had been baled out, began shutting in the fishes that remained. Both Sakula the procrastinator and Sakula the “mindful one” were caught with many others. Yet as the fishermen began to tie to a long string the fishes they had caught, Sakula the “mindful one” quickly thrust himself into the company of those that had been so tightly tied up and remained quietly among them. Biting onto the string, the “mindful one” wanted to give the fishermen the impression that he had too been caught.
Since the fishermen assumed that all the fishes attached to the string had already been caught, they then removed them to a piece of deep water to wash them. In a split second, the Sakula noted for his great presence of mind let go of the string and quickly escaped to safety. On the other hand, the fish who had been procrastinating eventually failed to escape and met with death.
Moral of Story: Never Procrastinate in life! Failure is often the line of constant procrastination!
(Excerpt from the Mahabharata)
There was a young student-archer who reached such proficiency in his art that he could shoot an arrow into a tree and then cleave that arrow into two with the next shot. He began to boast that he was a greater archer than his guru.
One day his guru, a venerable old man in his 70′s, asked the youth to accompany him on a trip across the hills. The journey was uneventful until they came to a deep chasm.
A single log spanned the chasm. The guru walked down to the centre of the log, unshouldered his bow and taking an arrow shot it into a tree on the other side. His next shot cleaved the first arrow into two.
“Now it’s your turn,” he said, walking back to where his student was standing.
The youth stepped gingerly on the log and very slowly and carefully made his way to the middle. But his heart was in his mouth. He knew that if he lost his footing, he would plunge to his death. His hands trembled as he strung an arrow into his bow. Preoccupied with the danger he was in, he found it hard to focus on the target. Consequently when he let go of the arrow, it missed the tree altogether. Whimpering, he turned around.
“Help me!” he shouted to his guru. “I’ll fall!”
The old man walked up to him, took his hand and stepping backwards led him to safety. Neither of them said a word on the return journey but the boy had much to think about. He had realised that to be a master of his art it was not enough to know how to control the bow, he had to learn how to control his mind too.
(From unknown source)
Personal mastery takes time. It is the discernment that glamour, glitter and fame is no comparison with a deep reassuring “knowing”- that can only come from devotion and practice. This deep reassuring knowing is what some people call enlightenment; it is effortless, it is magical. He who is attracted to the outside, dreams; and he who is devoted to his inside, awakens. If enlightenment is possible, what else could be more important? Many people search for varied experiences in the world, only few searches for inner illumination. It is this brilliance from within that draws others like a moth to a lamp. Now isn’t this worth giving it time, energy and devotion?
One day a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could, and it could go no further.
So the man decided to help the butterfly. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon.
The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.
The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time.
Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.
What the man, in his kindness and haste, did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were nature’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.
Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our lives. If we were to go through our lives without any obstacles, it would cripple us.
We would not be as strong as what we could have been. We could never fly!
(Excerpt from unknown source)
Once there lived an ambitious young fish. His name was Ozzie.
One morning, Ozzie was skimming along the ooze at the bottom of the pond when he met a Snortlefish named Kump. Kump had no friends because he was an extremely rude and lazy fish!
Kump opened one eye, looked at Ozzie and said, “Hey stupid. You think you’re better than me, right?”
Ozzie replied, “I beg your pardon?”
“Those things growing out of your body,” Kump said, waving a very flat fin in Ozzie’s direction. “The rest of us fish don’t have those, so you must think you’re better than us.”
Ozzie looked down at two stout appendages which jutted from his flanks. “Oh these,” he said. “You’re wrong when you say I’m the only one who has them. Actually, a lot of my relatives seem to be growing them, too.”
“What are they good for?” Kump asked.
“I’ve been wondering that myself,” Ozzie answered. “Mostly, I use them to help guide myself around the pond. I also rub them in the dirt and sand, which can be fun if you’re in a certain mood, but mostly, I just use them to push and pull.” He continued, “Last night I had a dream. I dreamed that some day I’ll climb out of the water and walk on the stuff that surrounds the pond.”
“Stuff that surrounds the pond!” Kump muttered. “Preposterous!”
Ignoring him, Ozzie said, “These strange things” — he wiggled the appendages — “will grow thicker and stronger. I’ll use them to raise myself up and move about the not-water by putting one in front of the other.”
“It all sounds stupid!” Kump said. “And why would any sane fish want to do any of it?”
“I dreamed that we will change and change and change again. Some of us will soar high above the pond, some of us will become mighty creatures a hundred fishes high and some . . .”
“Sounds unlikely,” Kump said.
“Maybe some of it is.” Ozzie admitted. “And maybe not. We’ll never know unless we climb out of the pond.”
“Seems like a lot of bother with no guaranteed return. A smart fish will stay where he is and enjoy himself. Now swim out of here — or ‘walk,’ if that’s what makes you happy. Me — I’m late for my nap.”
Later that afternoon, Kump was eaten and within a couple of hundred thousand years, a similar fate befell all the snortlefish, which is why nobody’s ever heard of them! Ozzie never did get out of the pond, but later some of his descendants did. How much of the rest of his dream came true? That is yet to be seen.
Once upon a time there was a young prince who believed in all things but three. He did not believe in princesses, he did not believe in islands, and he did not believe in God. His father, the king, told him that such things did not exist. As there were no princesses or islands in his father’s domains, and no sign of God, the prince believed his father.
But then, one day, the prince ran away from his palace and came to the next land. There, to his astonishment, from every coast he saw islands, and on these islands, strange and troubling creatures whom he dared not name. As he was searching for a boat, a man in full evening dress approached him along the shore.
“Are those real islands?” asked the young prince.
“Of course they are real islands,” said the man in evening dress.
“And those strange and troubling creatures?”
“They are all genuine and authentic princesses.”
“Then God must also exist!” cried the young prince.
“I am God,” replied the man in evening dress, with a bow.
The young prince returned home as quickly as he could.
“So, you are back,” said his father, the king.
“I have seen islands, I have seen princesses, I have seen God,” said the prince reproachfully.
The king was unmoved.
“Neither real islands, real princesses nor a real God exist.”
“I saw them!”
“Tell me how God was dressed.”
“God was in full evening dress.”
“Were the sleves of his coat rolled back?”
The prince remembered that they had been.
The king smiled.”That is the uniform of a magician. You have been deceived.”
At this, the prince returned to the next land and went to the same shore, where once again he came upon the man in full evening dress.
“My father, the king, has told me who you are,” said the prince indignantly. “You deceived me last time, but not again. Now I know that those are not real islands and real princesses, because you are a magician.”
The man on the shore smiled.”It is you who are deceived, my boy. In your father’s kingdom, there are many islands and many princesses. But you are under your father’s spell, so you cannot see them.”
The prince pensively returned home. When he saw his father, he looked him in the eye. “Father, is it true that you are not a real king, but only a magician?”
The king smiled and rolled back his sleeves.”Yes, my son, I’m only a magician.”
“Then the man on the other shore was God.”
“The man on the other shore was another magician.”
“I must know the truth, the truth beyond magic.”
“There is no truth beyond magic,” said the king.
The prince was full of sadness. He said “I will kill myself.”
The king by magic caused Death to appear. Death stood in the door and beckoned to the prince.
The prince shuddered. He remembered the beautiful but unreal islands and the unreal but beautiful princesses. “Very well,” he said, “I can bear it”.
“You see, my son,” said the king, “you, too, now begin to be a magician.”
(From “The Magus” by John Fowles)
One day, a scorpion saw a frog sitting in the rushes by the bank of the stream on the other side of the river. He decided to ask the frog for help getting across the stream.
“Hellooo Mr. Frog!” called the scorpion across the water, “Would you be so kind as to give me a ride on your back across the river?”
“Well now, Mr. Scorpion! How do I know that if I try to help you, you won’t try to kill me?” asked the frog hesitantly.
“Because,” the scorpion replied, “If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for you see I cannot swim!”
Now this seemed to make sense to the frog. So the frog agreed to take the scorpion across the river. He swam over to the bank and settled himself near the mud to pick up his passenger. The scorpion crawled onto the frog’s back, his sharp claws prickling into the frog’s soft hide, and the frog slid into the river.
Halfway across the river, the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the scorpion remove his stinger from the frog’s back. A deadening numbness began to creep into his limbs.
“You fool!” croaked the frog, “Now we shall both die! Why on earth did you do that?”
The scorpion shrugged, and did a little jig on the drowning frog’s back. “I could not help it. It is my nature. I am a scorpion and I sting frogs!” Then they both sank into the muddy waters of the swiftly flowing river.
Once there lived a fish called Kun. Now, this fish isn’t just an ordinary fish. It’s thousands of metres long! As Kun grows older, it slowly evolves into Pung- a huge bird, thousands of metres wide.
One day the Pung Bird decides to fly over the great sea southward to its destination- the Celestial Pool. So it began beating the water with its majestic wings, attempting to reach a height of over 3,000 km first before it is ready to advance towards its goal.
When the cicada heard of this story, he said to the dove, “When I want to climb the elm tree, I fly and try to reach for higher ground. Sometimes I miss and fall to ground, but I slowly and surely make progress. Why does Pung have to travel thousands of kilometres without making any visible progress? The dove agreed: Pung was a fool. And so did every other animal in the kingdom. So why do you think the Pung have to struggle upward 3,000 km without making any visible progress before starting his journey southward?
The Pung is smart! It understands that if there is not enough wind, it cannot support its great wings. So it’s only when the Pung is three thousand kilometres high, can the wind support him!
Endurance is arguably one of the greatest virtues shared by all the successful people. See. There’s a slight difference between endurance and persistence (a more commonly known success principle)! While persistence means a constant struggle forward against opposition, endurance means possessing even the flexibility of moving backwards (away from your goals) at point of times. This doesn’t mean you give up – you are just waiting for the right opportunity and condition to take action!
A group of frogs were traveling through the woods, and two of them fell into a deep pit. When the other frogs saw how deep the pit was, they told the two frogs that they were as good as dead. The two frogs ignored the comments and tried to jump up out of the pit with all their might. The other frogs kept telling them to stop, that they were as good as dead. Finally, one of the frogs took heed to what the other frogs were saying and gave up. He fell down and died.
The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at him to stop the pain and just die. He jumped even harder and finally made it out. When he got out, the
other frogs said, “Did you not hear us?” The frog “explained” to them that he was deaf. He thought they were encouraging him the entire time.
Perhaps this story serves as a reminder for us not to be easily swayed by others. When we truly know what we value most in life and what our dreams are, just go ahead and pursue them. Bear in mind never to listen to other peoples’ tendencies to be negative or pessimistic. They may be the ones who are blocking your path towards achieving those wonderful dreams and wishes of yours… the ones that are embedded deep within your heart.
In ancient times, a king had a boulder placed on a roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock. Some of the king’s wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the king for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the big stone out of the way.
Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables. On approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded.
As the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the king indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway.
The peasant learned what many others never understand. Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve one’s condition.
