Anxious about your future? Read this story

 

Once two villagers were sitting under a tree and watching the sunset.

They were very close friends. After sitting quietly for some time, one asked the other, “What are you thinking? I am planning to buy five acres of land, a garden.” The other friend immediately said, “Don´t buy the garden!”

The first one was surprised. He asked “why”? The second one replied, “I am planning to buy a buffalo. Then, my buffalo will enter your garden and we will fight, have misunderstandings and lose our friendship. I do not want to lose our friendship.”

The first one said, “Then, you cancel your plan of buying a buffalo. I am going to buy my garden.” The second one said, “No, no, no. I have already decided to buy a buffalo.” The first one said, “How will your buffalo enter my garden? I will fence it thoroughly.”

The second one said, “No, you see, it can just enter; a buffalo is a buffalo. Who can stop it? It can do anything.”

Then the fight went to such an extent that they broke their limbs!

Neither had bought a buffalo or any land. Nothing had happened. Just the mind´s race and both of them broke their limbs over it! Our fears are also like that. 

The future has not yet come. But you just sit there and think, “Oh! What will happen?”  So much anxiety about the future! In this run, the mind gets into such a mess. It is unable to see the present moment as it unfolds.

The mind totally forgets the divine. “Me, mine, what about tomorrow, the day after and the day after that, next year, ten years later?” You people plan in this way even up to the next birth! When people are newly married they say, "We will be husband and wife for many life-times to come! This one birth is not enough. We will be man and wife for the next seven births!” In reality, they may be fed up of each other in this birth itself, but they talk of the next seven births!

We should experience the divine´s presence, the divine´s light around us.

You should have a desire in your mind to experience this. Have we ever desired the divine light? Has such a desire ever risen in you, that you want the highest peace?  Has it arisen from deep inside you?  The divine light is something by which the whole world is running. Have you ever really wanted it? When you sing or pray there  should be total involvement. You don´t involve yourself totally. If the mind is preoccupied elsewhere then that is no prayer at all. There should be total involvement. When there is pain there is more involvement.

 If you consider yourself as bonded, you will remain bound. Become free right now. Sit down and become contented. 

You are afraid of opening your fists. What is there with you that you have to hold in your fists? You have nothing with you. Open your fists. The whole sky will be in your hands.

Be natural. Be with love. Do service. Celebrate life.

The power of devotion

 

When Sri Ram was building the bridge to Sri Lanka, a lot of monkeys were helping him build it. So the monkeys were picking up stones, writing  Sri Ram on the back of the stones and putting it in the water. When they put the stones in the water, they would float.
Again, this has a spiritual significance. When the name of the Lord is with you, you will float through the ocean of misery; you won’t sink in the world of misery.

All the monkeys were writing Sri Ram, and all their stones were floating. When Sri Ram saw this, he was so surprised. He thought, ‘What? These stones are floating!’ He wanted to try it himself. So he took a stone, wrote Sri Ram and put it in the water. The stone sank! Sri Ram was surprised.

One monkey was sitting somewhere and watching. Sri Ram went where he thought nobody was watching (whenever we think nobody is watching, there is somebody who is watching). So, one monkey who was watching, he started laughing. Sri Ram was a little embarrassed. The laughing monkey said to Sri Ram, ‘Those who you throw away from your hands, how will they float? They will only sink!’

This is to say that the devotees are so much more powerful than the Lord himself; devotees can do so much more than the Lord himself. This is the lesson from the story.

While this was happening, a little squirrel was also moving around. It was taking little pebbles, and putting them in the water. Some laughed at the little squirrel, saying, ‘How can a squirrel be a contributor?’

The squirrel said, ‘I am contributing for my own joy. I am also a part of this huge thing that Sri Ram is doing, and I am so proud of it.’

Even today in India, we call it the ‘squirrel’s contribution’; it is a sign of humility. Even when we do a little bit, it doesn’t make a big significance; but being part of something big, saying, ‘I have also done something’, gives that inner satisfaction. So, the squirrel also started contributing by throwing little stones in the water.

The lesson from this story is that devotees are more powerful than the Lord himself.