Don't be a slave of Habits

In life we do add some habits, both good and bad. Many a times habit takes over the mind so strongly. As a result we make some actions which logically we might not have done. s Under the influence of habit we lose opportunity to mint gold like the old man of Alexandria :



Touch Stone or a  Stone



When the great library of Alexandria burned, the story goes, one book was saved. But it was not a valuable book; and so a poor man, who could read a little, bought it for a few coppers.

The book wasn't very interesting, but between its pages there was something very interesting indeed. It was a thin strip of vellum on which was written the secret of the "Touchstone"!

The touchstone was a small pebble that could turn any common metal into pure gold. The writing explained that it was lying among thousands and thousands of other pebbles that looked exactly like it. But the secret was this: The real stone would feel warm, while ordinary pebbles are cold.



The Sincere Efforts

 So the man sold his few belongings, bought some simple supplies, camped on the seashore, and began testing pebbles. He knew that if he picked up ordinary pebbles and threw them down again because they were cold, he might pick up the same pebble hundreds of times. So, when he felt one that was cold, he threw it into the sea. He spent a whole day doing this but none of them was the touchstone. Yet he went on and on this way. Pick up a pebble. Cold - throw it into the sea. Pick up another. Throw it into the sea.

Get Rid of Vicious Circle of Habit

The days stretched into weeks and the weeks into months. One day, however, about midafternoon, he picked up a pebble and it was warm. He threw it into the sea before he realized what he had done. He had formed such a strong habit of throwing each pebble into the sea that when the one he wanted came along, he still threw it away.

Moral :

So it is with opportunity. Unless we are vigilant, it's easy to fail to recognize an opportunity when it is in hand and it's just as easy to throw it away.

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Be a Trusted Professional

Most of  the professionals work hard and sincerely, but between the two equally performing, one races ahead of him. There can be many reasons, but the most essential quality desired at senior positions is in the most preferred doll.

A sage presented a prince with a set of three small dolls. The prince was not amused.

"Am I a girl that you give me dolls?" he asked.
"This is a gift for a future king," said the man.
"If you look carefully, you'll see a hole in the ear of each doll."
"So?"

The sage handed him a piece of string.
"Pass it through each doll," he said.
Intrigued, the prince picked up the first doll and put the string into the ear.
 It came out from the other ear.

"This is one type of person," said the man. "Whatever you tell him, comes out from the other ear. He doesn't retain anything."

The prince put the string into the second doll.
 It came out from the mouth.
"This is the second type of person," said the man. "Whatever you tell him, he tells everybody else."

The prince picked up the third doll and repeated the process.
The string did not reappear from anywhere else.
"This is the third type of person," said the man. "Whatever you tell him is locked up within him. It never comes out."

"What is the best type of person?" asked the prince.

The man handed him a fourth doll, in answer.
When the prince put the string into the doll, it came out from the other ear.
"Do it again," said the sage. The prince repeated the process. This time the string came out from the mouth. When he put the string in a third time, it did not come out at all.

"This is the best type of person," said the sage. "To be trustworthy, a man must know when not to listen, when to remain silent and when to speak out."

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• The Master

• Keep Spark Alive : Chetan Bhagat

• Don't worry options are plenty just have one.

• Nine things successful people do. 

Whom would you invite . Wealth, Success or Love ?

When the options are thrown,  we generally take decision as per our understanding of the subject and the targets set for ourselves. Many a times we do not realize the full potentials of the outcome of options left out.  This tale conceptualises the lesson that before making the decision analyse who follows whom.

A woman came out of her house and saw 3 old men with long white beards sitting in her front yard. She did not recognize them. She said "I don't think I know you, but you must be hungry. Please come in and have something to eat."

"Is the man of the house home?", they asked. "No", she said. "He's out." "Then we cannot come in", they replied.

In the evening when her husband came home, she told him what had happened. "Go tell them I am home and invite them in!" The woman went out and invited the men in. "We do not go into a House together," they replied. "Why is that?" she wanted to know.

One of the old men explained: "His name is Wealth," he said pointing to one of his friends, and said pointing to another one, "He is Success, and I am Love." Then he added, "Now go in and discuss with your husband which one of us you want in your home."

The woman went in and told her husband what was said. Her husband was overjoyed. "How nice!!", he said. "Since that is the case, let us invite Wealth. Let him come and fill our home with wealth!"

His wife disagreed. "My dear, why don't we invite Success?" Their daughter-in-law was listening from the other corner of the house. She jumped in with her own suggestion: "Would it not be better to invite Love? Our home will then be filled with love!"

"Let us heed our daughter-in-law's advice," said the husband to his wife. "Go out and invite Love to be our guest."

The woman went out and asked the 3 old men, "Which one of you is Love? Please come in and be our guest."

Love got up and started walking toward the house. The other 2 also got up and followed him. Surprised, the lady asked Wealth and Success: "I only invited Love, Why are you coming in?"

The old men replied together: "If you had invited Wealth or Success, the other two of us would've stayed out, but since you invited Love, Wherever He goes, we go with him. Wherever there is Love, there is also Wealth and Success!!!!!!"

Moral  :  The missionaries are the most successful and best managed enterprise world over. Learn the basics from there

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The Master

When one Guru was dying, one of his disciples asked him "Guruji, who was your master?"

He said, "I had thousands of masters. If I just relate their names it will take months, years and it is too late. But three masters I will certainly tell you about. "

"One was a thief. Once I got lost in the desert, and when I reached a village it was very late, everything was closed. But at last I found one man who was trying to make a hole in the wall of a house. I asked him where I could stay and he said 'At this time of night it will be difficult, but you can stay with me - if you can stay with a thief'.

And the man was so beautiful. I stayed for one month! And each night he would say to me, 'Now I am going to my work. You rest, you pray.'

 

When he came back I would ask 'Could you get anything?'

 

He would say, 'Not tonight. But tomorrow I will try again, God willing.' He was never in a state of hopelessness, he was always happy. When I was meditating and meditating for years on end and nothing was happening, many times the moment came when I was so desperate, so hopeless, that I thought to stop all this nonsense. And suddenly I would remember the thief who would say every night, 'God willing, tomorrow it is going to happen."

"And my second master was a dog. I was going to the river, thirsty and a dog came. He was also thirsty. He looked into the river, he saw another dog there -- his own image -- and became afraid. He would bard and run away, but his thirst was so much that he would come back. Finally, despite his fear, he just jumped into the water, and the image disappeared. And I knew that a message had come to me from God: one has to jump in spite of all fears."

 

"And the third master was a small child. I entered a town and a child was carrying a lit candle. He was going to the temple to put the candle there.'

 

Just joking, I asked the boy, 'Have you lit the candle yourself?'

 

He said, 'Yes sir.'

 

And I asked, 'There was a moment when the candle was unlit, then there was a moment when the candle was lit. Can you show me the source from which the light came?'

 

And the boy laughed, blew out the candle, and said, 'Now you have seen the light going. Where has it gone? You will tell me!'

 

My ego was shattered, my whole knowledge was shattered. And that moment I felt my own stupidity. Since then I dropped all my knowledge-ability."

 

"It is true that I had no master. That does not mean that I was not a disciple -- I accepted the whole existence as my master. My Disciple hood was a greater involvement than yours is. I trusted the clouds, the trees. I trusted existence as such. I had no master because I had millions of masters I learned from every possible source. To be a disciple is a must on the path. What does it mean to be a disciple? It means to be able to learn. to be available to learn to be vulnerable to existence. With a master you start learning to learn."

 

The master is a swimming pool where you can learn how to swim. Once you have learnt, all the oceans are yours.

Where to Tap ?

Two men born together get the equal experience in life through out, yet they have different levels of achievement in their career. Why does it happen so? In a nut shell the difference comes only how do they make use of the experience gained in life. The story of a failed giant ship engine describes this effectively.

Long back a ship fully loaded with goods had trouble when its engine failed suddenly. Engineers on the board made all efforts to trouble shoot the problem, but could not start the engine. Ship’s owners called one expert after the others from city, but no one could figure out how to fix the engine.

At the advise of someone they brought in an old man who had been fixing ships since he was a young man. When he came he carried a large bag of tools with him. After reaching, he immediately went to work. He inspected the engine very care fully, top to bottom. Listened to the noise by tapping with hand. Gathered information from the people who were there when it went off.

Two of the owners were there watching him with the hope that he would know what to do and were ready to pay any price to get the solution.

After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something. Instantly the engine lurched into the life. He carefully put his hammer away. The engine was fixed. He went back saying that “Please make the payment as soon as you receive the bill.”

A week later , the owners received a bill from the old man for 10,000 dollars. The owners, who saw the old man working exclaimed. He hardly do anything!. So they wrote back the old man a note saying, “Please send us an itemized bill.”

The man sent the bill that read

Tapping with a hammer :  $  2.00
Knowing where to tap :   $  9,998.00

Moral of the Story : Effort is important. But knowing where to put an effort makes all the difference