Keeping god’s goodness in heart is essential when we make a choice. We need to be careful not to get allured by the temptations in the world. Always we need to be careful in prioritizing what our real interests are? What will give us permanent benefit? Our life is shaped by the choices we make throughout our life.
3. Appropriate Guidance-
There lived a group of monkeys in a garden that belonged to the king. There also lived an old monkey who was the advisor to this young group of monkeys. Everyone was very happy, eating fruits in abundance and in the beautiful shelter of the king’s garden. One day the old monkey came running and he told everyone to leave. All the young monkeys were shocked and wanted to know the reason. The old monkey said, ‘Today a sheep went the kitchen and the cook threw a burning wood on it. Fortunately the sheep escaped it. But we must run!’ All the young monkeys were clueless that what went wrong to this old monkey. They asked why they have to run. To this the old monkey explained, ‘Today the sheep escaped fire but one day it may not escape and its body of wool will catch fire. It will then run to the nearby horse stable and roll on the hay there. The hay will catch fire and then the horses will get burn injuries. King loves his horses. You know the best ointment for horse burn injuries is monkey fat…Please run now! All the young monkeys thought that the old monkey has become insane. No one listened to him and the old monkey left alone. And after a few days, thr sheet wasn’t lucky to escape the burning wood.
When someone tells us about realities of life, the dangers of life, the short lived happiness of wealth and success, etc. we don’t want to hear it because we feel they are pessimistic. Intelligent people would listen to guidance of right people. Guidance from right people will come only when we have right Association, the next formula.
4. Right Association-
You become what you associate with. When we put an iron rod in fire, it takes up the qualities of fire. When we touch flames, we burn ourselves and when we touch a red hot iron rod, we again burn ourselves. When we put the same iron rod is put in ice, the rod become ice cold.
Similarly, we get influenced by the people with whom we associate. Therefore, it is our responsibility to associate with only desirable people and give up association of unwanted people.
Who are unwanted people?
Well, I feel that qualities make a man. If someone has some negative qualities, the first thing we do is try to show them the right way to positive habits. But we meet people at times who are very happy being negative because they feel that’s what is cool. If you cant change, better be away from them.
Association with desirable people inspires us to do right things the right way!
5. Be enthusiastic-
We may have the best guidance and the best association, but if we are least bothered to improve and learn from them, its no use at all. I believe that we must be enthusiastic all through our lives, in any age because learning should never stop. Learning is living. We got to be enthusiastic to learn the right things and be successful.
6. Accepting that everything happens for best-
There are times that things don’t fall in place the way we want them to. I don’t think there exists a single person who can claim, always desirable things happened to him/her. Its important that we trust ourselves and train ourselves to learn from our failures. Majority of people cannot handle failure and that is why there are so many cases of depression and suicide. A happy person is one who accepts whatever comes his way, adjust to the situation and see it as an opportunity.
Story:
There lived a handicapped boy with only the right hand. He had a desire to learn Karate. He went to a master and fortunately the master agreed to train him. This boy was so enthusiastic and always went on time regularly for his Karate lessons. The master taught the same step to him everyday and asked him to just practice that single step for days and then months. A tournament was declared and the master wanted this boy to participate. He was confused with his master’s decision. However, he has full faith on his master and so he agreed to participate.
In this tournament, one boy was defeating everyone. During the final rounds, the master asked the handicapped boy to go to the ring. He was really confused. He did not learn anything apart from that one single step and how can he compete with the champion. Still, he obeyed to his master and jumped in the ring. And guess what? HE WON!
He was very happy but more confused. He asked the master, “ How can I win against the champion with only one step?’
Master replies , ‘You knew only one step and mastered it. The only way to overcome this step is to hold your left hand and you don’t have your left hand. This is how you won’
For the first time in his life, this boy was thankful that he didn’t have left hand. He never thought it can be such an advantage for him.
Maturity is to see things in right perspective. If we have the positive attitude and the ability to see things in right perspective, we will succeed.
7. Determination/patience-
Whenever you want to do something new/ good, you will face some resistance. The only thing that should never come down is DETERMINATION.
Discrimination is the ability to see what is wrong and what is right, what is morale and immoral. We got to hold on to our integrity. We should never hesitate to do right things. When we work with determination towards our goal, we need to have patience because fruits may not come immediately.
Story:
Once a sparrow laid her eggs on the banks of an ocean. A big tide came and took away all her eggs. The sparrow was very sad. She requested the ocean to give her eggs back, but never got any response from the ocean. She requested the ocean several times but the ocean never responded. The sparrow then warned the ocean, ‘ If you do not give my eggs back, I will up dry your ocean’
The ocean laughed at this and again ignored. The sparrow was very determined. She took one drop out at a time to dry up the ocean and kept on trying hard to dry it up. Garuda heard this and came down to help the sparrow. Garuda then requested the ocean to give the Sparrow’s eggs back and the ocean had to listen to Garuda because it knew that Garuda was capable to dry up the ocean at once.
Its merely our determination and patience that help us to achieve a well balanced successful life. We may see big dreams that may sound impractical to others but with our determination and patience we can attract the mercy and love of our lord. We all know nothing is impossible when our lord showers his mercy on us.
8. Attracting the mercy of lord-
This is the most important part, the central focus of our life.
- What gives us the abililty to accept ourself the way we are?
- What gives us the intelligence to make the right choice?
- What inspires us to look for right guidance and association?
- What gives us determination and patience?
The universal power, the mercy of our lord! Pray to him and remember him always and let him guide and protect you.........
