#4

Few days back while going for my walk in the morning, I saw a young boy arranging the newspapers. I was surprised to see that he was doing his work efficiently. I recalled a memory when I was a child heard mom often saying gold doesn’t shine until it is polished constantly. She always taught us the importance of practice by stating that there is no alternate to the hard work and success. To become really good at something we have to practice and repeat until we learn that technique by heart.

A philosopher once said that practice makes permanent, not perfect. If you practice the wrong thing, you make the wrong act permanent. How profound are these words in meaning!

Sometimes we learn memorable lessons in life through stories. These encapsulate valuable teachings and enduring life lessons. Our brain is programmed in such a way that it perceives patterns and grasps the sequence of stories to store them in our long-term memory. Since ages humans have been learning through stories. Our holy scriptures have uncountable stories which clearly emphasize on the significance of practice and other virtues in life. In order to continue the practice, one must have hope, faith, patience, determination and confidence with positive thinking.

I’m reminded of a story of four disciples who lived in a Gurukul. They decided to meditate in silence without speaking for ten days. They lit a candle as a symbol of their practice and began to meditate. There was utter silence in the hall. By the night on the very first day, the flame of the candle started flickering. Then slowly and gradually it went out.

The first disciple said, ’’Oh, no! The candle is out.’’

The second disciple spoke,” We are not supposed to talk.’’

The third disciple said, “Why are you both breaking the silence?”

The fourth disciple laughed and said, ”Ha! I’m the only one who didn’t speak.”

They all had different reasons to speak but each of the four shared his thoughts without filtering them and none improved the situation. Had there been a fifth wiser disciple, he would have remained silent and kept meditating. Thus he would have pointed out their mistakes without speaking a single word, without breaking his own quest for his knowledge.

This story refers to a very valuable teaching. When one meditates in breathing, they must concentrate their mind upon the breath only by vacating all other thoughts away. None of the disciples were focused to perform difficult meditation. They lacked concentration, focus, mental alertness and above all patience. The last one might have these virtues but he had ego to prove himself right. Over confidence may be the cause of exaggerated ego in some people. It’s responsible for many negative human traits. It’s harmful when uncontrolled. When controlled, its necessary to accentuate its positive attributes while suppressing the negatives simultaneously.

I reached back home pondering over the fact that our elders have always taught us that in order to really learn something we need to experience it and make it a habit by practice mindfully. We are not perfect. Our education is never complete. We must be determined to learn continuously. Only then we can redirect the course of our life towards greater happiness and fulfillment.