Philosophy of Life

Philosophy of Life    A boat is docked in a tiny Mexican fishing village. A tourist complimented the local fishermen on the quality of their fish and asked how long it took to catch them.  "Not very long." they answered in unison. "Why didn't you stay out longer and catch more?" The fishermen explained that their small catches were sufficient to meet their needs and those of their families.  "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"  "We sleep late, fish a little, play with our children, and take siestas with our wives.  In the evenings, we go into the village to see our friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs.  We have a full life." The tourist interrupted,  "I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you! You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat."  "And after that?" "With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, you can then negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant.  You can then leave this little village and move to  Mexico City , Los Angeles , or even  New York City !  [  From there you can direct your huge new enterprise."  "How long would that take?"   "Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years." replied the tourist.   "And after that?"   "Afterwards?  Well my friend, that's when it gets really interesting," answered the tourist, laughing.  "When your business gets really big, you can start buying and selling stocks and make millions!"     "Millions?  Really?  And after that?" asked the fishermen.  "After that you'll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, Catch a few fish, take a siesta with your wife and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends."   "With all due respect sir, but that's exactly what we are doing now.  So what's the point wasting twenty-five years?" asked the Mexicans.  And the moral of this story is:  Know where you're going in life, you may already be there!  Many times in life, money is not everything.  “Live your life before life becomes lifeless”

The Ripple

 

A man was sitting by a lake. He was throwing small pebbles into it from time to time. A young boy happened to cross by. He was intrigued to see that after every few minutes or so, the man would toss a pebble into the lake.
The boy went up to the man & said, "Good pastime, this stone throwing, he?" "Hmmm," said the man. He seemed to be deep in thought & obviously did not wish to be disturbed.

Sometime later, the man said softly, "Look at the water, it is absolutely still."

The boy said, "Yeah, it is."
The man tossed a pebble into the water & continued, "Only till I toss a pebble into it now do you see the ripples?"
"Yeah," said the boy, "they spread further & further."

"And soon, the water is still again," offered the man.

The boy said, "Sure, it becomes quiet, after a while."

The man continued, "What if we want to stop the ripples? The root cause of the ripples is the stone. Lets take the stone out. Go ahead & look for it." The boy put his hand into the water & tried to take the stone out.
But he only succeeded in making more ripples. He was able to take the stone out, but the number of ripples that were made in the process were a lot more than before.

The wise man said, "It is not possible to stop the movement of the water once a pebble has been thrown into it. But if we can stop ourselves from throwing the pebble in the first place, the ripples can be avoided altogether! So too, it is with our minds. If a thought enters into it, it creates ripples. The only way to save the mind from getting disturbed is to block & ban the entry of every superfluous thought that could be a potential cause for disturbance. If a disturbance has entered into the mind, it will take its own time to die down. Too many conflicting thoughts just cause more & more disturbances. Once the disturbance has been caused it takes time to ebb out. Even trying to forcibly remove the thought may further increase the turmoil in the mind. Time surely is a great healer, but prevention is always better than cure."

Before you allow a thought or a piece of information to enter your mind, put it through the triple filter test of authenticity, goodness & value.

Gods Plan

There is a famous story about a Taoist farmer that goes like this:

This farmer had only one horse & one day the horse ran away. The neighbors came to console him over his terrible loss. The farmer said, “What makes you think it is so terrible?”

A month later, the horse came home–this time bringing with her two beautiful wild horses. The neighbors became excited at the farmer’s good fortune. Such lovely strong horses! The farmer said, “What makes you think this is good fortune?”

The farmer’s son was thrown from one of the wild horses & broke his leg. All the neighbors were very distressed. Such bad luck! The farmer said, “What makes you think it is bad?”

A war came, and every able-bodied man was conscripted & sent into battle. Only the farmer’s son, because he had a broken leg, remained. The neighbors congratulated the farmer. “What makes you think this is good?” said the farmer.

The story reveals that instead of being swayed back & forth by the various appearances of so called good & bad fortune in this life, we can become more balanced & realize that everything is relative and we don’t ever really know what is good fortune & what is bad fortune.

The only good fortune is to allow God’s plans for us to unfold, and become an instrument for His will, and the only bad fortune is in not doing that.