Chicken or Eagle - What are you ?

Once upon a time, there was a large mountainside, where an eagle's nest rested. The eagle's nest contained four large eagle eggs. One day an earthquake rocked the mountain causing one of the eggs to roll down the mountain, to a chicken farm, located in the valley below. The chickens knew that they must protect and care for the eagle's egg, so an old hen volunteered to nurture and raise the large egg.

One day, the egg hatched and a beautiful eagle was born. Sadly, however, the eagle was raised to be a chicken. Soon, the eagle believed he was nothing more than a chicken. The eagle loved his home and family, but his spirit cried out for more. While playing a game on the farm one day, the eagle looked to the skies above and noticed a group of mighty eagles soaring in the skies. "Oh!" the eagle cried, "I wish I could soar like those birds." The chickens roared with laughter, "You cannot soar with those birds. You are a chicken(Fly) and chickens do not soar(Fly)."

The eagle continued staring, at his real family up above, dreaming that he could be with them. Each time the eagle would let his dreams be known, he was told it couldn't be done. That is what the eagle learned to believe. The eagle, after time, stopped dreaming and continued to live his life like a chicken. Finally, after a long life as a chicken, the eagle passed away.

Morale:

You become what you believe you are; so if you ever dream to become an eagle follow your dreams, not the words of a chicken..

Patience

Once there was a sweeper in a well known temple and he was very sincere and devoted. 

Every time he saw thousands of devotees coming to take darshan of the Lord, he thought that the Lord is standing all the time and giving darshan and He must be feeling very tired. 

So one day very innocently he asked the Lord whether he can take the place of the Lord for a day so that the Lord can have some relief and rest.
The Deity of Temple replied, "I do not mind taking a break. I will transform you like myself, but you must do one thing. you must just stand here like Me, smile at everyone and just give benedictions. Do not interfere with anything and do not say anything.
Remember you are the deity and you just have faith that I have a master plan for everything”.
The sweeper agreed to this.

The next day the sweeper took the position of the deity and a rich man came and prayed to the Lord. He offered a nice donation and prayed that his business should be prosperous. While going, the rich man inadvertently left his wallet full of money right there.  Now the sweeper in the form of deity could not call him and so he decided to control himself and keep quiet.

Just then a poor man came and he put one coin in the Hundi and said that it was all he could afford and he prayed to the Lord that he should continue to be engaged in the Lord's service.
He also said that his family was in dire need of some basic needs but he left it to the good hands of the Lord to give some solution.  When he opened his eyes, he saw the wallet left by the rich man. The poor man thanked the Lord for His kindness and took the wallet very innocently.
The sweeper in the form of the Deity could not say anything and he had to just keep smiling.

At that point a sailor walked in. He prayed for his safe journey as he was going on a long trip.
Just then the rich man came with the police and said that somebody has stolen his wallet and seeing the sailor there, he asked the police to arrest him thinking that he might have taken it.
Now the sweeper in the form of Deity wanted to say that the sailor is not the thief but he could not say so and he became greatly frustrated. 

The sailor looked at the Lord and asked why he, an innocent person, is being punished.
The rich man looked at the Lord and thanked Him for finding the thief. The sweeper in the deity form could no more tolerate and he thought that even if the real Lord had been here, he would have definitely interfered and hence he started speaking and said that the sailor is not the thief but it was the poor man who took away the wallet. The rich man was very thankful as also the sailor.

In the night, the real Lord came and He asked the sweeper how the day was. The sweeper said, "I thought it would be easy, but now I know that your days are not easy, but I did one good thing." Then he explained the whole episode to the Lord. The Lord became very upset on hearing this whereas the sweeper thought the Lord would appreciate him for the good deed done.
The Lord asked, "Why did you not just stick to the plan? You had no faith in Me. Do you think that I do not understand the hearts of all those who come here? 

The entire donation which the rich man gave was all stolen money and it is only a fraction of what he really has and he wants me to reciprocate unlimitedly. The single coin offered by the poor man was the last coin he was having and he gave it to me out of faith. The sailor might not have done anything wrong, but if the sailor were to go in the ship that night he was about to die because of bad weather and instead if he is arrested he would be in the jail and he would have been saved form a greater calamity. The wallet should go to the poor man because he will use it in my service. I was going to reduce the rich man's karma also by doing this and save the sailor also. But you cancelled everything because you thought you know My plan and you made your own plans."

Moral:
God has plans and justice for everyone....We just have to have patience!

Courtesy: Vinod Thanki (Porbandar)

Clean-Shaved Head ?

My wife called, ‘How long will you be with that newspaper? Will you come here & make your

darling daughter eat her food?’

I tossed the paper away & rushed to the scene. My only daughter, Sindu, looked frightened; tears were welling up in her eyes. In front of her was a bowl filled to its brim with curd rice. Sindu is a nice child, quite intelligent for her age.

I cleared my throat & picked up the bowl. ‘Sindu darling, why don’t you take a few mouthful of this curd rice? Just for Dad’s sake dear. Sindu softened a bit & wiped her tears with the back of her hands. ‘Ok, Dad.. I will eat – not just a few mouthfuls, but the whole lot of this. But, you should…’ Sindu hesitated. ‘Dad, if I eat this entire curd rice, will you give me whatever I ask for?’

‘Promise’. I covered the pink soft hand extended by my daughter with mine, & clinched the deal.

Now I became a bit anxious.

‘Sindu, dear, you shouldn’t insist on getting a computer or any such expensive items. Dad does not have that kind of money right now. Ok?’

‘No, Dad. I do not want anything expensive’. Slowly & painfully, she finished eating the whole quantity. I was silently angry with my wife & my mother for forcing my child to eat something that she detested. After the ordeal was through, Sindu came to me with her eyes wide with expectation. All our attention was on her..

‘Dad, I want to have my head shaved off, this Sunday!’ was her demand.

‘Atrocious!’ shouted my wife, ‘A girl child having her head shaved off? Impossible!’ ‘Never in our family!’ My mother rasped. ‘She has been watching too much of TV. Our culture is getting totally spoiled with this TV programs!’

‘Sindu, darling, why don’t you ask for something else? We’ll be sad seeing you with a clean-shaved head.’ ‘Please, Sindu, why don’t you try to understand our feelings?’ I tried to plead with her..

‘Dad, you saw how difficult it was for me to eat that Curd Rice’. Sindu was in tears. ‘& you promised to grant me whatever I ask for. Now, you are going back on your words. Was it not you who told me the story of King Harishchandra, its moral that we should honor our promises no matter what?’

It was time for me to call the shots. ‘Our promise must be kept.’ ‘Are you out of your mind?’ chorused my mother & wife. ‘No. If we go back on our promises, she will never learn to honor her own. Sindu, your wish will be fulfilled.’

With her head clean-shaved, Sindu had a round-face & her eyes looked big & beautiful.

On Monday morning, I dropped her at her school. It was a sight to watch my hairless Sindu walking towards her classroom. She turned around & waved.

I waved back with a smile. Just then, a boy alighted from a car & shouted, ‘Sinduja, please wait for me!’

What struck me was the hairless head of that boy. ‘May be, that is the in-stuff’, I thought.

‘Sir, your daughter Sinduja is great indeed!’ Without introducing herself, a lady got out of the car, & continued, ‘that boy who is walking along with your daughter is my son Harish. He is suffering from… leukemia’.

She paused to muffle her sobs. ‘Harish could not attend the school for the whole of the last month. He lost all his hair due to the side effects of the chemotherapy. He refused to come back to school fearing the unintentional but cruel teasing of the schoolmates. Sinduja visited him last week & promised him that she will take care of the teasing issue.

But, I never imagined she would sacrifice her lovely hair for the sake of my son! Sir, you & your wife are blessed to have such a noble soul as your daughter..’

I stood transfixed & then, I wept.. ‘My little Angel, you are teaching me how selfless real love is!’

“The happiest people are not those who live on their own terms…………but are those who

change their terms for the ones whom they love”

Courtesy: Niraj Joshi

2 Choices

What would you do? ....you make the choice. Don't look for a punch line, there isn't one. Read it anyway. My question is: Would you have made the same choice?

At a fund raising dinner for a school that serves learning-disabled children, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question: 'When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do; where is the natural order of things in my son?'

The audience was stilled by the query.

The father continued. 'I believe that when a child like Shay, physically and mentally handicapped comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child.'

Then he told the following story:

Shay and his father had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, 'Do you think they'll let me play?' Shay's father knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but the father also understood that if his son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.

Shay's father approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said, 'We're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning.'

Shay struggled over to the team's bench and, with a broad smile, put on a team shirt. His Father watched with a small tear in his eye and warmth in his heart. The boys saw the father's joy at his son being accepted. In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as his father waved to him from the stands. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team scored again. Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat.

At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game? Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball.

However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay's life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact. The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher.

The game would now be over. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game.

Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first base man's head, out of reach of all team mates. Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, 'Shay, run to first! Run to first!' Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base. He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled.

Everyone yelled, 'Run to second, run to second!' Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base. By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball . The smallest guy on their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team. He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitchers intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-base man's head. Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home.

All were screaming, 'Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay'

Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, 'Run to third! Shay; run to third!'

As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on their feet screaming, 'Shay, run home! Run home!' Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team.

'That day', said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, 'the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world'.

Shay didn't make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making his father so happy, and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!

Mindset

As I was passing by the elephants, I suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg.

No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from the ropes they were tied to but for some reason, they did not. I saw a trainer nearby and asked why these beautiful, magnificent animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away.

"Well," he said, "when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it's enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.

"I was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn't, they were stuck right where they were.

Like the elephants, how many of us go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do something, simply because we failed at it once before? 

Wise say, “Your attempt may fail, but never fail to make an attempt.”

Courtesy: Mr. Paras Detroja

Finger Bowl !

A wonderful story comes from 19th century England . According to the account, Queen Victoria was once at a diplomatic reception in London .

The guest of honor was an African chieftain. All went well during the meal until, at the end, finger bowl were served. The guest of honor had never seen a British finger bowl, and no one had thought to brief him beforehand about its purpose. So he took the bowl in his two hands, lifted it to his mouth, and drank its contents down!

For an instant there was breathless silence among the British privilege guests, and then they began to whisper to one another. All that stopped; however, when Queen Victoria silently took her finger bowl in her two hands, lifted it, and drank its contents! A moment later, 500 surprised British ladies and gentlemen simultaneously drank the contents of their own finger bowls.

It was the queen’s uncommon courtesy that guarded her guest from certain embarrassment.

This is a very rare but very effective human trait … while the most common human trait is to look for chances to humiliate/insult someone else or be neutral when someone makes mistake & let him/her go through the embarrassment … but it takes presence of mind, uncommon courtesy to follow someone else’s mistake in order to guard them from embarrassment!!

Strange

One day one follower asked to the saint, “Lord, what is the biggest strange thing in this life?”

Saint replied, “All the people are having something missing in their lives. Some long for the wealth, some long for the children, some long for women. Every one is having different wishes. They pass their entire life to make the wishes come true.

The life is perennial in nature and there is no certainty for tomorrow itself. Everyone knows this fact as well. Still the people put all the efforts for those things which are never going to accompain them after the life is over. The man behaves as if he is never going to die.

This thing is the biggest strange thing in the world. Though every one understands the final truth of the life but still they are not at all conscious towards doing good things, helping the people and worship of God.”

Morale – It is very true. “Pata nahi hai Pal ki or Baat karte ho Kal ki”. It appears very strange that most of the people in the world understand the final destination and uncertainty of life but still they behave as if they are going to last long and found unconscious towards personal development and virtual activities.