A Beautiful Game

There once lived a great mathematician in a village outside Ujjain . He was often called by the local king to advice on matters related to the economy. His reputation had spread as far as Taxila in the North and Kanchi in the South of India. So it hurt him very much when the village headman told him, "You may be a great mathematician who advises the king on economic matters but your son does not know the value of gold or silver."

The mathematician called his son and asked, "What is more valuable - gold or silver?" "Gold," said the son. "That is correct. Why is it then that the village headman makes fun of you, claims you do not know the value of gold or silver? He teases me every day. He mocks me before other village elders as a father who neglects his son. This hurts me. I feel everyone in the village is laughing behind my back because you do not know what is more valuable, gold or silver. Explain this to me, son."

So the son of the mathematician told his father the reason why the village headman carried this impression. "Every day on my way to school, the village headman calls me to his house. There, in front of all village elders, he holds out a silver coin in one hand and a gold coin in other. He asks me to pick up the more valuable coin. I pick the silver coin. He laughs, the elders jeer, everyone makes fun of me. And then I go to school. This happens every day. That is why they tell you I do not know the value of gold or silver."

The father was confused. His son knew the value of gold and silver, and yet when asked to choose between a gold coin and silver coin always picked the silver coin. "Why don't you pick up the gold coin?" he asked. In response, the son took the father to his room and showed him a box. In the box were at least a hundred silver coins. Turning to his father, the mathematician's son said, "The day I pick up the gold coin the game will stop. They will stop having fun and I will stop making money."

The bottom line is...

Sometimes in life, we have to play the fool because our seniors and our peers, and sometimes even our juniors like it. That does not mean we lose in the game of life. It just means allowing others to win in one arena of the game, while we win in the other arena of the game. We have to choose which arena matters to us and which arenas do not.

A Cute Story - Heart Is a Beautiful Garden !!

Once a Junior School teacher asked her students to bring some potatoes in a plastic bag to school. Each potato will be given a name of the person whom that child hates. Like this, the number of potatoes will be equal to the number of persons they hate. On a decided day, the children brought their potatoes well addressed. Some had two, some had three and some had even five potatoes.

The teacher said they have to carry these potatoes with them everywhere they go for a week. As the days passed the children started to complain about the spoiled smell that started coming from these potatoes. Also some students who had many potatoes complained that it was very heavy to carry them all around. The children got rid of this assignment after a week, when it got over.

The teacher asked, "How did you feel in this one week?" The children discussed their problems about the smell and weight. Then the teacher said, "This situation is very similar to what you carry in your heart when you don't like some people. This hatred makes your heart unhealthy and you carry that hatred in your heart everywhere you go. If you can’t bear the smell of spoiled potatoes for a week, imagine the impact of this hatred that you carry throughout your life, on your heart?"

MORAL :

* Our heart is a beautiful garden that needs a regular cleaning of unwanted weeds.

* Forgive those who have not behaved with you as expected and forget the bad things. this also makes room available for storing good things.

Story of a tea cup

"There was a time when I was just a dumb lump of red clay. Then one day my master came. He took me, brought me home, rolled and pounded me on a wooden table. Again and again, he poked his fingers into me until finally I yelled out: 'Don't do that! Leave me alone!' But he only smiled and gently said: "Not yet!"

Then, whoommmm! I was placed on a spinning wheel and suddenly spun around and around and around until I lost all my sense of direction: 'Stop it; don't you see that I'm getting sick? Quickly, take me from the spinning wheel!' But the master only nodded in understanding and quietly said:

"Not yet!"

Then he placed me carefully into an oven. I never felt such heat. I yelled and knocked and pounded at the door: 'It is hotter than hell - I'm burning to ashes. Please get me out of here before it is too late.' I could only read his lips as he shook his head from side to side and silently pronounced, "Not yet!"

After I had cooled down he carefully picked me up, looked at me and brushed some dust away. Then he brought the colors! The fumes were horrible! 'Please... You have no mercy! Please, Stop it!' But he only shook his head and said: "Not yet!"

An hour or later he came back and placed a mirror before me and said: "Look at yourself!" And I did.What I saw amazed me. 'That's not me!' I said. 'It is too beautiful...' With a very compassionate voice he spoke: "This is what you are meant to be," and then he explained: "I know it hurt you when I rolled and kneaded you on the table. But if I had not gotten the air out of you, you would have broken. I knew you must have lost all your sense of orientation when I was spinning you. But without this you would never have come into this form. I know the fumes of the colors were intolerable when I painted you all over. But if I had not done that, you would not have had any color in your life."

God is the potter and we are the clay. He will mold us and will expose us to just enough pressures of just the right kinds that we will become a perfect piece of His liking.