BANYAN TREE
TEACHING STORY
THE FOUR TREES
Once upon a time, four trees started to grow on top of a small hill. Three of the trees were very selfish, arrogant, and proud, always boasting about how big and tall they would become and live forever. But the fourth tree was happy and content, just to be a tree.
Many years passed and the three trees looked impressive but grew ever more arrogant, selfish, and proud, boasting and teasing each other constantly about how they were better than the other. The fourth tree wasn’t the best looking or the tallest but was happy and content, just to be a tree.
One day, a woodcutter came along and cut the three proud, arrogant trees down to the ground. The first tree was made into the city gates, the second tree, into a great warship, and the third tree, into a great place of worship. Each of the three trees were proud and happy of their new position in society, boasting that they were better than the other. Sometime later, a great army attacked the city. The city gates were destroyed, the great warship was sunk in the harbour, and the great place of worship was burnt to the ground.
Only the fourth tree survived, growing on the hill, happy and content, just to be a tree. It knew that it could not live forever and that the day must come when it too would pass away. But not before it set seed to four little trees growing on that hill, all happy and content, just to be a tree.
Moral: Impermanence is the nature of everything. When we truly know the impermanence of ourselves and others, we understand how precious each and every moment is. All that matters in life is to live each moment truly.
THIS, I KNOW
DEEPAK CHOPRA
• The most creative act you will ever undertake is the act of creating yourself.
• Love doesn’t need reason. It speaks from the irrational wisdom of the heart.
• Holding on to anything is like holding on to your breath. You will suffocate. The only way to get anything in the physical universe is by letting go of it. Let go, and it will be yours forever.
• Life gives you plenty of time to do whatever you want to do if you stay in the present moment.
• We must go beyond the constant clamour of ego, beyond the tools of logic and reason, to the still, calm place within us: the realm of the soul.
• Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future.
• If you focus on success, you’ll have stress. But if you pursue excellence, success will be guaranteed.
• Pain isn’t the truth; it’s what you have to get through in order to find the truth.
• Even when you think you have your life all mapped out, things happen that shape your destiny in ways you might never have imagined.
• Always go with your passions. Never ask yourself if it’s realistic or not.
INSPIRATION
THE ABSOLUTE
No mind, no form, I only exist;
Now ceased all will and thought;
The final end of Nature’s dance,
I am it whom I have sought.
A realm of Bliss bare, ultimate;
Beyond both knower and known;
A rest immense I enjoy at last;
I face the One alone.
I have crossed the secret ways of life,
I have become the Goal.
The Truth immutable is revealed;
I am the way, the God-Soul.
My spirit aware of all the heights,
I am mute in the core of the Sun.
I barter nothing with time and deeds;
My cosmic play is done.
—Sri Chinmoy
ONE-MINUTE WISDOM
HARMONY
For all his traditional ways, the Master had scant respect for rules and traditions.
A quarrel once broke out between a disciple and his daughter because the man kept
insisting that the girl conform to the rules of their religion in the choice of her
prospective husband. The Master openly
sided with the girl.
When the disciple expressed his surprise that a holy man would do this, the Master
said, “You must understand that life is just like music which is made more by
feeling and instinct than by rules.”
QUOTE
Fools laugh at others. Wisdom laughs at itself.
—Osho
JUST FOR LAUGHS
Birth-Days!
Teacher: “What is your date of birth?”
Suleman: “October 13”
Teacher: “Which year?”
Suleman: “Every year.”