From Khalil Gibran

Here it goes......

THE OLD, OLD WINE : from THE MADMAN written by Khalil Gibran

Once there lived a rich man who was justly proud of his cellar and the wine therein. And there was one jug of ancient vintage kept for some occasion known only to himself.

The governor of the state visited him, and he bethought him and said, "That jug shall not be opened for a mere governor."

And a bishop of the diocese visited him, but he said to himself, "Nay, I will not open that jug. He would not know its value, nor would its aroma reach his nostrils."
The prince of the realm came and supped with him. But he thought, "It is too royal a wine for a mere princeling."
And even on the day when his own nephew was married, he said to himself, "No, not to these guests shall that jug be brought forth."
And the years passed by, and he died, an old man, and he was buried like unto every seed and acorn.
And upon the day that he was buried the ancient jug was brought out together with other jugs of wine, and it was shared by the peasants of the neighborhood. And none knew its great age.
To them, all that is poured into a cup is only wine.

letter from Rama

Hi all I am Rama, yap the same lord Rama as you all say, I have come for a direct one to one conversation because I could not bear my image as propagated in this country by those who call themselves as my followers. It is a pity that they are my followers because I never wanted any. I lived a fulfilling life according to my own convictions and wanted that everyone should live according to his. But alas I have got followers and they are the one who hurts most. I should admit, it is rightly said that lord returns on earth whenever there is a crisis on dharma. I have come back to save dharma from my own so called followers who have so much polluted the environ of this planet that dharma has been nearly obliterated. You will be wondering what I am saying, let me clarify.

I will put before you life of an average follower of mine. An average devotee of mine visits the temple in morning after this daily ablution. His morning offerings last an hour or so when he keeps repeating my name a thousand times. Now he goes to his work (say he works as a head clerk in the PWD department) , he puts a large framed picture of mine (with my wife, brother and of course Hanuman) on the wall behind me and after paying me homage for thousand and oneth time , he starts his daily chores. Sorry to say the daily work has not yet started because the tea has not yet come. Though the files are piling on his desk he wastes an hour or so in drinking tea and now opens the first file, hardly few mins would have passed he gets up to find how much India has scored against Pakistan in the ongoing one day series. After which his far off relative arrives from his village and he spends another hour with him. When his senior asks about the files he hurriedly completes the job (only I know how) and handles it to his boss who is also one of my devotees. If there is any public dealing of these devotees of mine they do not hesitate to take bribe. And before leaving office they don’t even forget to pay me their homage.

I never needed people to worship me. Can’t they see that repeating my name a thousand time has not made any difference in their character, they continue to remain the same rugged lazy idiots as they were. In reality they do not know anything about me. In fact they do not worship me but they worship there own fears and dogmas .They worship there own securities.

These people will never understand me and my life .How I lived with freedom and for what my life stood for. They tell their children to obey elders as lord Rama did. My obedience to my parents was spontaneous. It was out of my own convictions; my own freedom .My obedience is the epitome of my liveliness where as there obedience is the result of their blindness. My character was a result of my understanding.

My life stands for the understanding which I obtained from my own experiences. I never followed anyone because following anyone can’t lead to anywhere. By being a follower a man becomes blind, blind to his own experiences and a blind man can only live a borrowed life which does not yield anything.

I today pronounce to all of you not to follow me. Tore all my pictures and posters you have, raze all my statutes and temples from the surface of this planet, so that in future man has no guidance except his own wisdom except his own heart.

short story : Standing on ones own conviction

Keshav was wondering what he wants from life. He was nineteen when he entered the monastery .It has been seven years now. He has led the most disciplined life in the brotherhood and all his fellow monks respect him. Keshav has got control over the his breaths, he eats once in two days, once he sat for three days in meditation. It is not that this austerity has not paid him off. Nature has opened many secrets before him; he knew how air operates in a human body, how by controlling it one can remain active and healthy.

No one in the monastery has attained so much control which Keshav had, but there was something which kept him disturbed. He could not sleep whole night. Is this life he wanted for himself, though all monks revere him but he knew that the feat he has attained can be achieved by anyone through practice. It is only that other monks are slow that they take so much time. Now Keshav needed something more out of his life, but he didn’t knew what.

He went to the head monk and told” sir, I have made some progress according to the instructions given in the scriptures. I have trained myself on the lines of the sacred books of monastery but I still feel empty, I feel that all this is leading me nowhere, as if I am stuck. On the one hand there is the appreciation which I get from the follow monks and on the other hand is the emptiness and lie which I feel in my achievement. I don’t know what to do.

The head replied “Keshav, the problem with you is not of achievement but of doubt. You doubt the scriptures, you doubt the methods therein, don’t you know that our monastery is 200 years old and we have a heritage of monks which are revered by monasteries all over Asia. Don’t you know that from the same methods our monastery has produced monks which are world admires, and still you doubt the inscriptions and procedures.”

“sir, for seven years I have followed the inscriptions by word , I never had any element of doubt in me but I never felt satisfied. I thought may be I will get the result later. But things are not working for me. May be the methods of the monastery do not fit on me or they need some change. May be that they worked for the great monks you mentioned, but they are not working now. I have not met a single monk in the monastery who has benefited from the procedures. Sir I humbly ask you that have you attained in life what you wanted to. Are you satisfied with yourself?

“Shut up Keshav you are insulting the monastery. Off course I am satisfied with myself and the progress of all the monks. If you have to be here you have to follow the ancient norms and procedures. Now retire into your cell.”

Keshav went to his cell but he could not sleep. How are the head and other monks so satisfied with themselves? Do they not realize the uselessness of their entire endeavourers. How can they rely on the procedures which do not bring about any change? What could be the reason for this all? He contemplated for a long time and came to conclusion that these monks do not have enough courage to deify the old scripture even if they do not get benefitted from it. They have renounced there homes to get something worth in there lives but actually they have not renounced anything, they just changed the objects they were clinging to. Before they were clinging to there family now they are attached to the monastery and the scriptures. He decided to leave the monastery at once.

When keshav stepped out of monastery it was too dark but he felt a new moon of his life taking birth. He had mixed feelings, he has been in the monastery for seven years, all monks respect him, and what he will get on leaving this monastery he did not knew. But he can also not remain static whole his life here. He has to go. Now keshav was realizing why other monks were still attached to the monastery. To step into this world on ones own is tougher than following the scriptures. For the first time keshav was experiencing what it takes to stand on ones own convictions. Till now it was very easy for him to follow the rules of monastery but now on he is responsible for all his steps. This was the beginning of a new learning for him, which he could not have undergone hath he remained in the monastery. This experience filled his heart with a very strange sensation which keshav himself has never felt before. He felt such peace and calmness which he never had in his seven years of sojourn in the monastery.

Though he was alone but he realized that he has begun his journey in the right direction.

A real Practical Man

I feel that there are two type of people who inherit this planets the theorists and the practicalists. The theorist live in there own world, they derive there notions from the experience of others. They believe in logic and cause and effect principal. A perfect theorist is a man who is living happily in the condition life has offered to him or even if he tries to change his position ,he tries only in theory that is he logically tries to find out the cause of this present condition and then he thinks what he can do for the change. He continually thinks what he can do , but never has the grit to take that step. Some how either through logical conclusions or through the experiences of others he keep on convincing himself that what he is doing is the maximum he can do. Thus theoreticals continue there life. Many die without persevering any substantial change in themselves.

Now consider a man who is theoretical in the aforesaid manner but is a bit different, he is fully theoretical......I mean that he follows every thing which is available to him by the society in theory. If he is fully follows all the norms of the society than he will also follow truthfulness which society preaches. Now ones he starts practicing that truthfulness a great change will happen in his life .Infact I will say that a revolution will come about. He will see that entire his life he has been fooling himself . The social norms on which he pursued his life are not really worthwhile.

from hereon we will see the birth of a practical man.Man who does not take anything for granted and believes in his experiences more than anything else. For such a man experiences are the only key. He will take all the risks for the sake of continuing his experiences. Such a man I beieve is the real man , there is nothing which is artificial in him . He is the product of his own experiments.