Namaste, Welcome to SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation), as we begin today ‘let us remember this about ‘Attention’.
Our life experience would ultimately amount to whatever we had paid attention to. Attention: is important and most of the times we are so indifferent to it. It is as fundamental as food; and we go blundering about, seeking ways to assuage the craving, instead of learning how to provide ourselves with what we need, sensibly and calmly. Once the mechanism is brought to our attention and we begin to study it, it is as if a veil has been stripped off ordinary life, and we become freer in our action and choices.
This week I bring to your attention a fable titled ‘The Aim of the Nightingale’ from the book titled ‘The Magic Monastery’.
The Magic Monastery is rich in thought-provoking material, and can be read and enjoyed at many levels. It is also designed as a course in non-linear thinking.
The Aim of the Nightingale
A nightingale who happened to have no home of his own decided that he would try to settle in a certain forest. The birds who were already there, however, had their own ideas about the matter, and soon drove him out.
One day, sitting disconsolately by the dusty road nearby, he was spied by another nightingale, who stopped to ask why he looked so forlorn.
‘I tried, said the first bird, ‘to make my home among other birds, but they pecked, and they mobbed me, and they flapped at me until I had to leave yonder forest.’
Perhaps you were boastful, said the other nightingale.
When, in a similar situation, I sought a tree of my own, all the birds first collected and asked me what I was doing, why I was singing.’
‘Yes, those birds did the same with me, said the first nightingale.
“And what did you say?”
‘I said: “I am singing because I simply cannot help it.”
‘And then?
‘And then they attacked me, as I have described?
Ah, said the other bird that was your mistake. They thought that you had no self-control, that you might be mad and that you might try to make them behave in a similar manner.
When I was asked the same question, I said: “I am trying to please you with my song.” That was an aim which they could understand?
Fable from ‘The Magic Monastery’ by Idries Shah
I am sure that you will enjoy reading this book; you can buy your copy from the following link:
Enjoy reading it with your family, friends and near and dear one’s.
Before concluding today’s episode please pay attention to these words of a Storyteller.
My stories require, at this stage, no extra commentary, imaginings, or guesswork by you, me, or anyone else. The very worst would be that of moralizing. To explain away is to forget. Thus, let the stories which you can remember do their own work by their very diversity. Familiarize yourself with them.
Namaste!
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