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 tale titled ‘City of Storms’ 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.
City of Storms
Once upon a time there was a city. It was very much like any other city, except that it was almost permanently enveloped in storms.
The people who lived in it loved their city. They had, of course, adjusted to its climate. Living amid storms meant that they did not notice thunder, lightning and rain most of the time.
If anyone pointed out the climate, they thought that he was being rude or boring. After all, having storms was what life was like, wasn’t it? Life went on like this for many centuries.
This would have been all very well, but for one thing: the people had not made a complete adaptation to a storm-climate. The result was that they were afraid, unsettled and frequently agitated.
Since they had never seen any other kind of place in living memory, cities or countries without storms belonged to folklore or the babblings of lunatics.
There were two tried recipes which caused them to forget, for a time, their tensions: to make changes and to obsess themselves with what they had. At any given moment in their history, some sections of the population would have their attention fixed on change, and others on possessions of some kind. The unhappy ones would only then be those who were doing neither.
Rain poured down, but nobody did anything about it because it was not a recognised problem. Wetness was a problem, but nobody connected it with rain. Lightning started fires, which were a problem, but these were regarded as individual events without a consistent cause.
You may think it remarkable that so many people knew so little for so long.
But then we tend to forget that, compared to present-day information, most people in history have known almost nothing about anything – and even contemporary knowledge is daily being modified – and even proved wrong.
Tale 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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