Namaste, Welcome to SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation), today I will share yet another tale from this monumental book The Panćatantra, tradition ascribes this fabulous work to Vişņu Śarma (“Preserver of Bliss”), faced with the challenge of educating three unlettered princes, to awaken their intelligence, Vişņu Śarma (“Preserver of Bliss”) evolved a unique pedagogy – for his aim was to teach the princes howto think, not what to think.
Also 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. We feed the hunger blindly. 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.
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Before we embark on this wonder filled, journey I want to draw your attention to these wise words of a Storyteller which I have extracted from yet another monumental work which has been inspired from “The Panćatantra”:
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.
Excerpt from Doctor’s orders:
Kalila Wa Dimna; Vol.1 – Ramsay Wood
The tale of ‘The Ancient Wild Goose and the Fowler’
In a certain wooded region there flourished a banyan tree with massive branches. In it lived a flock of wild geese. Once there sprang up a vine of the species known as Kośāmbi at the base of that tree. Noticing, the appearance of this vine, the ancient wise goose remarked, ‘Look,’ here is a vine climbing up this banyan tree which in time will pose a threat to us. For, sometime or other, someone may climb up using this vine as a support and harm us. Therefore, while this vine is still slender and easily broken, it should be destroyed.’ But the other birds disregarded his sage counsel and neglected to destroy the vine.
In the course of time, the vine grew and spread on all sides to encircle the whole tree. One day, while the geese were all out foraging, along came a fowler; he climbed up the tree by means of the thick, spreading vine and seeing the birds’ nests, placed snares around them and went home.
Late in the evening, all the wild geese returned, having foraged and sported all day; and they were all caught in the snares. The ancient wild goose chided them, ‘See, what has happened; disaster has struck: we are all caught in the snares; and all because you fellows disregarded my advice. And now we shall all perish.’
The birds then pleaded, ‘What has happened; now what do we do, O noble one?’
And the ancient, wise bird counseled, ‘If you are all prepared to follow my advice, there is a way out. When you see the fowler returning, all of you had better be absolutely still and play dead. Thinking, “These birds are quiet dead,” the fowler will throw you all to the ground, one by one. When every one of us has been thrown down and the fowler begins to climb down the tree, then we should all rise simultaneously and fly away. At daybreak the next day, the fowler arrived, looked over the birds and saw that they were pretty well gone. With complete confidence, he disentangled the birds, one after the other and threw them to the ground. Then observing that the man was about to climb down, all the birds, following the counsel of the ancient, wild goose, rose up simultaneously and flew off.
Thank you.
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