{"id":445,"date":"2022-04-24T06:10:36","date_gmt":"2022-04-24T06:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qsconsultants.in\/blog\/?p=445"},"modified":"2022-04-24T06:10:37","modified_gmt":"2022-04-24T06:10:37","slug":"the-branch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qsconsultants.in\/blog\/the-branch\/","title":{"rendered":"The Branch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Namaste, Welcome to SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation), as we begin today \u2018let us remember this about \u2018Attention\u2019.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This week I bring to your attention a tale from the corpus of \u2018Land of Fools\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Branch<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once upon a time, in the Land of Fools, a stranger to the country found that the branch of a tree had broken and was about to destroy a dam full of water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He seized the branch and held on to it. And soon afterwards a party of people of the Land of Fools came walking by. And they said, ‘What are you doing with that branch?:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And he answered, ‘How lucky you have arrived! Help me to lift this branch, for otherwise the dam will be broken, and we shall all die! \u2018<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And they laughed and they laughed and they laughed; and finally the wisest among them, wiping the tears from his eyes, said, ‘Dear friends! This is a delicious moment: savor it. Not only does this man, talking about a branch, imagine that we are stupid enough to think that it has some relevance to a dam–but he imagines that by relating it to an ancient fear of ours he will make us obey him!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so, doubled up in paroxysms of laughter, the people of the Land of Fools went on their way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the end of the story? The end of the story is exactly what you think it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now this kind of a story is not only a joke, but it is intended to be used wherever one comes across that very common phenomenon of people getting all \u2018gummed up, ” people’s ideas having crystallized, so that they cannot see the possible relevance between two apparently disconnected things, which are, in fact, at some level, connected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before concluding today\u2019s episode please pay attention to these words of a Storyteller.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concluding today\u2019s post and podcast episode, I thank all who take time out and read (the blog post) and listen to the episodes each week. For those who listen and have not subscribed to the podcast I suggest you do and click on the bell icon so that you can be notified for all the new episodes that get uploaded every week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Namaste.<\/p>\n\n\n