http://www.speakingtree.in/public/spiritual-blogs/seekers/self-improvement/who-is-bound-to-whom
Once a Guru was taking his
disciples to the near by village temple. On the way they had to cross a market-place.
Guru was a practical man and he taught his disciples showing them real life
situations.
The group saw a man pulling
his buffalo by a rope. Guru went up to the man and said, “Stop!”
He then turned to his disciples
and said, “Now all of you stand before this man and the buffalo I am going to
teach you something today.”
The man looked at the Guru
and thought the Guru might reveal some insight which he can also imbibe. He
wondered what the Guru would teach using him and his buffalo.
Guru asked his disciples,
“Who is bound to whom? Is the buffalo bound to this man or is this man bound to
this buffalo?”
After a short time of silence
the disciples said, “As we saw the man pulling the buffalo by rope it is
obvious that the buffalo is bound to this man. This man is the master of this
buffalo and it has to go with him wherever he drags it to. So the man is the
master and the buffalo is the subordinate.”
Then the Guru said, “So you
all agree that the buffalo is bound to this man, right. Now look what happens.”
Guru looked at the man and
said, “Hand over the rope to me.” The man eager to know what might really happen
handed the rope to the Guru.
Once the rope was in the
hands of the Guru, he let the buffalo lose and the buffalo started to escape
and ran away. The man who could not believe what happened instantly ran behind
the buffalo.
Looking at the man running
behind the buffalo Guru told his disciples, “Look, the scene has completely
changed see now who is bound to whom! The buffalo is no more interested to be
with this man whom you all said was the master. In fact the buffalo is escaping
from him.”
The buffalo had picked up the
speed and was quickly out of sight. The man exhausted came back and was very
angry. He asked the Guru, “What kind of practical learning is this? My buffalo
is gone.”
But the Guru was busy
explaining the practical learning to his disciples. He said, “Exactly similar
is the situation with regard to your mind. The entire nonsense in the way of
bitter memories, fears, anxieties, grief, guilt and much much more that you are
carrying inside is not interested in you just like that buffalo. You are
interested in it, you are keeping it together somehow and because of it you are
restless. You are dragging it towards you just like that man who was pulling
the buffalo with his rope. The moment you let them out and become disinterested
with them they will start disappearing; just like that buffalo.”
The Guru did teach a lesson
on how powerful our attachments to unwanted and uncalled for matters could be. The more we get attached to those unwanted
matters the more we have to suffer because of them. Suppose we fail to achieve
something we instantly search for the reason and mostly blame ourselves for it.
There is no necessity to identify with the failure, as failure is just an event.
If we have the mindset to learn from the failure and move forward we have
achieved a lot……What say?
