31. Who is bound to whom?????

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?