Today’s thought is a story narrated to me by my professor in college, which was his favorite story also the one I believe he lived it in his daily life.
The story
is from a Marathi book called ‘Savitri’ by the famous author Purshotam Rege.
It goes
like this: There was an old woman who stayed in the outskirts of a village
almost near a forest with her granddaughter called Lacchi. Now they were so
poor that they could hardly make their ends meet. Now Lacchi was a young girl and she longed for company. So, she would
often sulk, feel sad that she had no friends and would often sit in her little
garden that was outside her house. One day there came a peacock, and he started
dancing in front of her. Now looking at the peacock Lacchi was so happy that
she started dancing and singing along with him. By the time the peacock had to
leave Lacchi insisted that the peacock had to stay with her here because that
made her really happy. Now the peacock said, “I will come here every day, but you
have got to promise me one thing.” So, she said “Okay! I am ready to promise you
anything.” He said, “Every time I come here you have to dance, you have to be happy, and you have to sing and all three have to be really genuine, so you
can’t fake it, you have to be genuinely happy and singing.” She readily agreed
and so every time the peacock came, she would be very happy singing and dancing
with him. After a week the peacock stopped coming. But she did not realize that
the peacock had not come because by then she was very happy singing, dancing
and being happy for her own self.
When my
professor narrated this story, he said there is a difference between being happy
and searching for happiness. Because when you search for happiness, there are
times that you end up in grief. But being happy is a state of mind. And when
you are in that state of mind you are happy no matter what happens around you,
whether it is happiness, success failure whatever is the situation around you,
you still exercise optimism. And that’s the state of mind we need to strive
for.
On my part
it’s an ongoing practice an attempt to inch closer to get mastery on this. But
the story stayed with me, and it touched the core of my heart so thought of
putting it into words this Teacher’s Day as I remember my teacher.
