This is from my book, Are YOU Ready to Succeed?
The message is even more relevant today. Please let me know if you agree.
Peace!
Recall the last time you were angry, really angry. Perhaps your boss passed a sarcastic comment about your performance at the office party and your hated rival was nearby. Or perhaps he took the report you spent weeks slaving over and sent it up as his own work. Or perhaps your team member let you down badly and then went around proclaiming that the project got screwed up because you didn’t deliver what you were supposed to.
It does not matter. Just recall the rage that consumed you. Were there thoughts of ‘revenge’ mixed up in it? Much of what we like to think of as ‘justice’ is really revenge in disguise.
Think of the last time you felt fear. This, too, is more a part of our lives than we admit. We fear losing our jobs, our power, our looks, our youth, our health, our friends and the myriad physical and mental possessions we have spent a lifetime accumulating. We fear that we will look foolish or ignorant. We fear that others will find out what we really are like. And we put on our bold front to conceal our fear. It is a masquerade at which we are very adept.
And guilt, depression, envy, worry, unhappiness, shame, sorrow, nervousness, jealousy, hate, embarrassment and frustration. Do you remember the last time you entertained any of them? How much of your time do you spend being a willing – or unwilling – host to these demanding visitors? I suspect that you do not even want to know the answer. And you are not alone in this. We are all in the same boat.
Why do all these painful emotions take hold of you?
We think we know the answer. They come from outside. When we see injustice, we feel angry. When we are threatened we feel both fear and aggression. When the Universe does not cooperate with us, we feel frustrated. And so it goes. Each destructive emotion comes from some external cause and there is no end to these.
Not so. You are prey to these destructive impulses because that is what is inside you. That is what YOU have been brewing in the seething cauldron of unchecked mental chatter that you have been pressure-cooking for decades. If you sometimes feel that you are not far from an explosion, you are probably correct. You aren’t.
Rossagollas are traditional Indian sweets. They are round and white and about the size of a ping pong ball and much beloved by young and old. If you squeeze a rossagolla, what comes out is the sweet, sweet syrup in which it has been marinated. It does not matter how you squeeze it. You can do it between thumb and forefinger. You can drop it on a hard floor and step on it. You can run over it with a truck. You can put a suitcase down on it. In every case it yields the sugary solution in which it has rested.
Why does the sweet stuff come out from a rossagolla even when it is treated so horribly? Because that’s what is in it.
Life has different ways of putting the squeeze on you – work related pressure, family discord, health issues, political discomfiture. What comes out of you when you are squeezed? In all likelihood it is one or more of the emotions mentioned above. Why? Because that is what is inside you. It DOES NOT come from outside. What is released is from within you. The nasty stuff that emerges is the beast you have been feeding.
After many years at the helm the Abbot of the monastery knew that it was time for him to move on to the final phase of life. He appointed his successor and, in the early morn, prepared to leave. His simple bundle contained only a change of clothes and a few cooking vessels. He had no need for more.
His successor was waiting with bare feet at the gate of the monastery. He pressed a package into the Abbot’s hand and whispered, “This is our gift to you. There is no one who can make better use of it and no place that it has more usefulness than with you. Take it and bless us. There is only one condition – You may not open the package till you are seven days away from here.” He left after prostrating.
On the eighth day the Abbot opened the package and was stunned. It was a magnificent book, richly hand illustrated and full of the Blessed One’s teachings. Many, many hours had he spent with it in days bygone. It was the greatest treasure of the monastery he had left. He instantly knew why he had been enjoined from opening the package till seven days’ journey had passed. He would never have consented to receive it if he had known.
He settled down in a distant village and lived a quiet life of contemplation while he waited for his days to end. He studied the book daily, even though the contents were engraved in his mind and it brought him much solace. He arranged with a trustworthy local youth to have it taken back to the monastery when his time was done.
One day a shifty-eyed traveler knocked at his door and received shelter and a share of his meager meal as many had before him. When the Abbot rose before dawn, his visitor had gone and so had the book of teachings.
The thief traveled for three days and came to a town before he felt safe enough to sell his loot. The town scribe was the most learned man and he also was a merchant. The thief produced the book and asked for ten pieces of gold. He proclaimed that it was an ancient volume that had been in his family for generations and had been written by a venerable sage. The scribe examined it with awe. “If it is truly written by the sage, it is worth every bit of ten gold pieces,” he affirmed. He told the thief to come back in a week while he verified its authenticity.
When the thief returned, the scribe poured out a hundred pieces of gold in front of him. “No one here has the ability to authenticate such a treasure,” he explained. “The former abbot of a famous monastery resides in a village three days away and I sent my assistant to him with the book to inquire about its value. He readily confirmed its origins and said that were I to give less than a hundred pieces of gold for it, I would be guilty of thievery.”
The thief changed his mind and took back the book. He rushed back to the village he had left so hurriedly and the abbot whose treasure he had spirited away. Throwing himself at the abbot’s feet he begged for forgiveness. “Give me that which you have,” he pleaded. “Give me that which enabled you to so readily give up a treasure of such value.”
And so he became the Abbot’s student and lived humbly close by and imbibed the teachings and these took root in him. And one day the Abbot blessed him and departed his body. The erstwhile thief performed the last rites with tears in his eyes and then personally traveled to the monastery he had never seen to deliver the book that had inadvertently started him on his own quest.
He joined the monastery and stayed for many decades and, one day, in turn became its Abbot.
What caused the Abbot to react in that fashion to what most of us would consider a grievous wrong? The same thing that once led the Buddha to bless the man who had laced his food with poison. The same thing that led Jesus on the cross to plead forgiveness for his tormentors. Benevolence towards all was inside them and that is what came out when they were squeezed.
And you, too, can transform the gunk that is inside you and to which you are adding on a regular basis. Even decreasing the amount that you are adding to it will result in a quantum improvement in your life!! The exercises in this book – especially the appreciation and gratitude exercise – have already given you a glimpse of this. If you have not felt it, it is because you have not really done the exercise with attention and focus. Go back and do it. Really, really do it!!!
Please get my book, Are YOU Ready to Succeed?, and read it. The exercises there have helped thousands around the world. They will certainly help you if you do them sincerely.
How do you transform the gunk in your life? I will tell you next week.
Peace!
