Every morning I saw an elderly gentlemen 👴 picking up flowers 🌸💐 fallen under the tree 🌳and neatly keep in a basket 🧺, meant for temple 🛕 visits. His activity was making me curious
One fine morning 🌄 I saw him again, and decided to quench my curiosity.
I asked him, Uncle, I always see you picking up these freshly fallen flowers 🌸🌺 from the ground. What do you do with them?
I use it to worship deities and gods in my house 🏠, he replied calmly.
Now this was new.Haven’t heard anything like this before. So, I asked him again, “Why will you put fallen flowers 🌸🌹, when there are plenty on the plant itself?”.
I am helping the flowers 🌸🌻 fulfil their purpose, to be with the God in their last days. They also have life, they also want to be with God like you and me in our last days, isn’t it, he asked me. I just nodded and he continued.
People pluck the buds 🌷 which have not even bloomed, and some only pluck the one’s which has just bloomed, not even letting them release their fragrance. Everyone takes what’s beautiful and leaves the plant stripped off its beauty. See, how these plants look like, stripped and deserted.
He continued, every flower 💐 has a purpose, to be with the God. While everyone takes away what’s there on the plant, I choose to pick them up. It’s not their fault that they fell down. They also deserve to be with God.
You also try it, you will find peace and happiness in doing it. I find it, that’s why I did it. I am too old support anyone, but I can help these flowers 🌻🌻 meet their destiny.
I could just nod and smile 😊
With this new inspiration and thought, I decided that let me also try picking up fallen flowers 💐 for worshipping.
I crossed a hibiscus 🌺 tree and saw few flowers fallen under the tree. As I bent down to pick up, I heard a voice
“You don’t put fallen flowers to God”, it was my Mom speaking to in my head, and then I stopped for a second.
“God is only looking for your emotion & devotion towards him, so go ahead and pick up”, it was again my Mom speaking to me in my head
After much deliberation and looking at both sides, I picked the flowers 🌸🌻 and put it in my palms. I could feel goose bumps and my heart 💖 started racing. It was a very different kind of love I was feeling inside my body for these flowers 🌹🌸.
I got them home 🏡, washed them and placed them where they deserved, at the feet of God.
This entire experience was overwhelming. I felt good and nice about myself. I felt as if I have saved someone’s life or helped someone come out of misery. I had never felt this level of contentment before with flowers atleast. And I feel, I will continue to do this. Pick up who has fallen down.
In life, we always want to be around nice and beautiful people. We want to see ourselves with people who belong to our stature, and look down on people below our status
But, the real satisfaction comes when we help someone and make their life better. Be it a human, animal, bird or any other form of life.
Some of you might have read this before but I have posted it as it’s worth reading again and again 😊
Motivational Story – The Bamboo Tree
A man got frustrated with life. Despite all the hard work and effort, failure was all that he learnt. Feeling defeated with life, he left everything and exiled himself in the woods. There he met a Hermit. The disappointed man shared is failure with the hermit. “Give me one good reason not to quit?”- He pleaded the Hermit
“Look”, the hermit said, pointing towards two plants. “Do you see that fern and bamboo there?
“Yes”, the man nodded.
“When I planted the fern and the bamboo seeds, I took very good care of them. I gave them water, light and fertilizer. Within a short period of time the fern quickly grew from the earth”, the hermit continued.
“But despite the Bamboo seed being watered and nurtured for years, it did not outwardly grow as much as an inch. In fact, nothing at all happened in the first year. There was no sign of growth. But, I did not give up on the Bamboo seed and continued to water and nurture it. By the fifth year, a tiny sprout emerged from the earth. And within six months, the tree grew a hundred feet tall.”
“So, did the bamboo tree lie dormant for four years only to grow exponentially in the fifth?” the hermit asked. Baffled by the question the man kept quiet. “The answer is quite obvious. The little tree was growing underground, developing a root system strong enough to support its potential for outward growth in the fifth year and beyond. Had the tree not developed a strong foundation, it would not have sustained its life as it grew.”
“Did you know that all the time you had been struggling, you were growing strong roots”, remarked the hermit
The man learned his lesson that day. He learnt the value of persistence and hard work. The fern and the bamboo stood right in front of him as he walked towards his life to continue to work on his dreams
This week finds me traveling yet again to another city. I realize the sights and smells that greet me as I set alight also set the expectations.
Yet one thing has never changed in all my travels My inate ability to wake up at dawn no matter when I sleep. In the hotel room I am suddenly abound by precious time. I also enjoy the practice of having warm water with a just slight dip of a teabag for a second so its more flavored water than tea. I sense many moments of great connectedness in this unadulterated time of sipping tea. I love it best propped in bed with my feet all tucked in the warm sheets The warm concoction ever so gently bringing in the old familiar fuzzy feeling of being at ease, and accommodating my palate and me to the sensations of a new place. Over many such moments of serendipitousness & the familiar deju vus that wash over me, I have been privy to my musings in verses that flow effortlessly. Like I am doing in this now…
Moments matter and your movements in the moments matter a great deal. Hold this moment that is, in rapture and awe It’s precious for it will slip away Never to meet again in posterity. But in creating a ripple effect of positivity through the movements in the moment What is the future can manifest from this now Care to alter your life for the better. Alter your moves…
During the course of a Management Seminar, Mr. T.N.Seshan, former Chief Election Commissioner shared an experience he had while travelling in Uttar Pradesh with his wife.As they were travelling by road, they saw a large mango plantation filled with sparrow nests. Seshan’s wife decided to carry two nests to their home. The police escort called a young boy who was grazing cows and asked him to bring down two nests and offered to pay him Ten Rupees. The boy refused as Seshan raised the offer to Rupees Fifty. The boy told Seshan and his wife, “Sahib, I will not do it for whatever you will give. Inside these nests are baby sparrows. If I give those nests to you, in the evening, when the mother sparrow returns with food for the babies and does not find them there, she will cry. I do not have the heart to see that.”* Seshan and his wife were taken aback and felt small.Seshan later recounted that his position and the IAS label melted away in front of that little boy. He stood in front of the young boy feeling as small as a mustard seed. He added that after returning home, this incident continued to haunt him with guilt for several days. Education, position or social status is never a yardstick for the measure of humanity. Let’s not forget that knowledge is to know and understand the beauty of nature. We don’t achieve anything by gathering a lot of information as long as that information does not get transformed into wisdom. And wisdom is useless as long as we don’t apply it in our daily life.
Crown shyness is a phenomenon observed in fully grown trees of the same or often even different species where they maintain a distance between themselves and do not touch each other at the top forming a canopy with interesting gaps possibly for sunlight to enter or even to keep leaf eating insects from spreading .
There is much to understand and learn from nature
It’s amazing to see the wisdom of nature manifest in so many different ways around us.
Spatial awareness between trees are a striking example of the wisdom of balance in nature
There is always a reason, a wisdom we are yet to know…
After all
It is the very nature of Nature To be the great balancer To know when to rise and fall. To know when to give and take. To maintain the equilibrium.
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