The Doorway to Wisdom

Once there lived a Zen Master with his several disciples. Among all of them, there was one very dear to him, but he never told. For this one disciple, the master decided a very clear motive and path in his mind. Throughout the discipleship, whatever good work he did the master never praised, he just nodded with a good and walked by. This continued till the time came to part ways, the disciple became known to many people for his work, ability and wisdom but even to this time the master never praised him. Finally, when the moment came for the disciple to go, he bowed down to his master in utmost devotion. At that time his master spoke, “O dear, I have never praised nor recognized your work over these many years that we were together and now see you don’t even need to be praised to tell what you are”. These words hit like a thunderbolt to the disciple and he finally realized that by all this his master prepared him for his ultimate potential, he cried immensely bowing on the master’s feet, tears of ecstasy washed his cheeks and he was finally given the title of a master. Further, his master continued in this longest conversation that he ever had with him...

“O chosen one, whatever I did to you is nothing new as this is the very nature of Mother Divine herself. She keeps training innumerable people for their ultimate potential but those ignorant name it as pain, misery, bad fate and whatnot, they just don’t want to explore the cause of the experiences they are going through. If from the beginning I kept praising you for every little thing that you did, you would have never been able to reach the stage to be called as a master, that’s what Mother Divine does to all of us, she loves but rarely shows for she wants every one of us to realize our own truth”. Some wake-up others never, those who never wake she leaves them on their own."

With this, we get to know the true nature of wisdom that it comes from experiences and can never be obtained from other sources. Whatever kind of experiences we go through, some sweet some bitter, we have to analyse all of them to extract wisdom and experience the divinity in everything. Sometimes to explore our own depths we need to sit, wonder and reflect upon who we are, why we are and why all this! Like the wall-clock which keeps ticking every second but you get to hear the sound only when the surrounding is silent, to know the accessible wisdom we also have to be silent and reflect upon the things happening to us instead of being ignorant towards them.

During childhood, we cried for chocolate but mother always gave us in moderation, much later we realized that eating too much chocolate is harmful to teeth, at that time not getting chocolate used to be a misery, isn’t it! Similarly, what now feels as misery can be a doorway to wisdom, that experience is here to train us. Our expectation of getting sweetness in every moment of our life can not take us much far, it can never help us develop.

Now, to understand that we learn from experiences some sense is required, where there is no sense nothing can be done. I don’t know about the west but in India, a new birthday celebration trend has started among the young generation. In this, they bring many small cakes with each cake representing one letter from the name of the birthday guy and what’s surprising to me is that no one eats any of the cake, all these cakes are used to be thrown at each other and to do cake-facial. This is sheer ignorance, there are millions of people who can’t even get a two-time meal, the cake being a luxury for them and here are these people wasting it in the name of celebration. Today, we see in the name of being ‘cool’ the generation is doing stupid things, somehow they have developed their understanding that these are the things that need to be done to be called cool among peers…how can one talk about wisdom if even sense is decreasing!

It can’t be worse that there is an ever-increasing number of teenagers being diagnosed with depression and other allied medical problems, there must be something that we all as a society are doing wrong. You blame it on the education system or whatever but we as a society are failing to provide the young generation with the moral sense. Parents are busy with job, teachers are bound by the syllabus deadline, then who the hell is there to teach life! There should be no blame game in this, we as a society have to take responsibility of providing the young generation with a moral sense, not by preaching but by making them experience. Children observe very well, if you do good they will become good, they won’t be throwing cakes later when they grow up! Before late teens, sensibility must be developed in every child. Once sensibility is there, once they know the Blacks and Whites, wisdom will naturally come.

Today, the Education systems around the globe are realising the importance of Meditation. In India, this used to happen long ago in the ancient schooling system where Dhyana was also an aspect of education. At that time or even today, practices such as Meditation or Mindfulness are not to make children monk or sage rather they are to develop their receptivity for the things happening around them because somewhere we all are realizing that to create a better and more peaceful society there is a need for some fundamental changes in our life rather than cosmetic changes.

Sensibility can only come when there is a knowledge beyond textbooks, it can only come when they learn and experience things with which they can connect on an emotional level. To connect with things on an emotional level and to see the intensity of things, the age-old practices are the way to go. Once the young minds are equipped with sense, they will naturally start comprehending their experiences. With this, they will not complain, will not be diagnosed with depression, they will just grow in their capacities and capacities you may ask…they are limitless! This is the doorway to wisdom…

Once all this happen, the Zen Master or as you may call the supreme consciousness is not far away! The divine is always ready to be the trainer, the only question is, are you able to bear the training :)

P.S.: While discussing wisdom here in this article I got reminded of a very meaningful book that I read a while ago, A Fistful of Wisdom by Om Swami, a very favourite author of mine. The book is available at Amazon Global Stores and Flipkart(India).