Hari
Om
Each 'Choose-day' we will investigate the process by
which we can reassess our activity and interaction with the world of plurality
and become more congruent within our personality.
The next little prasaadam pushtaka we shall puruse is
'Many Problems One Solution', from Guru-ji, Swami Tejoymayananda.
Once,
a hungry person went to a shop to buy apples. Instead of apples, he was given
the seeds that he could plant, which would become fruit-bearing trees yielding
apples in abundance. In the same way, there are some 'seeds of wisdom' which
can help us more than if we had direct help. Not that direct help itself in the
instance is not to be given. However, learning how to deal with things for
ourselves is not just empowering, but makes us a more useful unit of society
and perhaps, one day, givers of wisdom ourselves!
The
Nature of Problems.
If
we analyse and observe, we will find that situations in life are what things
which become problems. If you are comfortably sitting in your own house and
begin to feel hungry, the hunger does not pose a problem. There is food in the
kitchen - or if not, there is a restaurant along the street. However, if you
are sitting in a strange place and food is not readily available, or you do not
have the funds to purchase food, that situation presents itself now as a
problem. How so? For we have not learned the necessarily skills to forage or
have any avenue of working in exchange for food or the money to buy it. This
leaves us in a state on not being able to deal with the situation.
A
situation which we cannot cope with becomes a problem to us. If you understand
the situation, but cannot find a remedy for it, this too is a problem. If the
remedy is three, but it isn't within reach - again there is a problem. If
everything is within reach, but you lack the skills or knowledge to apply the
remedy, then the situation still presents as a problem.
It
is a peculiarity of the human being that s/he readily makes his or her own
problems; many people are very adept at making Mount Everest out of a bump in
the pavement!
SAADHANA
Observe
yourself for the next week. Note how you react to situations, no matter how
small. Watch the dynamics and note down the responses. Consider the value of
the responses in relation to the value of each situation. How did you cope?
Could there have been a more efficient or comfortable approach? Were you able to see how choices affect each
situation?