My Zen Guru
This post was also inspired by my good son..(nothing is original?ஒரிஜினலா ஒண்ணுமே இருக்காதே?)
I was very tired after doing all the chores- cooking, cleaning, washing and was totally worn out when I fell back on the couch. My kids are in their one month holiday period and I don’t need to elaborate on that.
I am quite hands full and on that particular morning I was really exhausted and depressed.
As I sat down my son came near me and hugged from behind me.
“Mummy..mummy can I ask you something?”
“what?”
“you should answer correctly, if you don’t then you have to take me down to play”
“yeah..nice try kid. Now what was that you wanted to ask?”
“what is the difference between this couch and that couch..?”
“what?”
“come on..tell me”
“what difference? I don't see any.They are alike”
“Nope”
“Oh come on..I don’t have time for this niranjan”
“Plesae mummy.”
“ok..mm. oh yeah..this is a two seated and that is three seated couch right?”I gave him a winning smile, he pouted his mouth.“nope”.
Now I sharpened my eyes and looked all around..”ok..that one is a little dirty because of you jumping on it all the time( yeah I never miss an opportunity)”
“No mummy..you are so dumb”
“what? Me?..ok..Mr. clever. You tell me what is the difference.?”
“simple..You are sittingon this couch and no one is sitting on that couch” he laughed and ran away..
"What the… " I felt like I was slapped hard. So blinded was I with my 'i know all' attitude that I missed to see such a simple thing.
Then it dawned on me.. How many instances and incidents would it take to make me realize what we are doing wrong? How positive and lateral are these kids? And why do we lose all that beautiful capabilities once we grow up?
I doubt whether my son will be the same when he himself is grown up.
We are wasting a lot of time in learning stuff and understanding complicated things in the process of making our lives more ‘enlightened’ and we totally miss the point of being ourselves. When the answer is staring right at us we tend to take the ring road, bypass road and all other routes to get to it.
But kids?? They are so used to thinking the right way- the more simple way, sometimes I think he better keeps his mouth shut.
One embarrassing day in a theme park my son was impressing a group of foreigners with his spiritual intellect (well I have taught him some stuff which is considered quite weird as per my mom’s view).
They were amazed at his knowledge(?)and one guy asked him “dear boy where are you from?”
My son promptly replied ”from my mom’s big fat tummy”.
There is this zen quality to the minds of a child which is slowly poisoned out to become one like ours(dumb -like my son says, dump- as I say) as years of education is pushed into it. What could we possibly do to recover it back?
I have found out a simple way. follow the guru.
Yep. It’s amazing at times how a kid can think stuff like these. These days when I am very depressed or confused I turn to my zen guru and ask his advice. He gives out advices like manirathnam’s characters in monosyllable..
But mostly it will be like the pranava mantra for me. He will hit the nail right on spot.
Tell me honestly what would be your answer if I ask you
“Why are you born in this world?”
I once asked this to myself and started to write down the possible answers as a bulleted list in a piece of paper.
· I am born to do something big
· I am born to make people happy through my writing
· I am born to make people happy
· I am born to make a difference in this world..
My son came running to me and asked “what are you writing mummy.?”
“I am trying to answer a very difficult question my dear.”
“can I know it?”
“Well why not? Why do you think you are born in this world?” I asked him with an expression of a yogic guru while on his important class.
My son answered in a split second
”to live..”
and then smiled at me asking ”and this was a difficult question to you? silly mummy..”
“………………”
I was very tired after doing all the chores- cooking, cleaning, washing and was totally worn out when I fell back on the couch. My kids are in their one month holiday period and I don’t need to elaborate on that.
I am quite hands full and on that particular morning I was really exhausted and depressed.
As I sat down my son came near me and hugged from behind me.
“Mummy..mummy can I ask you something?”
“what?”
“you should answer correctly, if you don’t then you have to take me down to play”
“yeah..nice try kid. Now what was that you wanted to ask?”
“what is the difference between this couch and that couch..?”
“what?”
“come on..tell me”
“what difference? I don't see any.They are alike”
“Nope”
“Oh come on..I don’t have time for this niranjan”
“Plesae mummy.”
“ok..mm. oh yeah..this is a two seated and that is three seated couch right?”I gave him a winning smile, he pouted his mouth.“nope”.
Now I sharpened my eyes and looked all around..”ok..that one is a little dirty because of you jumping on it all the time( yeah I never miss an opportunity)”
“No mummy..you are so dumb”
“what? Me?..ok..Mr. clever. You tell me what is the difference.?”
“simple..You are sittingon this couch and no one is sitting on that couch” he laughed and ran away..
"What the… " I felt like I was slapped hard. So blinded was I with my 'i know all' attitude that I missed to see such a simple thing.
Then it dawned on me.. How many instances and incidents would it take to make me realize what we are doing wrong? How positive and lateral are these kids? And why do we lose all that beautiful capabilities once we grow up?
I doubt whether my son will be the same when he himself is grown up.
We are wasting a lot of time in learning stuff and understanding complicated things in the process of making our lives more ‘enlightened’ and we totally miss the point of being ourselves. When the answer is staring right at us we tend to take the ring road, bypass road and all other routes to get to it.
But kids?? They are so used to thinking the right way- the more simple way, sometimes I think he better keeps his mouth shut.
One embarrassing day in a theme park my son was impressing a group of foreigners with his spiritual intellect (well I have taught him some stuff which is considered quite weird as per my mom’s view).
They were amazed at his knowledge(?)and one guy asked him “dear boy where are you from?”
My son promptly replied ”from my mom’s big fat tummy”.
There is this zen quality to the minds of a child which is slowly poisoned out to become one like ours(dumb -like my son says, dump- as I say) as years of education is pushed into it. What could we possibly do to recover it back?
I have found out a simple way. follow the guru.
Yep. It’s amazing at times how a kid can think stuff like these. These days when I am very depressed or confused I turn to my zen guru and ask his advice. He gives out advices like manirathnam’s characters in monosyllable..
But mostly it will be like the pranava mantra for me. He will hit the nail right on spot.
Tell me honestly what would be your answer if I ask you
“Why are you born in this world?”
I once asked this to myself and started to write down the possible answers as a bulleted list in a piece of paper.
· I am born to do something big
· I am born to make people happy through my writing
· I am born to make people happy
· I am born to make a difference in this world..
My son came running to me and asked “what are you writing mummy.?”
“I am trying to answer a very difficult question my dear.”
“can I know it?”
“Well why not? Why do you think you are born in this world?” I asked him with an expression of a yogic guru while on his important class.
My son answered in a split second
”to live..”
and then smiled at me asking ”and this was a difficult question to you? silly mummy..”
“………………”
