The nightingale sings, not because it has answers to share
It sings, because it has a song,..
to be sung.
"Excuse me" said the an ocean Fish
"You are older than I so can you tell me where to find this thing called
the Ocean?"
"The Ocean" said the older fish "is the thing you are in now"
"Oh this ? But this water. What I'm seeking is the Ocean." Said the
disappointed fish as he swam away to search elsewhere.
He came to the Master in sannyasi robes.
He spoke sannyasi language.
"For
years I have been seeking God. I have sought Him everywhere that He is said
to be: on mountain peaks, the vastness of the desert, the silence of the
cloister and the dwellings of the poor"
"Have you found him" the Master asked
"No. I have not. Have you?
What could the Master say? The evening sun was sending shafts of golden
light into the room.
Hundreds of sparrows were twittering on a banyan tree.
In the distance one could hear the sound of the highway traffic.
A mosquito droned a warning that it was going to strike..
.. And yet this man could sit
there and say he had not found Him.
After a while he left disappointed, to search elsewhere.
When
all searching has ceased, little fish,
.....
the Ocean.
Said the monk, "All these mountains and rivers and earth and stars-where do
they come from?"
Said the Master, "Where does your question come from ?"
Diogenes the Greek mystic was dining on bread and lentils.
He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus who lived in considerable comfort
by fawning on
the king.
Said Aristippus." Learn subservience to the king and you will not live on
lentils"
Said Diogenes ,"Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to cultivate
the king."
A crow once flew into the sky with a piece of meat in its beak. Twenty
other crows set out in hot pursuit and began to
attack it viciously.
When the crow finally dropped the meat, its pursuers left it alone and flew
off shrieking after the morsel.
Said the crow, "I've lost the meat and gained the peaceful sky"
Said the Master," When the house burnt down, the moon at night"
When the sannaysi reached the outskirts of the village and settled under a
tree for the night, a villager came running up to him a shouted "the stone!
the stone! Give me the precious stone!"
"What stone?" asked the sannyasi.
"Last night Lord Shiva appeared in my dream that if I went to the outskirts
of the village a sannyasi who would have just come would give me a stone
which would forever make me rich."
The sannyasi rummaged his bag and pulling out a stone, said,
" He probably meant this one. I found it in the forest yesterday.
Here it is yours if you
want it."
The man gazed at the stone in wonder.
It was the largest diamond in the
world.
All night the man tossed about in his bed.
At dawn he ran to the sannyasi and woke him and said,
"Give me the wealth that makes it possible for you to give away
this stone."
Two Buddhist monks on their way to the monastery, found an exceedingly
beautiful woman at the river bank.
Like them she also wanted to cross the river but the water was too high.
So one of them took her across the river
on his shoulders.
The other was thoroughly scandalized. For two hours he berated the other
for his breach of the Rule.
Had he forgotten he was a monk? How dare he
touch the women. Did he not remember he was a monk?
And worse carry over the river?
And what would people say?
Had he not disgraced their Holy Religion?
At the end of the lecture the first monk replies,
"Brother, I dropped that woman at the river side.
Are you still carrying her?"