For many of us, life is full of responsibilities and/or viewed as a whole list of “mundane things to do”! Carried away by this, often forget to enjoy life and fail to utilize the time to maximize the potential inherent in each of us.
There is a popular story about two workers who were approached by a person and asked, “What are you doing?” One worker responds, with a tone of complaint, saying that he was an underpaid worker who spent his days placing bricks on the top of one another. When the second worker was asked the same question, he says, I get to be part of this important piece of architecture. I convert simple pieces of brick into exquisite masterpieces. They were both right, but what a difference in attitudes!!
A majority of the students fall in the first category and only a handful fall in the second category and stand up to be counted. One needs to understand that everyone has equal potential to become great and it is only a few who seize the opportunity to look for the extraordinary in the ordinary.
In life, a student should cultivate what he wants to see and become. If an ordinary, boring or dull view of life is seen, then his experience would also be of a similar kind! Boredom is a pattern.. not a reality.
The opposite is also true. If a student looks for extraordinary in the ordinary, then he can train himself to see it. Just as the second worker was able to see an architectural marvel in the bricks, so also you all can see vivid expressions taking shape in ordinary things around you!
The question is, Can you? Certainly each one of us can consider the immense potential lying dormant within us.
The Gita also advocates the need to recognize the extraordinary in the ordinary, in order to move from ordinary to extraordinary:
* It is delusion that is a hurdle to our recognizing the extraordinary within us (Chapter 7, Verse 13)
* Unaware of one’s extraordinary qualities, fools consider themselves merely ordinary (Chapter 9, Verse 11)
* In Chapter 10, or the Vibhuti yoga innumerable examples of excellence that is present all around us is provided. We are also taught to focus on extraordinary qualities in all objects and people surrounding us and also within ourselves
Life is precious and extraordinary and you are too! Start looking at this fact and you shall move from the realm of the ordinary to the pedestal of being extraordinary…..
Hi
I need guidance and wisdom.