Once, a merchant has lost a camel. He met a traveler and asked him if he had seen it.
"Was your camel blind in the right eye?" asked the man.
"Yes, he was", replied the merchant.
"Was it lame in one left foot?" The man asked again.
"Certainly it was", said the merchant.
"Was its front tooth missing?" the man asked.
"Yes” Merchant answered.
"Was it loaded with honey on one side and with wheat on the other?"
"That is just how it was loaded," the merchant said: "Please take us to it."
"But I have not seen your camel," said the man "and I do not know where it is"
The merchant got angry and said, "Then how could you tell us so exactly everything about our camel? You are lying"
The merchant called his helpers and took the man to the king who asked him where the camel was. The man replied that he had not seen it. At this the king asked him how he knew so much about it.
The man answered that the camel had eaten grass only on the left side of the path. So he knew that it was blind. The marks of its one left foot were faint. This showed that the camel was lame. While eating grass, it had left a little turf in the middle. So he learnt that it had lost front teeth. There were ants carrying grains of corn on one side of the path and flies eating honey on the other.
The king was satisfied with his explanation and scolded the merchant: "This man used his eyes properly. He is a great seer. You have eyes - but you don't use it"
We just see things. We don't look at or observe those things. 'Seeing' is what we do all the time, 'images' go into our eyes whether we notice them or not. 'Looking' is when we select what we see. When we look, we try to see. We make a special effort. We concentrate our eyes on something.
What you see and hear depends a good deal upon where you are standing; it also depends on what sort of person you are. Our seeing is polluted by the conditioning of the mind. The mind is a thought producing factory. It produces thoughts based on the inputs (the operating system of the brain) that you have received. This conditioning instructs you what to see. And we see things the way our conditioned mind wants to see. The way a botanist see the flower roses would be different from that of a florist. To see as is, we need to break this and cross over the conditioning of the mind.
To attain that state, our eyes need training to see objectively. Do we see the presence of divinity and grace in each and everything? To learn to see is not an easy task- we need lot of training to accustom the eye to calmness and to patience and to defer judgment. The sky appears blue to the eyes. Is the colour of sky blue? Ask your kids - even kids would teach you that the colour of the sky is not blue.
Confucius said: “Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.” Many people have never learned to see the beauty of flowers, especially those that grow unnoticed. When you walk outside and look down at your feet, can you may tiny grass and flowers? Most people just step on them. So, let’s open our eyes and see things as is.
Life is always going to contain a little darkness. But we have the freedom to decide whether to get involved in that darkness or we should see and appreciate the light. The real trained eyes will see light in every adversity. But untrained eyes will see only lies. Because such eye sees only what the conditioned mind is prepared to comprehend. If we are not aware about it, at least accept that what we see with manipulated eyes are not complete truths, it can be bunch of lies. Ask yourself, can you see something without thoughts?
"Was your camel blind in the right eye?" asked the man.
"Yes, he was", replied the merchant.
"Was it lame in one left foot?" The man asked again.
"Certainly it was", said the merchant.
"Was its front tooth missing?" the man asked.
"Yes” Merchant answered.
"Was it loaded with honey on one side and with wheat on the other?"
"That is just how it was loaded," the merchant said: "Please take us to it."
"But I have not seen your camel," said the man "and I do not know where it is"
The merchant got angry and said, "Then how could you tell us so exactly everything about our camel? You are lying"
The merchant called his helpers and took the man to the king who asked him where the camel was. The man replied that he had not seen it. At this the king asked him how he knew so much about it.
The man answered that the camel had eaten grass only on the left side of the path. So he knew that it was blind. The marks of its one left foot were faint. This showed that the camel was lame. While eating grass, it had left a little turf in the middle. So he learnt that it had lost front teeth. There were ants carrying grains of corn on one side of the path and flies eating honey on the other.
The king was satisfied with his explanation and scolded the merchant: "This man used his eyes properly. He is a great seer. You have eyes - but you don't use it"
We just see things. We don't look at or observe those things. 'Seeing' is what we do all the time, 'images' go into our eyes whether we notice them or not. 'Looking' is when we select what we see. When we look, we try to see. We make a special effort. We concentrate our eyes on something.
What you see and hear depends a good deal upon where you are standing; it also depends on what sort of person you are. Our seeing is polluted by the conditioning of the mind. The mind is a thought producing factory. It produces thoughts based on the inputs (the operating system of the brain) that you have received. This conditioning instructs you what to see. And we see things the way our conditioned mind wants to see. The way a botanist see the flower roses would be different from that of a florist. To see as is, we need to break this and cross over the conditioning of the mind.
To attain that state, our eyes need training to see objectively. Do we see the presence of divinity and grace in each and everything? To learn to see is not an easy task- we need lot of training to accustom the eye to calmness and to patience and to defer judgment. The sky appears blue to the eyes. Is the colour of sky blue? Ask your kids - even kids would teach you that the colour of the sky is not blue.
Confucius said: “Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.” Many people have never learned to see the beauty of flowers, especially those that grow unnoticed. When you walk outside and look down at your feet, can you may tiny grass and flowers? Most people just step on them. So, let’s open our eyes and see things as is.
Life is always going to contain a little darkness. But we have the freedom to decide whether to get involved in that darkness or we should see and appreciate the light. The real trained eyes will see light in every adversity. But untrained eyes will see only lies. Because such eye sees only what the conditioned mind is prepared to comprehend. If we are not aware about it, at least accept that what we see with manipulated eyes are not complete truths, it can be bunch of lies. Ask yourself, can you see something without thoughts?
No comments:
Post a Comment