Thoughts – just like that.

 

A friend was quoting Voltaire – ‘I may not agree with whatever you say, but shall defend till death, your right to say that’.

But this tolerance is not an ordinary thing.

Khalil Gibran’s story goes like this:

“Four frogs sat upon a log that lay floating on the edge of a river. Suddenly the log was caught by the current and swept slowly down the stream. The frogs were delighted and absorbed, for never before had they sailed.

At length the first frog spoke, and said, “This is indeed a most marvellous log. It moves as if alive. No such log was ever known before.”

Then the second frog spoke, and said, “Nay, my friend, the log is like other logs, and does not move. It is the river that is walking to the sea, and carries us and the log with it.”

And the third frog spoke, and said, “It is neither the log nor the river that moves.

The moving is in our thinking. For without thought nothing moves.”

And the three frogs began to wrangle about what was really moving. The quarrel grew hotter and louder, but they could not agree.

Then they turned to the fourth frog, who up to this time had been listening attentively but holding his peace, and they asked his opinion.

And the fourth frog said, “Each of you is right, and none of you is wrong. The moving is in the log and the water and our thinking also.”

And the three frogs became very angry, for none of them was willing to admit that his was not the whole truth, and that the other two were not wholly wrong.

Then a strange thing happened. The three frogs got together and pushed the fourth frog off the log into the river.”

Intolerance is not new.

When Gandhi was killed, GB Shaw said, “It shows how dangerous it is to be good”.

What is good? Rabindranath Tagore said, “He who wants to do good, knocks at the gate; he who loves finds the gates open.”

When I first read it, I did not know how doing good was inferior. At a young age, we are taught to do good only.

Thiruvalluvar states that purity of the mind is more than anything else.

But will not going on doing good things itself make the mind pure? Does not the Gita say, go on doing your karma without thinking about the fruits?

But there is a contradiction. When we do something, we have a target. Then, how not be worried about the target itself?

It was just like I asked Swami Sachidananda when I was around 20 years old, “When you say that God cannot be perceived by the 5 senses, you are stating it by use of the 5 Senses. How can the senses say what they could not perceive?” He looked at me and said “You are young, and have not got the experience. That is why this question”. I thought it was a typical way of putting one off.

Later I came across that Ramana Maharshi explained it in a different manner – ‘Though you cannot know that you slept well while sleeping, because if you know that then, it means you did not have a sound sleep, still after waking up when asked if you slept well, you are able to confirm that.’

Then I understood what was the experience spoken about.

Same doubt I got when Thiruvalluvar says it is better to fail in an attempt to throw a spear at an elephant than to shoot down a hare. I had this question – Is it not more difficult to take aim at a hare than aiming at a huge elephant? Later only it dawned, that valour was important.

Valour is in one’s thought.

Descartes said “I think, therefore I am”.

I feel it is actually, ‘I think I am’.

Osho speaks about how a frog wondered at a centipede about how it was able to walk on its several legs. When the centipede was told this, the centipede became so conscious that it got it’s legs entangled with one another and could not move.

So it is better not to think. Then I am.