Good morning friends
The popular Marathi poet Mangesh Padgaonkar says,
“सांगा कसं जगायचं?कण्हत कण्हत की गाणं म्हणततुम्हीच ठरवा!”
This could be translated as,
” Tell me how to live.
Groaning and moaning ?
Or with a song on your lips ?
The choice is yours ! “
While thinking about this groaning and moaning about problems in life, I was reminded of a story, once again told by beloved Osho. A saint was living in a village and he was fed up with all the villagers who would come and complain about their problems every single day. He decided that he has to do something about this. He announced that the following day there would be a meeting in which he would address this issue.
He told all the villagers to put all their problems in a sack, label the sack and get it with them to the meeting. Everybody was very happy to learn that they would finally be able to get rid of all the problems and went about collecting the problems. The sacks grew bigger and bigger.( Like most of the stories, which our gurus tell us, this story too, is a metaphor.)
When the meeting started, the saint told the villagers to put the sacks in a corner of the meeting hall. After his discourse, he told them that while leaving the hall, each one has to take one sack with them. They can leave behind their own sack of problems and pick up somebody else’s. But they cannot go out without picking up a sack.
After the meeting ended, everyone went to the corner where the sacks were piled up. The person keeping a watch observed that each person meticulously looked for his own sack and took it back with him.
The moral of the story is : (this is how the stories in our childhood would end ), but actually speaking, there is no moral in this story. It’s just a matter of understanding the truth in life.
Why did everybody choose to take back their own problems? And not someone else’s? I think the villagers realised that every single person has a problem. ..be it a wealthy person or a learned person or a beautiful one. Just as everyone is endowed with some treasures, they’re also given problems which they need to face in life. It’s just that with some people the problems are obvious : for example, poverty or sickness or ugliness. But with some others, the problems are not easily visible. We are not aware that these people also have some problems in life because we are dazzled by their wealth or their beauty or their intelligence or their celebrity status and start thinking that when they have so much, how can they have any problems.
Human nature is such that once we become aware of the fact that every single person on this earth has some problem or the other, it becomes easier to deal with our own problems. And all of us are used to our own problems, we have been dealing with them all our lives. So, rather than picking up a sack of a new problem, everyone chose to stick to his or her own problems with which they were familiar and comfortable.
How about you ?
Would you like to exchange your problems with someone else if you were given the choice or would you prefer your own?
And would you prefer to live life groaning and moaning or live it with a song on your lips ?
Love,
Anjali Bhatawdekar
