Story: Sage, Elderly Man and Pigeon (Source: Google Baba)
Once upon a time, a saint was travelling through a village. When the villagers came to know about the sage, they invited him to spend some time in their village and share some wisdom. The sage was able to answer all the queries of the villagers and he became an instant hero in the village.
One elder person did not like the special treatment which was offered to the saint. He thought that he was much more intelligent than the sage. He decided to prove the saint wrong so that villagers could understand that he was far more intelligent than the sage. He thought of a plan.
The next day, when the sage is surrounded by the entire village, the elder person throws a challenge to the saint and says that if he can answer his question correctly, he will also consider him to be wiser than him else he has to leave the village immediately.
The sage could understand the pain and ploy of the elderly person. He had no choice but to agree to the challenge. The elderly person said to the saint that he had a pigeon in his hand. Without looking at the pigeon, you have to tell whether the pigeon is alive or not. The elderly person had thought that in case the saint said that the pigeon was alive, he would kill the pigeon by pressing the neck but in case the saint said that the pigeon was dead, he would open his hand so that the pigeon could fly.
The sage understood the question and the possible options which the elderly person was trying to prove. The sage smiled and politely told him that ‘the life of the pigeon is in your hand. You need to decide whether to keep the pigeon alive or kill it. The choice is with you.’
The Moral of the Story: In life, we have the choice, of how we want to live our life. We can live our lives with full conscience or we can live in an automated way, wherein other people decide how we should be.
We live in two Worlds (Inner and Outer). The Inner World is full of choices wherein we choose what we want to do and what not, our emotions, expectations, our perception of things, expression of our attitude, our inner thoughts and our self-concept.
Wherein in the Outer World, the other people decide what we need to do or not, the mad rush of people, places, tasks, pending deadlines, discussions and debates can also lead to conflict situations where we politely, or aggressively, navigate and deal with daily.
Example of Inner World:
- Inspite of the societal pressure, a college-going student still decides to sleep at 10.30 pm and wake up a 6 am.
- Despite the peer pressure, a person still decides not to binge-watch multiple episodes of the entire season.
- Although drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes is a social norm for the sales team still decide to progress in your career by avoiding them
- Nobody appreciated your DP in social media but you still kept your confidence and continued with it.
Example of Outer World:
Although the family tradition is to sleep by 10.30 due to peer pressure, you start sleeping at 2 am.- You also followed the herd mentality and binge-watched all the episodes of the season in one go.
- If you want to succeed in life and want to move corporate ladders quickly, smoking and drinking are a must.
- When people appreciate my DP, I continue with it else I change it.
There are two theories. The first is Inside Out and the other is Outside In. The choice is with us, which theory we want to follow in our lives. Both have their benefits and pitfalls.
When we think about Outside In, the results are instantaneous.
- When people appreciate our performance, we feel good and we want to continue and improve further.
- While choosing a profession, when everyone is opting for Engineering, medicine, Chartered Accountancy or Law, we also pick anyone of them.
- When everyone is switching to iPhones for better quality and safety, we also change our mobile.
Logically, it looks good and practical. But when we see the above examples from another perspective (inner world), we need to think and decide, whether it was the right choice for ME.
- When people appreciate our performance, we feel good and we want to continue and improve further BUT when someone criticizes my performance, I feel bad and sad.
- While choosing a profession, when everyone is opting for Engineering, medicine, Chartered Accountancy or Law, we also pick any of them BUT I was passionate about painting and could have spent hours without feeling tired!
- When everyone switched to iPhones for better quality and safety, we also changed our mobile BUT my priority was to pay my EMI for my flat and support my parents.
When we see things from the perspective of Outer World, we are always doing something for OTHERS but when we see things from the perspective of INNER World, we are always seeing things from the perspective of what is right for ME.
The more we focus on the Outer World and do things as per the expectations of others, we are always worried about the acceptance of others but when we focus and do things as per our Inner World, we always remain contented and satisfied with our decisions irrespective of whether they prove to be right or wrong.
When we do things from the perspective of the inner world, we own all the decisions but when we do things from the perspective of the outer world, we always blame the people for our misery.
The choice is with us.
As your inner world reorganizes, the outer world will also slowly reorganize. For Swami Vivekananda, the mind was pivotal. As per him, a focused, disciplined mind can overcome any challenge, whereas a distracted one can be counterproductive.
The following practices can help us to be more focused towards our Inner World.
Practice Self-Talk: Practice self-talk in our daily lives and learn to appreciate all of the good things in your life.
Meditate: Meditation can help you to focus your mind and clear your thoughts. This can help you to give/receive blessings of self-empowerment that are more powerful and meaningful.
Practice Mindfulness: Mindfulness can help you to be more present and aware of the blessings in your life. Practice mindfulness regularly to help you to receive/give blessings of self-empowerment more easily.