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Story From Mahabharatha

Discussion in 'Snippets of Life (Non-Fiction)' started by jayasala42, May 23, 2019.

  1. jayasala42

    jayasala42 IL Hall of Fame

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    This is not a story of Arjuna or Karna but a story of a cat and rat.
    There was a wild cat and a rat.The rat was inside the hole.The cat was waiting outside.
    Who will win?Depends on who is more alert;because God has given intelligence to both cat and the rat.
    The cat got tired of waiting.As he moved he got caught in a net spread by the hunter.He started struggling.The rat heard the noise.Now it was confident.When it started running it saw a huge bird at a distance and it was likely to eat the rat.
    Now the rat negotiated with the cat." If you allow me inside the net,I will definitely save you after the bird leaves the spot.I shall cut the net and let you out.The cat though confused allowed the rat inside.The bird went away.
    The cat thought" If I don't allow the rat to go out,the hunter will kill me.Even if I eat the rat, the hunter won't keep me alive".The hunter was slowly approaching.
    The rat went round, slightly cut the bits of net.The cat shouted" hurry up.Hurry up,"
    The rat relaxingly said" I shall definitely honour my word, I cannot say, when.".

    The rat cuts a little,goes round doing pradakshinam,cuts a little more and doing 4 more rounds.By the time the hunter came very close,the rat cut the last strand ,the cat ran away and the rat entered the hole.

    Inside the hole the rat's daughter asked'Amma, why were you so slow in cutting the net?'

    The rat replied" I am not stupid,If I cut too fast the cat would have eaten me.The cat will never change.It was essential to keep the cat under anxiety and threat of the hunter..
    In life time situations,you have to understand that you have to honour the word,help the enemy but keep in mind that enemies never change.

    Lord Krishna's life is a concrete example.He was not only intelligent but also tactful as revealed during Mahabharata war.This perhaps is referred to as 'personal excellence'
    in Management studies.Is it not amazing that all the managerial bombastic terms
    are derived out of a simple cat-rat story?

    Very often we hear great men being described as intelligent, smart ,clever and wise.Though all are complimentary words there seems to be shades of difference.
    By nature most of the human beings are endowed with sufficient intelligence to get along. It has to be nourished and groomed by parents.
    There are two types of smarts: street smarts and book smarts. .
    'Street smarts' means you are aware of your surroundings and know how to prepare for and respond to various types of adversity. You won’t invite trouble and you’ll know how to handle it if it does come your way.
    'Book smarts' means you’re studious and good at school. You pass tests with good grades. You can spout off facts, handle math and science, and make references to art and literature.
    Both of these are good .But if I could only have one, I’d like to be street smart.

    Book smarts being celebrated quite a bit, but it’s more of a status symbol and not so useful in daily life.
    But sometimes smartness is related to sarcasm and crookedness or it may relate to a good appearance.
    Clever means mentally bright; having sharp or quick intelligence; able. It is about being superficially skillful.

    Wisdom is acquired mostly out of age and experience and wise people are able to relate
    the knowledge acquired to solve problems in life.
    In addition to these terms there is
    business intelligence,
    social intelligence,
    domestic intelligence, cultural intelligence ,
    political intelligence as observed from Election Results today
    and above all spiritual intelligence, sometimes overlapping, sometimes totally distinguishable.
    I have seen many people who do not belong to any of the above categories, generally branded as dull headed, are able to face critical situations in a calm and composed manner ,better than person who gives lectures on vedantha.

    Even incarnations like Rama and Krishna, were not too perfect, Rama is blamed till today for Vaali vadham and Sita's exile.

    Krishna who has given the world famous Gita is totally blamed for his lies and fraudulent acts.He is also blamed for not parenting Samba ( his son ) properly.
    Shri Devdutt Patnaik has written an article blaming Krishna as a bad parent.Though many rebuttals have been placed against this article, fact remains that Krishna's son Samba and his unethical behaviour was totally responsible of Yadu race destruction and to some extent for the death of Krishna also.
    Rama didn't lack in virtues.
    Krishna is hailed as Poorna Avatar.He was intelligent, smart, clever and wise and had all types of intelligence referred to above.
    Many authors and commentators criticise Krishna as preaching the highest morals and indulging in lowest tricks just for victory.
    Krishna had the meanest death in epic history.He wholeheartedly accepted the curse of Ganthari as a karma phala.Perhaps this is the way of Vyasa's conveying his disapproval for Krishna's strategies.

    With all the epics, Gita, philosophical texts on hand, which is the ideal way for a human being to be
    intelligent?
    Wise?
    Clever?
    Book smart?
    Street Smart?
    or a combination with a sense of balance to be applied according to situations?
    Or Dharmic with its complexities and changing definitions?
    or continue to live as you are with your inherent strength and weaknesses accepting the results?
    The cat rat story seems to teach more morals than Bhagavatgita to an ordinary unlettered person.

    Jayasala 42
     
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  2. Viswamitra

    Viswamitra IL Hall of Fame

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    Dear Smt. Jayasala:

    Thank you for presenting a wonderful analysis of what should be the approach one should take to acquire life skills? It is my humble view, encryption one has exhibits itself through thoughts and actions. I don't consider them as inherent qualities but consequences of the past actions. The real inherent quality of self is Sathya, Dharma, Shanti, Prema and Ahimsha.

    During adversities, one needs to discriminate and make effort with the grace of God. That is when the palace is on fire, the words of wisdom of the Lord comes to mind to escape through underground. Discrimination to seek the help of the Lord as the only solution when the entire Court is silent about a woman being disrobed. Self confidence to walk into the fire when one citizen questions the chastity of mother Sita after she was abducted by Ravana. Self-discrimination is needed to seek Saranagathi to help the Lord one worships when he takes avatar as a human, to provide opposition research for the Lord to win the battle against his own brother.
     
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  3. jayasala42

    jayasala42 IL Hall of Fame

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    Dear Viswa,
    As per your response there are two things.
    1.The encryption consequent to past actions which are expressed through words and deeds.However they cannot be considered as inherent qualities.
    2. The only inherent qualities are sathya, Dharma, Shanthi Prema and Ahimsa.
    If we use our Free Will gifted by God , we will be choosing one of the above and all are good.

    The word 'discrimination comes when there are options of good and bad, good and lesser good and evil and lesser evil.
    When we are to follow only the 'Free Will', what is the impact of encryptions on our actions?
    A person not endowed with much reasoning power and is neither aware of encryptions nor aware of sathya, Dharma etc and he is ignorant of 'Free Will' also.
    He also may face crisis in a way that strikes to him .Chances are the crisis disappears and wind turns favourable.
    Here the theory of'acceptance' holds good, neither faith nor discrimination.
    He cannot be considered as clever, intelligent, smart or wise or a powerful discriminator.
    Can we take that without his knowledge, 'faith' has engulfed him and enables him to take some action favourable to him?
    How do you explain such moves?

    When the most intelligent and the cleverest face accusations and failure, is it
    not a fact 'ignorance is bliss' and just accept the outcome,good or bad?
    Jayasala 42

     
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  4. Viswamitra

    Viswamitra IL Hall of Fame

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    Dear Smt. Jayasala:

    Freewill is the ability to choose the course of actions eventually course of life. Self-confidence is the ability to believe and invoke the divine power residing in us. That has inherent qualities. In adversities, the tools such as body and mind vibrates negatively and intellect which is closer to Atma need to be consulted to discriminate.
    When one surrenders the tools to our original inherent quality, the faith on Self dominates to overcome the adversities. Frankly, dwelling on this divine quality consistently helps one to face encryption confidently and sometimes erase or overcome them. That is my limited understanding.
     
  5. Thyagarajan

    Thyagarajan IL Hall of Fame

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    @jayasala42 @Viswamitra
    Academic brilliance alone seems to be not good enough to climb the career ladder.
    2. During my tenure in various capacities, I had opportunity to meet men at the helm and they were all streetsmart and their rank in academia was just average. Many CEOs would vouchsafe for my statement.
    3. In this rat race world, one has to be a Rat. Inherent nature of a person may not change so there is a need to circumvent in certain situations as seen in marketing.
    4. Super story telling and I agree great many principles of management studies have their origin either from kitchen or from epics or both.
    Thanks and Regards.
    God bless irrespective of one is RAT or CAT or HUNTER or @Thyagarajan or @Viswamitra or @jayasala42
     
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  6. Viswamitra

    Viswamitra IL Hall of Fame

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    Dear Thyagarajan Sir:

    Right or wrong, everyone of us are changing as we speak. Our encryption, body of principles, thought process, opinion of people, our perception of the world, etc. are constantly changing. Only thing that doesn't change is our inherent divine qualities. We decide to accept things as they are and that comes with maturity of the mind. We change our attitude based on our experiences. Experiences we encounter are based on our encryption. There are things that we control and all of them are located inside of us. There are things we can influence and they are how we react to external happenings. There are things beyond our control where we are constantly learning to adjust.
     
  7. Novalis

    Novalis Gold IL'ite

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    Dear Jayasala,

    Sporadically, yet intensely, we come across films like Zack Snyder's Watchmen and Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight which though are retellings of the unerring super-hero tales of honour and valiance are animatedly neo-noir of the brutal upmanship in humans. Choose friends with whom your friendship can sustain, choose enemies with whom you can afford hostility. Rest are situational drifts imposing some workable relationship like that of our cat and rat. Growing up in the 90s, I felt the shift in social empathy from guileless to savvy. The pontifical adages were being supplanted by hard-hitting pragmatism.

    I found your 'cat and rat' featurette too steeped in the neo-noir wisdom.

    The millennial generation have no ear for chestnuts on naive and worn-out wisdom. But such neo-noir wisdom inquired in this blog is aloft! Living in a world of mutual and sling-shot competition, we are urged to foster inescapable situations where words are honored and promises are kept rather than be deluded that inadvertent pledge in every occasion is unfailingly fulfilled.

    ....this rat too created such situation wherein the cat honored its word not from bound virtue but from circumstantial catch. If the rat had been conventional smart and took the cat's hurried word as binding at facevalue, it would have turned into a meal.

    ...the rat sensed the inherent foul play and ensured that it was not short-foxed by enforcing the situational impediment rather than foolishly rely on the cat's integrity.

    The unyielding vedanta is on the slump with the millennials nurtured in the much-needed arthashastra to prosper in the world.

    Jayasala, I am impressed with your forthright retelling of pragmatic wisdom rather than chivalrous and rhetorical wisdom of the forlorn generation. You seem to have a good pulse of the shifting ideals reengaged in well-founded possibilities moreso for this generation. This 'cat and rat' philosophy is quite the norm of sustainable living where ethical integrity in others is derivative of our own trickery on them. I think, with such invention and wits, the rat could thrive even amongst the undesirable lions.

    Your story-telling technique is charming!

    Do keep us engaged with more of such imperative learnings.
     
    Last edited: May 24, 2019
  8. jayasala42

    jayasala42 IL Hall of Fame

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    Thank you Viswa for your wonderful explanation. I shall have an in depth study about it.
    We are proud to have an efficient counsellor in you.
    I have faced a few critical situations in life. On each occasion there were too many problems and I didn't have time even to think of Almighty and pray.On every such occasion I had chosen the 'acceptance' route of'Come, what may.Let me face the consequence'.But most of my problems were solved miraculously ,while my efforts were consistent and determined.
    Thanks Viswa.
    Jayasala 42
     
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  9. jayasala42

    jayasala42 IL Hall of Fame

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    Dear Thyagarajan Sir, You are correct.In Simpsons, a popular company, the MD depended only on an overseer, a certificate holder when any mechanism failed.
    Recently we have recd many messages reg how to make a big wagon enter not so high a garage.While the brilliant Engineers suggested increasing the height of the ceiling, an ordinary mazdoor standing nearby intervened and suggested deflating the tyres of the vehilcle since the difference was only a few inches.
    In those days many women, specially, had such brilliant suggestions.
    Jayasala 42
     
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  10. SpringB

    SpringB Platinum IL'ite

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    That was a wonderful cat rat story.great sharing of wisdom very few writers original post and replies are coherent and you are one among them. Share such simple stories. Enjoy these
     
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