The Salt * Once an unhappy young man came to an old master and told he was very sad and asked for a solution. The old Master instructed the unhappy young man to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink it. "How does it taste?" the Master asked. "Awful," spat the apprentice. The Master chuckled and then asked the young man to take another handful of salt and put it in the lake. The two walked in silence to the nearby lake and when the apprentice swirled his handful of salt into the lake, the old man said, "Now drink from the lake." As the water dripped down the young man's chin, the Master asked, "How does it taste?" "Good!" remarked the apprentice. "Do you taste the salt?" asked the Master. "No," said the young man. The Master sat beside this troubled young man, took his hands, and said, *"The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains the same, exactly the same. But the amount we taste the 'pain' depends on the container we put it into. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things ..... Stop being a glass. Become a lake!"
Good teaching. This is similar to a teaching which says that if you are holding a rock near you, it appears to be big. But if you hold it away from you it will be smaller compared to the one which was near. So is our worries and suffferings. If you involve yourself you will not be able to take a decision because you see the problem as a big one (like the stone which appeared big when it was near). But if you distant yourself from the problems and analyse it you will find a solution easily ( the problem will look small like the stone which appeares to be when it is at a distance.) The stone is the same and so is our problems,worries, pains and our sufferings. It is our perspective which has changed. Sriniketan
