Touch - The Krishna Concept

I am not sure who Krishna was. But the stories associated with this name reflect the existence of a mature society that sought conceptual clarity. Heres one such story that appeared to be a good bed-time story for kids when I read it first. But it lingered on, revealing layers of a deeper philosophy. 

One day Arjuna walked up to Krishna after performing an act of what seemed like philanthropy to him.

"Krishna, do you agree that I am the greatest philanthropist in the world?"Krishna smiled but said nothing.

Arjuna persisted. What initially seemed like harmless bragging on the part of Arjuna, eventually grew into a war of words between the two. "Come to the empty ground behind the palace before sunrise tomorrow", Krishna ordered.

Arjuna reached the round, by now more out of curiosity than the initial emotion. He saw Krishna leading the way, with Karna trotting behind. When the three of them met Arjuna and Karna were equally surprised. Krishna silently walked ahead, signaling the twosome to follow him. They reached a spot and what lay ahead made Arjuna and Karna gasp. Two huge heaps of precious stones and gems and rare metal welcomed the unsuspecting warriors. 

Finally, Krishna spoke. "Before sunset distribute all of this wealth to needy people. Take one heap each", Krishna was not available to answer any queries! Arjuna realized, albeit a little late that Krishna was still on the previous day's topic. He soon started looking around and called every single person that looked famished and gave away a little portion of the heap. But as he dug into the heap, the heap started growing. Karna found a tree nearby and decided to rest a for while, while Arjuna was busy distributing the wealth. 

By noon Arjuna's little hill had grown to a mountain, while Karna's stood still. It was close to sunset and Arjuna wondered what Karna was going to do. After all, there was very little time left as the great ball of fire was sinking fast into the dusky sky. Karna woke up and walked lazily towards his heap. He looked around and saw two lame people walking towards them. Word had spread about the wealth distribution camp and people were still trickling in to take alms from the noble one that was distributing wealth generously. 

As the lame people approached them, Karna called out to one of them. The man limped towards Karna hesitantly.

"Do you see this heap?"Karna asked him pointing to his heap of wealth. "Yes, my Lord", the lame man said, folding his hands in reverence. "From now on this is yours!" Karna said with very little hesitation. Krishna appeared before the two at that very instant.

Ärjuna", began the Lord, "philanthropy does not mean distributing the wealth among the subjects. When you touch something, it becomes

yours. You gradually start associating with it, nurturing it and as a consequence, it begins to grow on you. When you do not touch something, it does not belong to you. Giving away what does not belong to you is quite simple as you just saw", concluded Krishna.

Karna was about to leave when Krishna continued, "On the contrary, when wealth is distributed wisely, through good governance, prosperity prevails. Each of us has a strength that will become our weakness when the rule of the game changes".

Stranded with a single strand!

King Vallabh Verma was getting old, though his queen did not think so. One day, as luck would have it, the King encountered a demon which agreed to be the King’s slave, provided the King kept him engaged with some work. Only too delighted with the constraint placed by the demon, the Kind took him along to the palace.

The next two months saw the tired King enjoying his retirement, while the demon carried out the King’s orders to near perfection. Soon, like a storm in a tea cup, trouble began to brew.

The demon began completing his assigned tasks faster and with better accuracy. The King was running out of jobs to keep the demon engaged with.

He called for an emergency meeting and the best of his ministers were told to keep the demon engaged. But soon, they too ran out of tasks to keep the demon busy.  The palace was running from pillar to post, finding new jobs.

Finally, exasperated, the King narrated the happenings to the Queen.

The Queen tried hard to suppress her amusement. She then told the King to bring the demon to her chambers.

“Are you sure, my Queen? He has me all tired within just two months. Ruling the kingdom was not as difficult as keeping the demon engaged,” the King confessed.

The Queen was sure that she could tackle the situation. The demon was ordered to meet the Queen in her chamber. As soon as the demon was in, the queen pulled out a silver strand of hair from her wise head. She gave it to the demon and asked him to split it length-wise into a thousand parts.

It is believed that the demon is still hard at work, while the King ruled his kingdom with renewed energy.

The King is believed to have asked the Queen how she had managed to tackle the demon.

“Experience,” she had summed up!

The Story of ‘A’

The other day I was wondering about how the written language as we know of it today originated. This, again, was for a training program on the art of writing.

That was when I started looking out for more information on the story of the alphabets. I reached out to my soul mate, the internet, and as usual I was not disappointed.

Very soon I was immersed into Wikipedia, thanking google for connecting me to the most sought after information repository.It all began with the clay tablet that stood testimony to the evolution of the various ancient languages. Of course the dried leaf was country cousin to the clay tablet in lending itself to the human race and their literary quests!

The ancient humans began representing objects using symbols which has come to be known as the proto-writing. As the scope of communication expanded due to trade, hieroglyphic writing took the center stage.

In this type of writing, the ‘word’ consisted of three parts - the sound (phonetic representation), the symbol of the object and a third part which was a determinant that represented the context.

Initially, when man wanted to trade, he drew the shape or the symbol of the object. He repeated it as many times as the number of the object that he wished to trade.

Gradually, the symbol was depicted once and adjacent to it, the number was represented by a series of symbols indicating the count. At this stage three symbols were used – one for the number 1, one for the number 10 and a third for the number 60. 71 was represented using the symbol for 60, 10 and 1.

This is perhaps the reason why we follow the number 60 as the maximum number while denoting time!

The animal traded most often was the ox. The ox’s head was represented as . The curve sometimes cut through the clay tablet and the part of the tablet began to fall off when dry. So the curve was dropped and the symbol became.

The Greek word for ox is alpu and thus began the letter as we know it today!

Beginning sometime during the 3000B.C. in Egyptian civilisation, our friendly alphabet beginner, has travelled through time and across cultures.  Transforming itself into t a symbol from a descriptive ox’s head during the Sinai culture in 1850B.C, ‘A’, shed its curve for humanity during the ‘Phoenician Aleph’ during around 1200B.C.

The Greek alpu or alpha happened during the 600B.C. before ‘A’ became the Roman ‘A’ during 114A.D.

A long journey, indeed!

The ball that set the feet rolling again!

Vibha was worried and rightly so! Her pre-teenagers, along with their friends, were becoming lazy, tech-addicts and lonely.

One day she found her son hiding the remote behind the sofa cushion, because he did not want to share his T.V. time watching his friend’s favourite show. She tried to convince him but all her logic fell into deaf ears.

“Mama, he does the same when I go to his house!”

Vibha wondered if the kids were growing up right. She realised that to get them outdoors and moving, she would have to get the entire neighbourhood kids on their feet!

Luckily, a new sports academy was set up and a few sports were introduced. Vibha went home with a new basketball.

Her children were eager to begin their basketball coaching at the new sports academy. Vibha initially accompanied them. One by one, all her children’s friends wanted to know about the academy. She spread the word passionately and told parents how playing a sport can help the children in their academics too.

Her efforts paid off and the children from her neighbourhood started playing basketball.

Vibha knew that the children had become fond of basketball, but she did not know that they were absolutely in love with the sport until, one day, the old ball had a burst bladder!

R.I.P., basketball!

What followed by way of posts on the face book pages of these children stunned Vibha!

Her children posted a picture of the disfigured ball and almost instantly, there were about a dozen mourners. Some even wrote comments like, “R.I.P. our favourite ball!”

Vibha was moved and in spite of a tough day at work, she took the children to a sports shop to replace the flattened ball!

The happiness on the face of the children made up for Vibha’s efforts.

The next day when she woke up she saw the old ball sitting pretty, near her bedside. She took the ball in her hand and inspected it. The tear in the bladder was stitched by rough and crooked stitches by her son the previous night.

The crooked stitch gave a new look to the flattened ball...

It was then that Vibha had realised how the old ball had become an integral part of her children’s life!

A rocky rendition

A rather poky and ugly looking rock lay in the middle of a busy street. Passers-by often cursed the rock. It was a hindrance to commuters and an eye-sore to beauty lovers!

Some smart people used to park their luggage on the rock. But the general opinion was that the rock had to be moved out of the place, so that it stopped bothering the general public.

One day a sculptor happened to pass by. He heard people curse the rock and complain about its poky edges that bothered everyone around. He decided to make it into something beautiful using his knowledge of sculpture. With the help of people around, he moved it to a corner of the street and built a tent around it.

He chiseled away at the hard and unyielding rock. Many a times it poked him. He bore the pain and never once complained. He treated the piece of rock like a small child and spoke kind words to it as he chiseled away at the unwanted portions.

Soon the rock was turned into a beautiful piece of art. The sculptor wanted to convey a message to the public : When a bit of care and positive attitude combine with patience, any hindrance can become a thing of beauty!

One day, as he was giving the finishing touches, a storm blew the cover of the tent around the sculpture. When the storm had died down, people gathered around the sculpture and marveled at it.

“I knew the rock had the potential to look beautiful,” said one who had earlier called it an eye-sore.

“The rock is actually made of granite, one of the best rock-forms made by nature,” quipped a learned one.

In a very short time a crowd had gathered around the sculpture and people began talking. They praised the quality of the stone, its tenacity to withstand the sculptor’s chiseling and how in the end the stone had transformed itself so beautifully!

 One of the men even turned around towards the sculptor and reprimanded him for ruthlessly hitting the ‘poor rock’!

He aimed his question directly at the sculptor, "What if, in the process, it had broken beyond repair?"

The sculptor dropped his chisel and claw hammer and walked away from the crowd!

A few years later, the sculptor returned to the place where he had left his piece of art, unfinished.

As he reached the spot, he saw his work sitting in the corner, neglected and dirty. Before he could get any closer, he saw a couple of men walking past the sculpture.

“Why is this blocking our path? We must get this removed out of the way. It serves no purpose,” one of them told the other.

“True, the sculptor who made it should have taken it with him. It has become dirty and ugly. What an eyesore,” exclaimed the other!

After they had left, the sculptor took the man-and-wife sculpture that he had made to a nearby temple that was undergoing renovation. He washed and cleaned the art work and gave it some finishing touches.

As he finished his work, a priest who served at the temple walked past the sculptor. As soon as he saw the piece of art, he asked the sculptor if he could use it in the temple and the sculptor readily agreed.

When the temple was thrown open to the public, they were amazed to see the sculpture sitting pretty atop the temple! 

“It is the same sculpture that was lying on the roadside. The first day that I saw it, I knew that it belonged to the temple,” one woman told another.

“Yes, it possessed all the divine characters that made it worthy of the holy spot,” added another.

Picture courtesy: Anuradha Shankar @http://goo.gl/lZSRSO

The sculptor chuckled mildly to himself before leaving the place, this time with a sense of contentment at having completed his task!