Categories
Appreciate

The Recruit

The RecruitOne young academically excellent person went to apply for a managerial position in a big company.

He passed all the interviews and the final interview was with the director who would then make the decision for the young man’s recruitment.

The director discovered from the CV that the youth’s academic achievements were excellent all the way, from the secondary school until the postgraduate research, never had a year when he did not score.

The director asked, “Did you obtain any scholarships in school?” the youth answered “none.”

The director asked, ” Was it your father who paid for your school fees?” The youth answered, “My father passed away when I was one year old, it was my mother who paid for my school fees.

The director asked, ” Where did your mother work?” The youth answered, “My mother worked as clothes cleaner. The director requested the youth to show his hands. The youth showed a pair of hands that were smooth and perfect.

The director asked, ” Have you ever helped your mother wash the clothes before?” The youth answered, “Never, my mother always wanted me to study and read more books. Furthermore, my mother can wash clothes faster than me.

The director said, “I have a request. When you go back today, go and clean your mother’s hands, and then see me tomorrow morning”.

The youth felt that his chance of landing the job was high. When he went back, he happily requested his mother to let him clean her hands. His mother felt strange, happy but with mixed feelings, she showed her hands to her son.

The youth cleaned his mother’s hands slowly. His tear fell as he did that. It was the first time he noticed that his mother’s hands were so wrinkled, and there were so many bruises in her hands. Some bruises were so painful that his mother shivered when they were cleaned with water.

This was the first time the youth realized that it was this pair of hands that washed the clothes everyday to enable him to pay the school fee. The bruises in the mother’s hands were the price that the mother had to pay for his graduation, academic excellence and his future.

After finishing the cleaning of his mother hands, the youth quietly washed all the remaining clothes for his mother.

That night, mother and son talked for a very long time. Next morning, the youth went to the director’s office.

The Director noticed the tears in the youth’s eyes, asked: ” Can you tell me what have you done and learned yesterday in your house?”

The youth humbly answered, ” I cleaned my mother’s hand, and finished cleaning all the remaining clothes’

The Director asked, “please tell me what you learnt.”

The youth admitted that after cleaning his mother’s hands and helping her, he realized what a tough and selfless life she has led for his sake and thanked the director for having given him an opportunity to appreciate his mother’s sacrifices and the value of family relationships.

The director seemed satisfied. He said,” You are hired.”

Radhanath Swami concludes ‘Where there is necessity, there is deeper appreciation.’ Especially in family relationships, there is a tendency to take the other members of the family for granted and not appreciate their care, love or sacrifices. We must learn to stop by and seek to understand their love and sacrifices for us and learn to appreciate them genuinely and thereby help in building a caring & nurturing atmosphere at home.

Categories
Love

Paid in Full

Paid in FullAfter 21 years of marriage, my wife wanted me to take another woman out to dinner and a movie. She said, “I love you, but I know this other woman loves you and would love to spend some time with you.”

The other woman that my wife wanted me to visit was my MOTHER, who has been a widow for 19 years, but the demands of my work and my three children had made it possible to visit her only occasionally. That night I called to invite her to go out for dinner and a movie. “What’s wrong, are you well?” she asked. “I thought that it would be pleasant to spend some time with you,” I responded. “Just the two of us.” She thought about it for a moment, and then said, “I would like that very much.”

That Friday after work, as I drove over to pick her up I was a bit nervous. She waited in the door with her coat on. She had curled her hair and was wearing the dress that she had worn to celebrate her last wedding anniversary. She smiled from a face that was as radiant as an angel’s. “I told my friends that I was going to go out with my son, and they were impressed, “she said, as she got into the car. “They can’t wait to hear about our meeting.”

We went to a restaurant that, although not elegant, was very nice and cozy. My mother took my arm as if she were the First Lady. After we sat down, I had to read the menu. Her eyes could only read large print. Half way through the entries, I lifted my eyes and saw Mom sitting there staring at me. A nostalgic smile was on her lips. “It was I who used to have to read the menu when you were small,” she said. “Then it’s time that you relax and let me return the favor,” I responded. During the dinner, we had an agreeable conversation – nothing extraordinary but catching up on recent events of each other’s life. We talked so much that we missed the movie. As we arrived at her house later, she said, “I’ll go out with you again, but only if you let me invite you.” I agreed.

“How was your dinner date?” asked my wife when I got home. “Very nice. Much more so than I could have imagined,” I answered.

A few days later, my mother died of a massive heart attack. It happened so suddenly that I didn’t have a chance to do anything for her. Some time later, I received an envelope with a copy of a restaurant receipt from the same place mother and I had dined. An attached note said: “I paid this bill in advance. I wasn’t sure that I could be there; but nevertheless, I paid for two – one for you and the other for your wife. You will never know what that night meant for me. I love you, son.”

At that moment, I understood the importance of saying in time: “I LOVE YOU” and to give our loved ones the time that they deserve. Nothing in life is more important than your family. Give them the time they deserve, because these things cannot be put off till “some other time.”

Radhanath Swami concludes that, “Things can give pleasure to the mind and senses, but only love can give pleasure to the heart. And ultimately, that is what we are looking for.” Make room to express your love to your family, friends and people around you when they are around!

Categories
Tolerate

Embroidery of life!

Embroidery of life! & Radhanath SwamiTo have faith in God’s goodness in trying circumstances opens the door of unlimited grace – Radhanath Swami

There was a little boy, whose mother used to embroider clothes for a living. He once sat at her knee and looked up from the floor and asked her what she was doing. She informed him that she was embroidering. From the underside as he watched her work, he complained that it looked messy. She smiled at him, and said gently to go and play and that when she is done, she will put him on her lap and let him see it from her side. All along, he would wonder why she was using some dark threads along with the bright ones and why they seemed so jumbled from his view. After some time, his mother called him, “Son, come and sit in my lap.” He was surprised and thrilled to see a beautiful flower in the garden. He could not believe it, because from underneath it looked so messy. Then mother said to him, “My son, from underneath it did look messy and jumbled, but you did not realize that there was a pre-drawn design on top. I was only following it and when you look at it from my side, you see the complete picture.”

As he grew up, many times through the years whenever he looked up to his Heavenly Father and said, “Father, what are You doing?” it seemed that the Lord answered, “I am embroidering your life.” He would think, “It looks like a mess to me. It seems so jumbled. The threads seem so dark. Why can’t they all be bright?” The Lord seemed to reply, “My child, you go about your business and one day I will bring you back to me and put you on lap and you will see the plan from My side.”

Radhanath Swami says, The ability to see God’s plan behind everything that happens in our life is very difficult; especially when things don’t work according to our plans. He further reiterates that it requires humility to accept that we are not the doers! Similarly in our married lives when we accept difficulties as a situation specially created for us such that one day we can enjoy the embroidery of life, and learn to tolerate, we become enabled to deal with many a trying circumstance and one day when we see the big picture, the entanglements of life appear on the distant other side.

Categories
Love

Love, the eternal reality

Love, the eternal realityThe soul is pleasure seeking and the soul needs love and the soul suffers when that love is frustrated- Radhanath Swami

In this world, the most satisfying, loving relationships are not the romantic affairs that we see in the movies, because that kind of love or relationship does not last long. The real pleasure of the heart comes through real love. What is this love? Love is defined in the Caitanya Charitamrita (the most acclaimed biography of Lord Chaitanya) as the complete giving of the heart for the pleasure of the object of our love – through sacrifice and dedication. That deep propensity to love is within the heart of every living being because it is that love which is the only eternal reality. But, when we come under the influence of our own false ego (ahankar), we’re seeking the pleasure that that love brings us through our own selfish pursuits. Such affection in which we try to enjoy for ourselves is called kama or lust. It’s the material principle. It’s just like a blazing fire that can never be satisfied. As long as we keep feeding the fire of the burning desire for enjoyment by trying to enjoy for ourselves, the hungrier it grows but real love is unconditional and unmotivated.

A boy was born to a couple after eleven years of marriage. They were a loving couple and the boy was the gem of their eyes. When the boy was around two years old, one morning the husband saw a medicine bottle open. He was late for office so he asked his wife to cap the bottle and keep it in the cupboard. His wife, preoccupied in the kitchen totally forgot the matter. The boy saw the bottle and playfully went to the bottle fascinated by its color, drank it all. It happened to be a medicine meant for adults in small dosages. When the child collapsed the mother hurried him to the hospital, where he died. The mother was stunned. She was terrified, how could she face her husband.

When the distraught father came to the hospital and saw the dead child he looked at his wife and uttered just four words. The husband just said, “I am with you.” He acted thoughtfully. The child was dead. He can never be brought back to life. There was no point in finding fault with the mother. Besides, if only he had taken time to keep the bottle away, this would not have happened.
No one is to be blamed. She had also lost her only child. What she needed at that moment was consolation and sympathy from the husband. That is what he gave her.

Unconditional love is a very high and pure platform. To get there we have to honestly begin from where we are. The beginning of love is to do what the beloved wants. – Radhanath Swami

Categories
Blog Relationships

Believe in Yourself – No matter what He says!

Believe in Yourself- No matter what He says!Most women face this day-in and day-out in their roles as house wives, mothers and daughter- in- laws: being placed under a microscope 24/7; observed, corrected, judged, and sometimes ridiculed. It is too much for one person to take. But somehow it becomes a part of your job as a wife, mother and daughter-in-law all rolled into one. And the people whom we are trained to please from our very childhood are our dear husbands, our in-laws (more difficult than qualifying for Guinness Records) and sometimes even our kids.

Somewhere along the way, catering to everyone’s needs, wants and desires, your own needs and desires take a back seat. Along with all that we are tagged with labels such as “ she is no good”, “ she is too slow in her work”, “ her cooking is not up to the mark”, or simply “ why can’t she be on time”! Especially “HE” is someone who is the hardest to please. However much you bend backwards to serve him, he finds newer and newer disqualifications. So much so that after some time we start thinking maybe he is right….. “ there is nothing Great about me. Basically, I am a no-good wife, mother and daughter in law.” But No! That’s where we go wrong. We believe others more than we believe in ourselves.

As a woman you have to live up to and cater to the expectations of so many people in your life and that can get too much to take sometimes. And you cannot please everyone. By now you must have realized this plain and simple fact. It all boils down to attitude. Successful housewives are those who have a completely chilled out attitude towards life, where they don’t let anything bog them down. A woman with an attitude will never let the bickering from her husband get to her. I know of one such person, my friend’s mother. I would visit her regularly and one common feature I would see was her husband go on and on about how inefficient she was. He would find faults with her from the moment she woke up in the morning. “Tea has so less sugar”, “where my breakfast ”,“ why is the shirt not ironed” and “you always make me late to work” etc. For me, if someone went on and on like that it would get to my nerves in a jiffy and produce a really unpleasant reaction. But I would see this woman, how patiently she would smile and say “Oh how foolish of me, I will just make it right” and she would actually smile through the whole thing. What an amazing level of tolerance. Anyone would think, “She is so backward. She cannot even stand for herself.” But over the years I have seen how her attitude of always seeing the good and not getting bogged down by all the criticism aimed at her has always kept her in good spirits. More than that, she gradually earned the respect of her husband, who stopped criticizing her in due course of time. And today he does not take one decision without first consulting her and has so much regard for her.

If we analyze the whole thing, we realize that she was not affected by all the criticism as she believed in her capabilities and did not let HIS words affect her self esteem. She had enough self respect to never react or get angry with her husband. And eventually she got him to behave himself! Now that’s what I call a Lady who believes in herself!

– Dr. Sandhya Subramanian

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Categories
Love

Our Actions mirror us!

Our Actions mirror us!Our actions mirror us. They bring back what we give out. If we give out love and care, it brings back love & care to us. If we give out hatred and intolerance, it brings back hatred and intolerance. So, check and correct your own actions and see how favorable results await you. – Radhanath Swami

A long time ago in China, a girl named Li-Li got married & went to live with her husband and mother-in- law. In a very short time, Li-Li found that she couldn’t get along with her mother-in-law at all. Their personalities were very different, and Li-Li was angered by many of her mother-in-law’s habits. In addition, she criticized Li-Li constantly. Finally, Li-Li could not stand her mother-in-law’s bad temper and dictatorship any longer and she decided to do something about it!

Li-Li went to see her father’s good friend, Mr. Huang, who sold herbs. She told him the situation and asked if he would give her some poison so that she could solve the problem at oncel. Mr.Huang thought for awhile, and finally said, ‘Li-Li, I will help you solve your problem, but you must listen to me and obey what I tell you.’ Mr. Huang went into the back room, and returned in a few minutes with a package of herbs. He told Li- Li, ‘You can’t use a quick-acting poison to get rid of your mother-in-law, because that would cause people to become suspicious. Therefore, I have given you a number of herbs that will slowly build up poison in her body. Every other day prepare some delicious meal and put a little of these herbs in her serving. Now, in order to make sure that nobody suspects you when she dies, you must be very careful to act very friendly towards her everyday from now on. ‘Don’t argue with her, obey her every wish, and treat her like a queen.’ Li-Li was so happy. She thanked Mr. Huang and hurried home to start her plot of murdering her mother-in- law.

Li-Li served the specially treated food to her mother-in-law everyday. She remembered what Mr.Huang had said about avoiding suspicion, so she controlled her temper, obeyed her mother-in-law, and treated her like a queen. After six months had passed, the whole household had changed. Li-Li had practiced controlling her temper so much that she found that she almost never got mad or upset. She hadn’t had an argument with her mother-in-law in six months and she now seemed much kinder and easier to get along with. The mother-in-law’s attitude toward Li-Li too changed, and she began to love Li-Li like her own daughter. She kept telling friends and relatives that Li-Li was the best daughter-in- law one could ever find. Li-Li and her mother-in-law were now treating each other like a real mother and daughter. Li-Li’s husband was very happy to see what was happening.

One day, Li-Li came to see Mr. Huang and asked for his help again She said, ‘Dear Mr. Huang, please help me to keep the poison from killing my mother-in-law. She’s changed into such a nice woman, and I love her like my own mother. I do not want her to die because of the poison I gave her.’ Mr. Huang smiled and nodded his head. ‘Li-Li, there’s nothing to worry about. I never gave you any poison. The herbs I gave you were vitamins to improve her health. The only poison was in your mind and your attitude toward her, but that has been all washed away by the love which you gave to her.’

Dealing with negativity in a positive way is called tolerance. – Radhanath Swami

Categories
Blog Relationships

Irreconcilable Differences

Happy marriageSometimes life makes you take such tough decisions. But as they say, when the going gets tough the tough get going. Marriage is definitely for tough people. To make a marriage last, one should have a tough skin and the ability to switch-on and switch-off one’s ears!! There is a joke about a man who was happily married for about 50 years of his life. His friends asked him the secret of his smiling face. He replied that he was hard of hearing from childhood and so he could switch-off his hearing aid whenever he wanted. That’s a smart man. I wish we women also could do something like that. Anyways, jokes apart, one has to slog to make any marriage work.

In the earlier days, couples would stick together no matter what—even if they had irreconcilable differences. Today, these words—irreconcilable differences—are thrown here and there at the drop of a hat—for freedom! But really, can a marriage be broken just based on these words—irreconcilable differences? I would say the couples in the earlier days were more tolerant than those belonging to today’s jet-set world of technology, where everything is fast or instant—fast cars, instant noodles, fast marriages and instant divorce!

Couples today have no time to resolve any issues in marriage patiently. If this was the case with my parents, I would never have a safe and secure childhood; I wouldn’t get the privileged love of both my mother and father; rather, I would be put in the horrible position of deciding which parent I loved most. I feel that is the most painful thing you could ask a child—“Do you love your mother more or your father more?”

– Dr. Sandhya Subramanian

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