Different strokes for different folks

Here is a small story that can set you thinking

“I have been a misfit since childhood. I knew that no one understood me, not even my father. He once said, "You are not a madman, fit to be put in a madhouse, nor are you monk to be put in a monastery. I just don't know what you are!"

I replied: "You know, father, I can tell you what it is like. Once a duck egg was put under a hen to be hatched. When the egg hatched, the duckling walked along with the mother hen until they came to a pond. The duckling took a nice dip in the water. But the hen stayed on the bank and clucked."

"Now, my dear father, after having tried the sea I find it my home. If you choose to stay on the shore, is it my fault? I am not to be blamed."

No two are identical not only in looks but also in mental makeup.Even two children born and brought up in the same family in identical circumstances are vastly different in their personality, attitudes and ambitions. Some would explain it away as the result of past karma but the differences do exist.

I knew closely a friend from young age. He was different from others of his age group. Even as a young boy he collected idols of Rama and Krishna, hid them on the terrace away from his father’s eyes and spent all the time except school hours decorating the dolls with flowers. Naturally he did not study well and was average except in Sanskrit for he loved scriptures. His dad tried in vain by various methods to discipline him to fall in the conventional mould. As he became a young man he spent his waking hours in a mutt assisting its chief and tending to ailing people. He took a government job, remained a bachelor and spent his earnings on poor. He cared little about his looks. He never spoke about his beliefs nor spent time in idle talk or in socialising.Deeply spiritual, he lived a life of what others thought as recluse but what he felt as meaningful. Bliss to him was freedom from attractions of the world. His was an altogether different world; it was the sphere of spirit and service.

Most of the great men be they saints or famous in some chosen fields are out of the ordinary and different from the run of the mill type. They have their own value systems. Things are desired only to the extent they are valued and a thing is valued only to the extent one’s mind sets value by it. Life is a matter of mind and mind is what makes life-a heaven of hell or hell of heaven. The perceptions differ from man to man according to their minds or karma if you believe in it.