“There once was a little boy who had a very bad temper. His father decided to hand him a bag of nails and said that every time the boy lost his temper, he had to hammer a nail into the fence.
On the first day, the boy hammered 37 nails into that fence.
The boy gradually began to control his temper over the next few weeks, and the number of nails he was hammering into the fence slowly decreased. He discovered it was easier to control his temper than to hammer those nails into the fence.
Finally, the day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper at all. He told his father the news and the father suggested that the boy should now pull out a nail every day he kept his temper under control.
The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone. The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence.
‘You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won’t matter how many times you say I’m sorry, the wound is still there’.
I have read very few books in fantasy section not because I am displeased, but my focus on it makes it too striving. This book is so blessed by its empirical nature of morality and glitters value of life like a piece of cake. The story is about a daughter heading to find answers for her poverty state from an old man who is gifted to change fortunes. Along the journey she befriends a dragon, small boy and some more characters that teach lessons while her perception slowly reveal the reality of her misconceptions. This statement speaks concisely to what I feel -“Fortune was not a house full of gold and jade, but something much more. Something which already have and did not need to change”. Overall a satisfying read with lots of embedded stories on offer.
I have come across this book on several occasions in the book shop’s but my interest was laid aside at that time. And here am trying to brood over missing such a rare commodity earlier. This runs as an upliftment memoir of an ascetic code of conduct, existence and its pursuance. From microcosmic to the macro level of spirituality is explained in the layman language. I find Swami Rama’s point of views pensively accompanied by his true quest for wisdom.
I do not know what made me to pick this book, but it reveals some amazing tips for mirror analysis of life. The metaphorical use of Nachiketa story is a masterstroke in this book of factual events. It is very common to hear from a spiritual or religious people of its wisdom, but uncommon to evaluate of their eminence in the subtlety of life. Let me divide my insights into two categories for a better comprehension. Firstly, if the interest is rhetorical then the questions raised by Nachiketa will be assured to convey the intended message to the right audience. The inquisitive attributes of Nachiketa are one of a kind and of a higher nature, so isn’t fathomable to all. Secondly, if pursued as an allegory, then continuous reflections are to be instigated for individual moral upliftment. Hence, the following statement explains it all and thankful to have introduced to this beautiful teaching of Kathoupanishad. “The consciousness of individuality is always searching and seeking to find the right combination to move towards the consciousness of unity”.
I am deeply enthralled with this story events and protagonist sets an amazing example of essence, morale, audacity to me. Alexander the count is house-arrested and left confined within the Metropol hotel perimeters. The lonesome walks of life with a social ennui is captivated by the infirm at large. It leaves a permanent scar of reading a spellbinding book and will provoke to poke into the author’s prior contributions. This statement left me astonished by the profound meaning inside – “What sort of divinity, he seemed to be thinking, would devise a world in which an aging man’s malady afflicts the very attribute that has set him apart from his fellow men and elevated him in the eyes of all? What sort of divinity, Emily? The very same who rendered Beethoven deaf and Monet blind. For what the lord giveth, is precisely what he come through later to taketh away.”. Truly enacted like a gentleman!
vishnupria 