'Awakening' is an easy way to get rid of ego, which carries the seeds to destroy the individual.🔗

The story which I am going to tell may already be known to many of you. We have lots of stories. We have also grown up listening to lots of stories. But it is only our misfortune that we have missed the messages and principles conveyed through them.

Every time I tell you a story, it is not for making you happy or to just entertain you. It is to make you understand the principles contained in it.

There was a very big lake by the side of a village. Due to continuous rains, it was full to the brim.

One day, before sunrise, a boatman came to the lake. His job was to take the people who wished to go to the adjacent town in his boat.

As he was walking along the lake's edge in the darkness before the sunrise, he felt a bundle on the path near his feet.

He was trying to find out what was in the bundle just by running his fingers over it. He felt as though there were some pebbles in the bundle. He lifted the bundle and put it near his boat by the lake. He continued in his thoughts while keeping his feet on the bundle.

There was a lot of time left before the sun would rise in the east. He took a stone from the bundle and threw it on to the water's surface. He heard a nice ringing sound.

As he had no other work to do, he continued throwing the stones in the water, one after the other.

After some time, the sun started slowly rising up in the east. Light started spreading everywhere. He had thrown all the stones from the bundle, except the last one.

He was surprised and shocked to see the last stone in the bright sun light. The boatman had just awakened to reality.

The stone he had in his hand was not an ordinary pebble: it was a costly gemstone!

Frustrated and upset very much. he cried. 'Alas! How have I wasted so many costly gem stones by throwing them away into the lake?'

We are also like this boatman. We are really wasting our lives.

A youngster who was born in a village was lamenting, 'Oh! What sin have I committed to have been born in a village?'

If the youngster had awakened, he could have given good education to the children of the village. He could have arranged for the road facilities there. He could have brought new small industries, etc. to the village and contributed for the economic development of it.

Even though there were so many opportunities for him, he wasted his life badly. That youngster had been thinking that if he lived in a city, he could progress well.

However, only the city youths know the various kinds of obstructions to progressing well in the city.

I say again and again.........