Theos-Talk Archives (May 2003 Message tt00270)

a "Story" -- The Living Atoms, (the "little lives")
5/29/2003

A Story


THE "LIVES"


In India, in ancient times, a little lad of twelve was taken by
his parents to the college of the Wise Men, that he might learn
to be wise and holy, too, to help his fellow men.

But the lad really would have preferred to stay with his brothers
and sisters and friends, to play their games, to roam when he
pleased in the fields, to swim when he chose in the river.

The beautiful temple where Wise Men taught seemed lonely and cold
to him; his lessons did not last all day, though they were
interesting at the time, and his tasks for keeping order in the
building where he lived grew daily more irksome.

Morning after morning Subba might have been seen sweeping out the
Council-room with indolent strokes of the broom,-then resting in
the open door, thinking of his playmates in the town who had only
the task of amusing them selves. Hot resentment against this
place of Wise Ones and the task would flame in his face, and as
he walked up the path, he kicked the stones in impotent anger
and, muttering, struck aside the branches of a shrub growing out
a little over the path.

No one knows if that little lad ever became the Wise Man his
parents hoped for - a Teacher for other little lads, willful and
selfish as he was-but fifty years after his boyhood time, another
lad with the same daily tasks came to his Teacher and said:

"My Teacher, it is my task to sweep out the Council-room each
day, and this week I was given a new broom. This broom is so
different from the old one, I cannot make it sweep well. It is
hard and stiff and when I have at last gathered up the dust in a
little pile, suddenly the end of the broom will give a jerk and
the dust be scattered again. May I not have my old broom back?"

"My Son," mildly replied the Teacher, "I think you can do better
than that." Then he looked with intent eye at the refractory
broom, and the picture of the lad of fifty years before came
clear to his view. Turning kindly again to little Gargya, he
said:

"The impatience and anger of a lazy boy is in that broom.

Long ago he daily passed the way of the shrub that grew to make
it, and to it, as he brushed it aside in anger, he passed on the
angry atoms of his own body. You have learned how our bodies are
changing all the time, throwing off old atoms and taking on
new-and that other forms of life take on what we throw off, and
give back to us again. It isn't so strange that this broom is
unruly, you see, with so many atoms of it impressed by impatience
and anger.

"But I said you can do better than cast it aside. Tell me, have
you patience, son?"

"I try to do my tasks well, 0 Teacher, but now I see I might be
more patient."

"Have patience then with this unruly broom, lad, and in three
moon's time bring it to me again."
In three moon's time, the lad came to his Teacher with smiling
face, the broom in his hand, and said:

"0 Teacher, my broom has learned well. It is better now than the
one I wanted back."

"Good, my Son," replied the Teacher. "It has learned well. And
now I know you do have patience.

Only a patient lad could have taught and changed that broom,
wronged so long ago by impatience and anger."

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TO THINK ABOUT


(1) Do we not judge if a thing is "alive" by its motions? If so,
are we right? Can you explain the difference between the stone
and human being?

(2) What kinds of lives are in the human being? How and where do
these lives work?

(3) If LIFE is everywhere, how can you say there is death?

(4) Which are most important, the inside or outside things?

(5) Can we describe the invisible Life? If our thoughts are
invisible to others, is it possible for them to help or harm
others?

(7) Can we understand what this means, taught by the Buddha?

"all things do well which serve the Power
And ill which hinder; nay, the worm does well
Obedient to its kind; the hawk does well
Which carries bleeding quarries to its young;
The dewdrop and the star shine sisterly
Globing together in the common work;
And man who lives to die, dies to live well
So if he guide his ways by blamelessness
And earnest will to hinder not, but help
All things both great and small which suffer life."
(From The Light of Asia)


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DTB From E V