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A prayer and a story

Lord, please help them see sense. Help them see the whirlpool in which they are being sucked again. Help them learn the lesson without getting hurt again.


Lord, please help me be patient till they learn the lesson. Help me retain my warm feelings for them till they open their eyes.


Since yesterday I have been distracted from my serenity by some inappropriateness that has come knocking on my door. My mind has been revolving around the inappropriateness since that time. Despite realising this, I was unable to return to my serenity. I decided to pray. The prayer is written above. Still I wasn’t feeling calm. I decided to write about my feelings. Then I realised that instead of feeling calmer, I was thinking about the inappropriateness even more ! While writing down my thoughts, I thought of Paulo Coelho’s book “Warriors of Light”. So I interrupted my writing by searching the book on the Internet. I clicked on a site that came up and on the home page I stumbled upon a story that suddenly brought me back to my serenity. Here it is:


The unwanted apprentice


‘We have no doors in our monastery,’ Shanti said to the visitor, who had come in search of knowledge.


‘And what about troublesome people who come to disturb your peace ?’


‘We ignore them, and they go away,’ said Shanti.


‘I am a learned man who has come in search of knowledge,’ insisted the foreigner. ‘But what do you do about stupid people ? Do you just ignore them as well until they go away ? Does that work ?’


Shanti did not reply. The visitor repeated his question a few times, but seeing that he got no response, he decided to go and find a teacher who was more focused on what he was doing.


‘You see how well it works?’ said Shanti to himself, smiling.


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