________________
TRAINING IN METHODS OF MIND-TRANSFORMATION
159
The second principle of training is full understanding of the means to be employed. It is an essential requirement for success. There may be faith, but if the right means is not available, if one does not possess the necessary know-how, the work will never be accomplished. Most people are not even conscious of what they are doing, or what they really want to do. They are totally engrossed in futile worries.
A man kept standing in the bus. People close to him said, "Why don't you sit down? Your destination is yet far off." He said, "I can't sit down. I must be up and doing. I have to reach my place at the carliest possible."
Man is lost in ignorance and problems. He is caught in an illusion and his vision is distorted so that he can never grasp the truth.
No training course can be successful without a comprehension of the means to be employed. The importance of methodology cannot be too much emphasized.
Shreinik, the emperor of Magadh, had a powerful elephant called Sechanak, whose very odour made other elephants lose their nerve. Once, while crossing a stream, this elephant was caught by a crocodile. It was a very powerful elephant, but the crocodile was in its clement and therefore no less powerful. The elephant stood helpless in its grip.
The emperor came to know of it. But all his efforts to free the clephant from the clutches of the crocodile failed. The emperor asked his chief minister, Abhay Kumar, to suggest a remedy. Abhay Kumar said, "Sir! if we can procure the water-sucking jewel, it might be possible to free the elephant-that jewel has the virtue of drying up water and making a solid path thercon." The emperor issued a proclamation saying that he would be prepared to marry the princess, his daughter to anyone who procures the water-sucking jewel.
It so happened that that very day a sweetmeat-seller received a laddu (a sweetmeat ball) which contained a jewel. The confectioner put that jewel into water to clean it. The water instantly evaporated. On hearing the emperor's proclamation, he at once took the jewel to the king. Abhay Kumar recognized the jewel; it was the genuine article. He took the jewel to the stream and downed it into the flowing water. The water gave way to land. Deprived of its element, the crocodile lost vitality; its grip loosened and the elephant got away.
However tight the grip of the problem in which our life's Sechanak is caught, however complex the situation, however monstrous the crocodile that holds our Gandhhasti (the clephant with
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
Jain Education International
