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object. Then the object became more important than anybody's feeling and I was ready to fight for it. I acted like those misguided people who are ready to kill for land or for religious dogma or for a bunch of bricks and stones. I thought I was protecting my Gum, but instead I was fighting for my own sticky emotion.
He recalled a story of what had happened to Gandhiji one night while traveling in a third class compartment of a train. He had been sitting in the crowded dimly lit space perspiring along with the other people when his seatmate began singing a song in praise of Gandhi.
"Oh, hail to the great Mahatma, he is doing everything for our liberty!" the man sang out without realizing that the man whom he was praising in his song was sitting next to him. While he was singing, every once in a while, he would give the unrecognized Gandhi a jab with his elbow, indicating that he wanted more room for himself on the crowded bench.
Gandhiji had said nothing, but only thought to himself, “He is singing my song, but he is also giving me a sharp elbow! He cannot see me as an individual.”
At dawn, when the train pulled into the station, the man looked out of his window and noticed a huge crowd of people waiting there. Then he caught sight of the features of this meek and bony man who had been his forbearing seatmate and whom he had been unable to see in the weak light of the overnight train.
“Oh my God!” he cried out when he realized his blunder. Immediately he bowed at Gandhiji's feet. "Forgive me, I always worship you in my dreams, but I did not know you in reality."
Munishree Chandraprabh drew a lesson from this recollection.
Itoo was coloring reality with my emotions. When I saw my fellow monk with these colored glasses, I was callous and unaware. Now can I not see him as he is, a fellow aspirant, a living life, the same as me? Can I not see him with compassion instead of judgment?
He remembered the words of Mahavir which the Master
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