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Objective Approach
another, his calmness is worthless. It is easy to hold calmness when circumstances are favorable. Even a dog does not bark unless it sees a stranger or gets otherwise disturbed. The calmness is put to test in adverse circumstances.
One should therefore learn to remain quiet even when someone else gets angry. A hammer retains its coolness even while hammering hot iron. If it gets hot, it would set ablaze the wooden handle which the smith has to hold. The same way the loss of peace would destroy the benefit of all other activities. One minute's peaceful activity is thus more valuable than several activities undertaken with an agitated mind.
If we spend a lot of time in religious activities, e.g. worshipping and adoring the Lord, and thereafter if we lose the peace of mind on trivial grounds, we would wash off the wholesome impact of those religious activities. Even a spark of fire can consume tons of cotton in no time. We should therefore be careful to maintain equanimity in favorable or unfavorable situations. The following story would illustrate it.
There was a monk living on the outskirts of a village. One villager wanted to go on a pilgrimage. He came to the monk with a bag of silver coins and requested him to take care of the money during his absence. The monk said that he had no box or safe where he could keep the money. Since the man insisted, the monk asked him to dig a pit nearby and keep the bag inside. The man did it and went on the pilgrimage.
When he came back and asked for the bag, the monk asked him to get it from the pit. The man did it and saw that his bag was intact. He was highly pleased and showered praises over the monk. The man then went home and giving the bag to his wife he went to take bath. Meanwhile the wife thought that since they had returned home after the pilgrimage, she should celebrate it by preparing good food. She therefore took a coin from the bag and purchased the required groceries for preparing the food.
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