Twelve Facets of Reality

Author(s): Chitrabhanu
Publisher: New York Dodd Made & Company

Page 28

6 Twelve Facets of Reality toward attachment, thereby creating sadness. When things or people depart from us, our mind is not ready to accept it. Grasping, the mind kills the spirit of the relationship. People accept this truth more readily for others than for themselves.
Observe what happens when the mind is not attached. Once an employee in a factory received a telegram telling him that his mother had died. He wanted to take a week's leave to go to his hometown to console his relatives and to be consoled by them. When he went to the factory owner to ask permission for the leave, the owner was out to lunch. So the employee left his telegram on the owner's desk, went back to his work, and waited.
It happened that the factory owner's mother was ill, and when he returned to his desk, without reading the name on the telegram, he saw only the words, “Your mother expired.” Immediately he became sad and depressed. He put his head down on his desk and began crying.
When the employee came back, he saw right away that his telegram had caused a misunderstanding. He wanted to clear it up, so he explained, “Sir, please, I came to ask for leave because my mother expired." The owner looked up and said, “Your mother has also expired?" “No, sir,” the employee explained, “I put that telegram on your desk when you were not here. It is my mother who has expired, not yours.”
"It is your mother, not mine?” The owner jumped up, and in a matter of seconds he had become light and happy again. His whole attitude changed.
"Yes, sir,” the employee continued. “Please grant me leave to see my relatives."
Now all of a sudden the owner began to preach and moralize because it was not his mother. He said, “Why