LANTERN

In ancient Japan, while venturing into the dark night, people carried bamboo-and-paper lanterns with candles inside.

One night, a host offered his blind visitor a lantern to carry home with him. The blind man declined saying, "Darkness or light is all the same to me." The wise host persisted, "I know you do not need a lantern to find your way, but if you don't have one, someone else may run into you."

The blind man started off with the lantern and before he had walked very far someone ran squarely into him. "Look out where you are going!" he exclaimed to the stranger. "Can't you see this lantern?"

"Your candle has burned out, brother," replied the stranger.

Now let’s recast the above characters. The blind man in the story is one of us. The stranger is a person who crosses our path. He could be a family member, a friend, a colleague, a customer or just a stranger. The lantern symbolises the persona we carry. The candle represents our dream, our vision. The path represents our life purpose, our mission…

Quite often we are cocky about our capabilities and may be rightfully so. But, we need to understand that while the lantern we hold lights up our path, it also enlightens our way and walk to the ones who we meet enroute! Hence we must constantly revisit our dreams and vision to ensure that the lantern of our personality is consistently illuminated. To be better at getting to our aspiration, we must connect to our guiding vision every night, every day!

To BE BETTER at overcoming the hurdles on the dark way
Our vision-candle must burn in our lantern, every day!

---- Pravin-da