In a Zen story, a man
is riding a horse galloping down the road. A person standing by the roadside
shouted out to the rider, ‘where are you going?’ The man on the horse replied, ‘I
don’t know… Ask the horse!”
The horse is a symbol for a vehicle that we are at the
mercy of. This vehicle is crafted not by our intentions but by the conditioning
of our mind. This may be due to peer pressure, impact of associations,
influence of surroundings or plain mindless activity.
The horse is pulling us along, making us rush here and
there. We are in a hurry and we don’t know why. We are moving but we don’t know
where we are headed. We are at the mercy of the horse. It is the horse that is
actually riding the rider!
We need to stop and ask ourselves: Why are we running
around? What is our destination? Are we on the right road? Are we in control of
our horse? Or are we hostage passengers? The answers will help us know on where
we want to go and how we want to live our lives!
Ride the horse to purpose known
Lest it drag you to the unknown!
~ Pravin K Sabnis
No comments:
Post a Comment