My Son, My Teacher

My Son, Aum is three years old. He likes to play in parks and I thoroughly enjoy being with him. Thus obviously parks are our favorite pastime. 

One day we were in one such play park. He was trying to climb up a ladder. He started pretty well. Climbed a few steps but got scared and started coming down. I said, "Aum, I have seen your abilities. You might not be aware of it. But gauging your skills I know you could climb up very easily. You can do it. Just try." 

He turned back, he wanted to follow my instructions. I am probably too lucky to have a miraculously obedient Son. While climbing he looked at the top of the ladder and got nervous. I reassured, "Don't worry about the height. Focus on the next step. Next one then next one and within no time you would be done." He was reluctant. I didn't want to force him much so decided to do the last attempt. I said, "Listen carefully, I know you can do this pretty well. Hypothetically assume if you start falling, I will catch you. I won't let you hurt. Even if you fall down there is lot of sand here. So just go". He gave up and I gave up too.

One day I woke up early, closed my eyes and started doing meditation. I wanted to keep my mind blank without any thoughts. Its strange how our mind works. When you don't want your mind to do something it does exactly that. If I tell you not to think about your right hand most of you would. Following the rule thousands of thoughts started pouring in my mind. I don't know why but the same park incident moved in front of my eyes. And a thought came from within aren't we all just like Aum? We always behave like him. We wish to accomplish many things in life. We have so many dreams to achieve. Yet we lack the courage to go after them. Always analyzing the risks. Thinking about all the possible ways in which we could fail. 

In a similar way our creator, God, or some infinite supernatural power whatever it may be, lets say God for the sake of discussion, might be telling us, "Son, I have given you tremendous potential. I gave you the power to realize anything that you dream of. All you need to do is to take action." We are too deaf to hear this. He might also be saying, "Don't focus on the goal. It does look big. Take one small step at a time and within no time it gets done." We ignore this too. Possibly as an ultimate attempt of convincing he might also be saying, "Just go Son. If at all something goes wrong I am here to catch you. I won't let you hurt. And there is lot of sand down here. Do it." We are too busy in figuring out all possible, imaginary reasons to not succeed. We never get this message. 

After this park incident we went to a different park. This time on a similar ladder my son climbed up very easily. He went up and looked down from there. He looked very happy. He shouted at me, "Pappa, I did it!". I felt very proud. 

I just hope we all would also go after our dreams, go for everything that we desire to accomplish. I look forward to the day when we all would be at the top of the ladder. Look down and shout back, "Yes! I did it!". We would be happy. God would be proud of us.