Business to the Buddha

Tag: worship

  • A Hasidic tale – Prayer







    I have been reading one or the other story of Father Anthony De Mello’s books – The Prayer Of The Frog Vol. I and Prayer of The Frog Vol. II and share the same here occasionally. The books have small and very interesting stories. One of the story I read was on Prayers, here it is –

    Late one evening a poor farmer on his way back from the market. He was a religious person and when he found that he has missed his prayer book at home. The worst fear he had was he has misplaced it. This was the most disheartening thing that could happen to this pious and religious person.

    The wheel of his cart had come off right in the middle of the woods and it distressed him that this day should pass without his having said his prayers.

    With this disappointment, he was worried that he is missing something very important today. So he did something interesting. This is the prayer he made: “I have done something very foolish, Lord. I came away from home this morning without my prayer book and my memory is such that I cannot recite a single prayer without it. So this is what I am going to do: I shall recite the alphabet five times very slowly and you, to whom all prayers are known, can put the letters together to form the prayers I can’t remember,”

    And the Lord said to his angels, “Of all the prayers I have heard today, this one was undoubtedly the best because it came from a heart that was simple and sincere.”

    I have heard that Jesus said, “The kingdom of the Gods belongs to people who are like child-like.

    We all must do our prayers and any other works – personal or professional – with such sincerity and simplicity, isn’t it? Do share your thoughts.

  • Prayer of The Frog – Temple, worship & love







    prayer of frogI have been reading one or the other story of Father Anthony De Mello’s books – The Prayer Of The Frog Vol. I and Prayer of The Frog Vol. II and share the same here occasionally. The books have small and very interesting stories. One of the story I read was on a religion here it is –

    Two brothers, one a bachelor, the other married, owned a farm whose fertile soil yielded an abundance of grain. Half the grain went to one brother and half to the other.

    All went well at first. Then, every now and then, the married man began to wake with a start from his sleep at night and think: “This isn’t fair. My brother isn’t married and he gets half the produce of the farm. Here I am with a wife and five kids, so I have all the security I need for my old age. But who will care for my poor brother when he gets old? He needs to save much more for the future than he does at present, so his need is obviously greater than mine.”

    With that he would get out of bed, steal over to his brother’s place and pour a sack full of grain into his brother’s granary.

    The bachelor too began to get these nightly attacks. Every once in a while he would wake from his sleep and say to himself: “This simply isn’t fair. My brother has a wife and five kids and he gets half the produce of the land. Now I have no one except myself to support. So is it just that my poor brother, whose need is obviously greater than mine, should receive exactly as much as I do?” Then he would get out of bed and pour a sack full of grain into his brother’s granary.

    One day they got out of bed at the same time and ran into each other, each with a sack of grain on his back!

    Many years later, after their death, the story leaked out. So when the townsfolk wanted to build a temple they chose the spot at which the two brothers met for they could not think of any place in the town that was holier than that one.

    The important religious distinction is not between those who worship and those who do not worship but between those who love and those who don’t.

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