Thought for the day five

Always wear the costume of humility and you will receive the love and cooperation of other

When I was studying engineering in Mysore, I was traveling by train to college. My father worked in Railways. His office was in Ashokpuram. It was the second station from Mysore City Railway Station. I used to get down at Ashokpuram and walk to my college which was about a km from there.

I remember seeing a blueprint on the side of one of the wooden cupboards. It said ‘COURTESY BEGETS COURTESY; POLITENESS PAYS’

Somehow, these words have got etched in my mind. Yes, if we are courteous, the other person is also courteous to us. If we are polite, we may end up in getting done what we want to achieve.

If politeness is the trailer, humility is the pictureJ

Being humble is a very great achievement. We have seen people who ‘act’ humble when they want something from us. There is a saying in Sanskrit Language ‘Ati vinayam dhoortha lakshanam’. This means if someone shows too much of humility, then we can be sure that there is a bad person lurking behind that extra humility.

But the humility of the right amount begets love of others. If not love, at least the cooperation!

When I find an auto driver parking his auto in front of the bus stand, I go to him and say, “If you do not mistake me, I want to say something”

Believe it or not! The driver smiled at me. Ah, the first step is over.

Then I shall put forth my request. “Sir, can you shift a little further after the bus stop please. I can’t catch the bus because the driver puts it little further since he does not have space to park it in front of the bus stop”

The driver actually laughed and moved his auto!!!

Instead of this, if I had raised my voice and shouted at him, it would have triggered some thought inside his brain and he would have folded his shirt sleeves and come to fight with me.

So, a friendly smile, humble posture and a down-to-earth voice would take us to places. Have we not seen our politicians coming door-to-door when they want to win elections? Oh, their behavior before the elections and after they win are worth remembering!

But the false humility won’t take anyone for a long distance. Someone will tear their mask of false humility.

This again reminds us of the proverb, you can fool all people for some time and some people for all time!

Even when talking to the telecallers I shall put on my best friendly voice. Sometimes (why sometimes, most of the times!) their call will irritate us. Because they do not know what we would be doing on the other side when they call.

But still I will try to be polite, because we are all salespersons. We sell something or the other to someone else. When we try to sell and the other person is rude to us, we can’t bear it! When that is so, what right we have to make the others feel bad?

We can be humble and do lot of things. It works almost every time. Especially when the other person believes us, our humility will touch the other person’s heart.

Of course, if the other person does not have faith in our behavior or character, whatever we do will not draw water. We would be always at wrong.

But in general, humility will definitely receive cooperation. Love is a separate step. It also should happen. But I am sure we need to have little more than humility to get love from others. It needs our love which should get reciprocated. Many times sacrifice would also draw the other person’s love towards us.

There are many examples of humility in our epics. The best ever example is meeting of Arjuna and Duryodhana with Sri Krishna in his home.

The war has been declared. As a part of the war strategy both Yudhishthira and Shakuni send Arjuna and Duryodhana respectively to Krishna to take him to their side.

Krishna knew that both have come. He closes his eyes and pretends to be asleep. Duryodhana (thinks he) is the Monarch. So he sits on a chair which is near the head of Krishna’s bed. Arjuna being the humble person chooses to sit on the stool which is at the feet of Krishna.

When Krishna opens his eyes, naturally he sees Arjuna who is sitting at the feet side. He gets the first chance to speak and select between an unarmed Krishna or the complete army belonging to Yadavas.

The rest is, as they say, history!!