Being in the Present Moment - One Incident in the Life of Thiruvalluvar
To go straight to the moral of the story, I have decided to keep the story short and simple. According to my perception, it also relates well to running and even other sports as well. As a teenager, I was doing Tamil Literature as an GCE 'A' Level subject. This story that I am going to tell is actually a story on how the mind can be directed to get what it wants.
The story goes like this. Once a sage by the name of Thiruvalluvar, in short Valluvar, being a very rich person, he gave up his belongings to help his fellow men who needed help. He won't say a no to anyone requesting for his help using his wisdom. Hence, over time, he left his luxurious life to pursue a peasant lifestyle. While being a farmer, he led a simple, sincere, truthful and perfect life. As a role model, the Tamils even now, still take him as a great philosopher who has proven how to lead one's life.
Even though, Valluvar was happy with life while living in poverty, he wanted to share his knowledge in poetic form to his fellow men through Thirukurral, book of poem which has knowledge. However, he needed funds in order to publish the materials. Hence, he wanted to meet Allala Singha. Allala Singha was a very rich merchant in India. He used to do trade with the Roman Empire and was a big businessman at that time. His wealth was immense.
It came a day when Valluvar wanted to meet this Allala to discuss how the latter can help in getting the books of Kurral (proverbial stanzas) out. Valluvar was at the gate of Allala. The former asked one of the guards standing at the gate that he would like to see Allala. The guard told him,"You can't see my master now as he is in the prayer room now, praying to God." Immediately, without any hesitation Valluvar told the guard, "Go and ask your master whether he is in the prayer room or at the harbour".
The guard was wonderstruck as to what to do about this situation. He was perplexed and decided to go inside to see his master. Usually, a person is not supposed to communicate if one is in the prayer room and solve this problem of a person who is adamant in meeting Allala.
Suddenly, after some time, a person came running out of the gate. He quickly opened the gate and fall down onto the feet of Valluvar. The person who humbly fall to the sage Valluvar's feet was none other than Allala himself. Allala asked, "How did you know that although I was in the prayer room, I was worried thinking of how to salvage the sunken ship at the harbour". "My body was in the prayer room praying to God but my mind was still steeped in the misery of my sunken ship at the harbour?." Hence, we know that Valluvar had the ability to see the future.
Immediately,without the least hesitation, Allala earnestly requested Valluvar to be his Guru. After some conversation, Allala found out that it was the Valluvar that he has been finding for in life, high and low. Both became very good friends after that meeting.
What I learn from this story?
To put it in a nutshell, there was no prayer going on as the mind was infact elsewhere. If you pray, you should just pray and it should not have any form of worry.
Even if you are in the prayer room but your mind is elsewhere, it means that you are not in the prayer room at all. All your prayers are of wasted effort only. This is because the body is there for namesake but mind is not there and it is disturbed. What is important is the body and mind must be at one. This prevents the oscillation of the mind. The mind also has the natural tendency to go to the past and it regrets. When it goes to the future, it is anxious. Only in the present moment, one is joyful and if a person is in a race situation, he or she can change something and the power is in the person's hand to change what is in their disposal.
The important thing to do is to watch your mind. If you are doing one thing, it is appropriate not to think about another thing.
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