Good Rice, Bad Rice!

                     “GOOD RICE, BAD RICE!”

Year is almost touching its finish line. New Year parties are being planned and the countdown to welcome another gleaming sun of next year is on.

As we sit, waiting to ‘cheers our glasses on the new year eve’ lot of introspection goes around. What we did, how we did, what it resulted and how differently we could do it are like all the mangled thoughts that stern the pot.

Then there are providence perpetuated things that came as bonanza in our lives or fell like hell in its full fiery on our head. And after the storm, all we search for is a justified answer to ‘how’, ‘what’ and ‘why’....

The universal law enforcement seems like an unsolved mystery for us, though the concept is explained with crystal clarity in scriptures. It all boils down to “GOOD RICE, BAD RICE!”

Once upon a time, there was this farmer, who worked really hard in his fields from day in and day out irrespective of sun, winds and rain. His hard work outshined in his over stretched paddy fields, and because of his “leaving no stone unturned” effort at the time of harvesting of crops scored him the winning point. His goodness was always flooded with best quality of rice almost throughout the year. And at the year end, when most of his rice was sold at good price, there was a good amount left which he used to conserve in the big tank for his personal use.

This tank was very peculiarly and conspicuously designed by the farmer, it was very huge. It had two openings, one big opening at the top from where all the left over rice was put and the other small, lidded opening at the bottom near the base, like a top from where the small amount of rice was drawn for day to day personal use.

For years he worked hard and filled the tank with good quality rice seeds. Meanwhile he was married and had kids.

One day out of sudden, the farmer thought that he have worked so hard now it is a time for him to pursue well deserved break and spend little quality time with his family as well on entertainment. That year he became very irregular to his fields, passed days dozing away at his home or hanging out with his friends. Even being lazy in his acts the storage camp provided him with quality rice to feed upon throughout the year and year end. Consequences of his actions were well evident. The crop quality dipped below average this year. Half his crop was destroyed by pesticides and the rest found no buyers because of its poor presentation, only the morsels could make into shelves.

To meet the expenses he had to rely upon the last year savings in the tank. He emptied his tank with all the shiny seeds for the sale and in return filled it with poor quality paddy of that year.

His storage tank saved him a day and he was able to ride on his losses. At same time he learned lesson from his mistake and started to be regular in the fields. He started work and sweat again and by the year end with his earnest effort he could harvest a bumper crop. While he worked his ass off, sweating day and night, his storage tanker provided him with the rotten deal. The rice that they ate that year was no comparison to the quality they had earlier. It was small, non shiny, irregular, brittle and not very palpable. But the farmer had no option; he had to survive on that even though he was working very hard. He knew it was result exponent of his lazy self.

But, at same time, it was all confusing for his five year old son. All he could perceive was that when his father enjoyed his life, they had good rice to eat and now when he is working like an ass in the fields giving up all bodily comfort, all they get in their plates are the bad rice. The boy totally failed to notice the concept of storage tank. And that’s we do too. We also, for our convince delete that part and perceive the picture from the eyes of five year old and end up blaming god, the fate and the destiny. All we have to do is to replace the ‘rice’ with ‘karma’. It always boils down to “good karma, bad karma” with the storage karma which we cashes on daily bases.

So while running an introspection scan, please take in consideration the stored in “Good rice Bad rice”

(Story picked from srimad bhagvatam)

With this note, wish you a very happy new year 2015. May it fill your life with all the well deserved happiness, see you next year!