LEAVING THE WORLD WITH EMPTY HANDS
==================================================
==================================================
From the Pen of a Great Spiritual Luminary of His time, HH Shri Bhola
Nathji (1902-1992) whose writings brought home the reality of life in a
simple manner, and still continue to guide humanity.
==================================================
==================================================
Today everywhere in the world there is a rat race for the materialistic things of the world, wealth, name and fame, prosperity.
Materialistic attainments are all right -- but for how long and how much?
There can be no better example than Alexander the Great, who possessed what everyone in the world would want to possess, and this is the legend associated with him:
Alexander the Great, the mighty king and Emperor of Macedonia, whose kingdom spread far into the East and far into the West, whose enemies bowed down before his sword, who was known from continent to continent and whose words were Law, is dead and gone, his ashes mingled into dust.
The world did not stop revolving around the sun; people did not stop living their lives, the affairs of mankind went on. The rolling wheel of time went on.
It is said that when Alexander was on his deathbed he expressed a very strange desire:
He called together his family members and his courtiers and ministers and said to them:
"When my funeral procession is taken out in the streets and the people of the world are looking upon it, then cover my body with a white sheet, but let my hangs hand out on either side of the sheet so that the people may see them.
“Yes, allow my hands to dangle at the sides of my body, so that when people look upon them, and see them, they may know that these hands – the hands of Alexander the Great, - the hands that sought to possess the whole world, are today going away empty.”
So we might just stop for awhile in our material pursuits and ask ourselves:
"If Alexander the Great could not take anything with him when he left the world, then what, indeed, will we take with us?"
Materialistic attainments are all right -- but for how long and how much?
There can be no better example than Alexander the Great, who possessed what everyone in the world would want to possess, and this is the legend associated with him:
Alexander the Great, the mighty king and Emperor of Macedonia, whose kingdom spread far into the East and far into the West, whose enemies bowed down before his sword, who was known from continent to continent and whose words were Law, is dead and gone, his ashes mingled into dust.
The world did not stop revolving around the sun; people did not stop living their lives, the affairs of mankind went on. The rolling wheel of time went on.
It is said that when Alexander was on his deathbed he expressed a very strange desire:
He called together his family members and his courtiers and ministers and said to them:
"When my funeral procession is taken out in the streets and the people of the world are looking upon it, then cover my body with a white sheet, but let my hangs hand out on either side of the sheet so that the people may see them.
“Yes, allow my hands to dangle at the sides of my body, so that when people look upon them, and see them, they may know that these hands – the hands of Alexander the Great, - the hands that sought to possess the whole world, are today going away empty.”
So we might just stop for awhile in our material pursuits and ask ourselves:
"If Alexander the Great could not take anything with him when he left the world, then what, indeed, will we take with us?"
No comments:
Post a Comment