Words from the Master

A small story:

A king once went to a Master to attain some magical powers, so that he could become more powerful than his neighboring kings.
He sat in front of the Master and started telling him the purpose of his visit.
The Master listened patiently to the King.
He then told him to go into his garden, where a rose bush and a cyprus plant were growing side by side. He told him, “They are your teachers. They can teach you what you need to learn.”
The king went into the garden, saw the two plants and could not understand what he was meant to learn from them.
He came back to the Master and asked, “What do you mean, Master? I am not able to understand how they will teach me.”
The Master took him to the plants and explained, “This cyprus plant has been next to the rose plant for many years. Never once has it even aspired to become a rose plant. Similarly, the rose plant has never ever aspired to become a cyprus plant. They just attended to their own duties of growing and blossoming everyday. If Man had been the cyprus plant, he would have compared himself with the rose and felt jealous at the attention that the rose plant was getting from people. Or if he were the rose, he would have looked at the cyprus enviously thinking how peaceful the latter was without the torture of getting plucked by people all day!”
The Master said, “This is the most powerful magical power you can attain!”
You see: The two plants prospered because they used all their energy in their own growth. Not even an iota of energy was wasted on analyzing the other’s growth. 100% of the energy that they had was used for their own growth.

In the same way, if you spend all your energy in running the race with yourself, in competing with yourself, you progress in leaps and bounds. When you look back at how much you’ve progressed, you will not be able to believe it. This is also the only way to acquire undisturbed and permanent peace.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.