FOCUS

The stories from great epic “Maha Bharat” are one of my favourite and I have been brought up by listening them from my mother. One of those story about the great warrior 'ARJUNA' which I have recently shared with my son- Orian as he is fond of listening them as well. It tells about “FOCUS” in life. Generally what we miss in this hectic schedule where the priorities changes after every five minutes is FOCUS. I wish that we all should understand its importance. So friends, the story goes like this....

Once upon a time when Guru Drona was teaching archery to Kaurava & Pandavas. He realised to tell them about the importance of focus so he arranged a class of archery in the jungle. He fixed a toy-bird in the leaves of a tree. He marked an eye mark over the bird. After fixing it there, he called all his students with their archery equipment’s there. He instructed them that they would have to shoot the eye of that bird by the arrow. He started calling his students one by one. He asked them to pull the arrow and then to explain what one saw after pulling the arrow at the target. One of them answered about the beautiful sky, the other one told about the nice scenic view of jungle, someone told about the large green leafy tree. Someone mentioned about the mountains, cloud, many birds in the sky. They all mentioned about the toy-bird as well on which they had to hit with their respective arrow. Guru DRONA listen everyone calmly and gave them opportunity to hit the eye of the bird but no one could succeed in doing so. As everyone realised that the given task was almost impossible to do as penetrating in the eye of that bird is not only difficult but also impractical. On hearing their views about the given arduous task, Guru Drona called ‘ARJUN’ and instructed him to fix the arrow in his arch. ‘ARJUN’ took his bow and put an arrow over the target. On seeing him in ready position, Guru Drona asked him to explain what he was seeing than. ‘ARJUN’ replied that now what he could see it only the eye on which he had to target. On listening this all other students laughed loudly and mocked ARJUN about his poor eye sight. They talked among them that as all of them were seeing everything still could not penetrate the target. ‘ARJUN’ who hardly saw a tiny thing would not able to target it properly. Guru heard every one, smiled and ordered ‘ARJUN’ to shoot the arrow. “ARJUN’ left the pulled arrow and it was surprise to everyone that it hit at the right place of the toy-bird i.e. the eye. All of them got surprised and request Guru to explain the reason for it. The guru smiled and explained that the reason for ‘ARJUN’s success was his focus over the target. He allowed his mind to see what was required. At that stage seeing every other thing was useless as the target was small but could be achieved. He allowed his mind to free from other worldly pleasure things and controlled it to see what was to be seen.

A great meditator could achieve that through focussing over the aim. The guru further awoke them to realise the power of mind. The education does same with us. It is not a tool to 100% sure success but a tool to motivate. It realises us to understand our potential.  A great mind is not born; it is achieved through sheer hard work, focus and determination. Understanding our potential and comprehending our limitation is the key to all success which is ahead of us, waiting eagerly for kissing our footsteps. 

‘ARJUN’ understood that and that is why the KRISHANA- the god became his charioteer. We all have this inside of us and God is still waiting happily for another ‘ARJUN’ to become his charioteer.