Don’t We All!

During my spare time, it is my favorite activity to search the web for inspiring stories. Many of the stories are not the work of fiction, but have seen the day as a result of heart rending experiences of the concerned individuals. Many a time these stories also act as an eye-opener. The other day one such story caught my attention.
One person was waiting for his wife to finish her shopping. He was tenderly wiping his big, shining sports car with a cloth. A man in ragged clothes came there and said, “Beautiful car!” The man was flattered. But at the same time, he also felt very superior to that other man. He kept on wiping his car. The person in the ragged clothes sat there on a stone watching the man and his car. The man with the car expected the other man to ask for alms. Nothing of the sort happened. After a while, the man with car asked the other one, “Do you need any help?” The man in the ragged clothes replied, “Don’t we all?!”
What an answer! Most of us think ourselves very superior by virtue of our birth, social standing, riches and many more such things. We also take pride in the fact that we do not seek help of anyone. People very proudly boast that they are self-made. Is it entirely true? Self-made or otherwise we all seek help continuously from someone or other. Our survival depends on so many factors beyond our control. Knowingly or unknowingly, we seek and get help from infinite number of animate objects. In my childhood I was told one story. A little boy is asked to run errands for his mother. He submits a bill for doing that work. His mother just smiles and gives him one chit of paper.
On that piece of paper, various items are written like, feeding the boy, washing his clothes, nursing him through illness and many more such duties performed by the mother. For all the items the fee charged is nothing and at the end, the mother had written- “repaid with love!” The problem of the modern era is translating everything in terms of material objects. Help is also looked from the angle of money. But, there is certain type of help which can never be translated into matter. We walk on a road. The road is the culmination of hard work and toil of many workers whose sweat got translated into a smooth and shining street. It is a truth that they got paid for that, but is the price of their sweat only a few bucks? What about the shadow we get under a tree? The tree is planted by someone who expected nothing in exchange of that gesture. Are we not seeking help from that tree to enjoy the cool and soothing atmosphere? Our ancestors had realized this aspect very well. That is why we have so many festivals which are a sort of thanksgiving to many beings in the nature. It is a different matter that we have modified these festivals to suit our lifestyles and forgotten the real meaning behind it. The festival of Holi is a typical example of this. The festival which was meant for eradicating the bad things, burning the useless items is in turn used for creation of many evil customs. The above stories made me think about many such things and then I realized one thing- The most needed help by a human being is that which makes him or her realize her inner self. The most important aspect in the whole process is realization of the help received by us. The biggest help in our lives, each breath breathed by the courtesy of the Almighty!!