Compiled by London swaminathan

Date: 15  February 2016

Post No. 2544

Time uploaded in London :–  14-26

( Thanks for the Pictures  ) 

DON’T REBLOG IT AT LEAST FOR A WEEK!  DON’T USE THE PICTURES; THEY ARE COPYRIGHTED BY SOMEONE.

(for old articles go to tamilandvedas.com OR swamiindology.blogspot.com; contact  swami_48@yahoo.com)

It was the time of autumn floods. Every stream poured into the river, which swelled in its turbid course. The banks grew so apart that it was impossible to tell a cow from a house.

The spirit of the river shouted for joy that beauty of all the earth was gathered to himself. Down with the stream he journeyed east until he reached the ocean. There looking eastward and seeing no limit to its waves, his face fell. And as he gazed over the expanse he said to the spirit of the ocean:

“A common proverb says that he who hears half the truth thinks no one is equal to himself. And so it is with me.  When formerly I heard people decrying the learning of Confucius or the heroism of Po, I did not believe, but now that I see your vastness – Ah, if I had not reached your dwelling I should have forever been a laughing stock to those who knew better!”

To this the ocean spirit replied:

“You cannot talk of the ocean to a frog in a well – the creature of narrow bounds. Nor of ice to summer flies – the ephemera of a day.  You cannot speak of the Law to a pedant. His limits are narrow. But now that you have emerged – that you have seen the great ocean, you know your narrowness, and I may speak of great principles.

Nothing beneath the heaven is greater than the ocean. All water flows into it, yet it does not overflow. It is drained yet does not empty. It knows no floods or droughts and thus greater than mere rivers and brooks – though I, its spirit, dare not boast, for I get my shape from the universe, my vital power from the negative and positive principles governing all. In the universe I am as a little stone or a bush on a vast mountain. And of all who inhabit the earth man is but one. Is not he compared with all creation as the tip of  a hair as small?”

“By no means. Dimensions are limitless. Time has no bounds. Conditions vary. Terms are not final. How then can one say that the tip of a hair is the last word on littleness or the universe the last word on the vastness?”

—-Chuang Tzu (China)