Playing Music With Bare Minimums

On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City.

If you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and so he has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches. To see him walk across the stage one step at a time, painfully and slowly, is an awesome sight.

Then he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to play.

But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. You could hear it snap - it went off like gunfire across the room. There was no mistaking what that sound meant. There was no mistaking what he had to do.

We figured that he would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and limp his way off stage - to either find another violin or else find another string for this one. But he didn't. Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then signaled the conductor to begin again.

The orchestra began, and he played from where he had left off. And he played with such passion and such power and such purity as they had never heard before.

Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings. I know that, and you know that, but that night Itzhak Perlman refused to know that.

You could see him modulating, changing, re-composing the piece in his head. At one point, it sounded like he was de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them that they had never made before. When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then people rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the auditorium.

He smiled, wiped the sweat from this brow, raised his bow to quiet us, and then he said - in a quiet, pensive, reverent tone - "You know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left."

Here is a man who has prepared all his life to make music on a violin of four strings, who, all of a sudden, in the middle of a concert, finds himself with only three strings; so he makes music with three strings, and the music he made that night with just three strings was more beautiful, more sacred, more memorable, than any that he had ever made before, when he had four strings.

In this fast changing world, there might be situations when we have to play our music with bare minimum chords, even though the other side may get all available chords. Let us refuse to accept the minimum as the contraint to get the maximum. Play your music the best you can.

Warrior Of Light

A beautiful poem depicting the characteristics of real life heroes...some known and some unknown...and the way we all should never lose hope to be the warrior of light

Every Warrior of the Light
has felt afraid of going into battle.

Every Warrior of the Light
has, at some time in the past, lied or betrayed someone.

Every Warrior of the Light
has trodden a path that was not his.

Every Warrior of the Light
has suffered for the most trivial of reasons.

Every Warrior of the Light
has, at least once, believed he was not a Warrior of the Light.

Every Warrior of the Light
has failed in his spiritual duties.

Every Warrior of the Light
has said 'yes' when he wanted to say 'no.'

Every Warrior of the Light
has hurt someone he loved.

That is why he is a Warrior of the Light,
Because he has been through all this
and yet has never lost hope of being better than he is.

Best Peace Picture

There once was a king who offered a prize to the artist who would paint the best picture of peace. Many artists tried. The king looked at all the pictures. But there were only two he really liked, and he had to choose between them.

One picture was of a calm lake. The lake was a perfect mirror for peaceful towering mountains all around it. Overhead was a blue sky with fluffy white clouds. All who saw this picture thought that it was a perfect picture of peace.

The other picture had mountains, too. But these were rugged and bare. Above was an angry sky, from which rain fell and in which lightning played. Down the side of the mountain tumbled a foaming waterfall. This did not look peaceful at all.

But when the king looked closely, he saw behind the waterfall a tiny bush growing in a crack in the rock. In the bush a mother bird had built her nest. There, in the midst of the rush of angry water, sat the mother bird on her nest - in perfect peace.

Which picture do you think won the prize? The king chose the second picture. Do you know why?

"Because," explained the king, "peace does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work. Peace means to be in the midst of all those things and still be calm in your heart. That is the real meaning of peace."

Let us all be in peace at all the roughs and troughs times of our lives. Because that's how it should be ideally.

A 'Yes' Face

Our face do show what we would be upto in the next moment, if looked clearly, of course. If we are in a good mood, our face lits up like a halogen lamp. Vice-versa, its of course #000000(Hexadecimal notation for Black).

A beautiful story which narrates how much it means to stay litten up not only for our own good but in the lives of expected and unexpected visitors in our life.

During Thomas Jefferson's presidency he and a group of travelers were crossing a river that had overflowed its banks. Each man crossed on horseback fighting for his life. A lone traveler watched the group traverse the treacherous river and then asked President Jefferson to take him across.

The president agreed without hesitation, the man climbed on, and the two made it safely to the other side of the river where somebody asked him: "Why did you select the President to ask this favor?"

The man was shocked, admitting he had no idea it was the President of the United States who had carried him safely across. "All I know," he said, "is that on some of your faces was written the answer 'No' and on some of them was the answer 'Yes.' His was a 'Yes' face."

It does matter to stay 'Yes' in our lives for many lives that revolve around us.

Credit We Win Debit We Lose

Have you ever wondered as to why some people gets all good things in life and some, alas, gets only a meagre amount of their due share. The permutations and combinations which our God follows with us is almost impossible to understand. But let me guess his formula. Of course, this axiom may not be provable but it is worth giving a try.

Our whole universe is the total sum of positive and negative energies. All living beings are free to chose which energy they want to let-in inside them. So, if its a positive one, we will be in our best form of our life. Else, if its a negative one, we would be running through a lean patch of our life. The best part here is its always in our hands to filter the energies before they are inherited.

Now after the above phase, considering which energy type we take, comes the next phase. Just a small information in here i.e. we all are having one life account to the Universal Bank, owned by God. So, when we do a good thing or a good deed or the best-in-this-situation kind of action, we accumulate credit points to our account. On the other track if we do a mess of all things in front of us, we accumulate the debit points. Now, as we all know, the net formula would come out to be :

Total Net Points Earned(TNPE) = Total Credit Points Accumulated + Total Debit Points Accumulated

If TNPE = positive value, you are in for a big wonderful surprise in store later in life
If TNPE = negative value, time to reevaluate and change ourselves and do something good to someone and ourself, and being the best we can be

So, let us all try to always keep our net worth as positive, so that we don't have to rush at the last moment to do something good. Of course, there would be some could-not-escape debits but be the best you can be in any situation. That itself would carry some grace or bonus points.

Some Points which I could not assume are :

1) Points Table -- How much is the credit or debit equivalent for each accumulated point
2) Rewards Table -- What are the rewards we get on accumulation of points. And when do we get the prize, what would be the prize and so on.

It Will Pass For Sure

A student went to his meditation teacher and said, "My meditation is horrible! I feel so distracted, or my legs ache, or I'm constantly falling asleep. It's just horrible!"

"It will pass," the teacher said matter-of-factly.

A week later, the student came back to his teacher. "My meditation is wonderful! I feel so aware, so peaceful, so alive! It's just wonderful!'

"It will pass," the teacher replied matter-of-factly.

If we have good times now, there would be a time when it would end. On the other side, if we have bad times now, there has to be a time when it would end too. Hence we say that Change is the most consistently-constant thing in this universe. So, let us do our best and let the universe do the rest.