The Daffodil Principle

There is a mail going around on net these days. when this soul read this mail, she felt touched. Since this mail and the story here, is so true for everyone. And for spiritual path followers too. For we have the nasty habit of wanting to start the journey but putting it off till....
There are many conditions that we apply. we keep pushing it off... starting the journey till this and till that. so here sharing this beautiful story with all fellow travellers. So that we may understand the importance of time.

Here it goes...

THE STORY- DAFFODIL PRINCIPLE--

Several times my daughter had telephoned to say, "Mother, you must come to see the daffodils before they are over." I wanted to go, but it was a two-hour drive from Laguna to Lake Arrowhead. "I will come next Tuesday,"I promised a little reluctantly on her third call. Next Tuesday dawned cold and rainy. Still, I had promised, and reluctantly I drove there.

 When I finally walked into Carolyn's house, I was welcomed by the joyful sounds of happy children. I delightedly hugged and greeted my grandchildren."Forget the daffodils, Carolyn! The road is invisible in these clouds and fog, and there is nothing in the world except you and these children that I want to see badly enough to drive another inch!" My daughter smiled calmly and said, "We drive in this all the time, Mother." "Well, you won't get me back on the road until it clears, and then I'm heading for home!" I assured her. "But first we're going to see the daffodils. It's just a few blocks," Carolyn said. "I'll drive. I'm used to this." "Carolyn," I said sternly, "Please turn around." "It's all right, Mother, I promise. You will never forgive yourself if you miss this experience."

After a few minutes, we turned onto a small gravel road and I saw a small church. On the far side of the church, I saw a hand lettered sign with an arrow that read, "Daffodil Garden." We got out of the car, each took a child's hand, and I followed Carolyn down the path. Then, as we turned a corner, I looked up and gasped.

 Before me lay the most glorious sight! It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it over the mountain peak and its surrounding slopes. The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling patterns, great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, creamy white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, and saffron and butter yellow. Each different-colored variety was planted in large groups so that it swirled and flowed like its own river with its own unique hue. There were five acres of flowers.

 "Who did this?" I asked Carolyn. "Just one woman," Carolyn answered. "She lives on the property. That's her home." Carolyn pointed to a well-kept A-frame house, small and modestly sitting in the midst of all that glory. We walked up to the house. On the patio, we saw a poster. "Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking," was the headline.

 The first answer was a simple one. "50,000 bulbs," it read. The second answer was, "One at a time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet, and one brain." The third answer was, "Began in 1958."

 For me, that moment was a life-changing experience. I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, more than forty years before, had begun, one bulb at a time, to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountaintop. Planting one bulb at a time, year after year, this unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she lived. One day at a time,she had created something of extraordinary magnificence, beauty, and inspiration. The principle her daffodil garden taught me was one of the greatest principles of life. That is, learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time --often just one baby-step at time -- and learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time. When we multiply tiny pieces of time with increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things.

Pause here to think of our one step at a time. Daily adding upto our treasure of MEDITATION. Imagine 40 years of accumulation of that treasure. Which we may not see here in this world. But it's accumulating very steadily somewhere up above. Some where in that inner world which leads to BELOVED. As it is written in " The Gospel of Philip"

Those who sow in winter reap in summer.

The winter is the world,

the summer the other, eternal realm.

Let us sow in the world that we may reap in the summer.

This world is like winter. Cold and full of pain. We try to find everlasting happiness in this world. Which can never happen. But if we accumulate enuf wealth of Simran- Meditation, our place in the summer land, which is our home, our abode with our father our LORD, will remain saved for our return back home. waiting for us. so let us just sow the wealth of HIS rememberance in this world so that we may reap in that world, where our actual home is.

There may so many fellow travellers who mite feel 40 years, with probably nothing to see inside. Day in day out. Daily doing what sometimes seems as hopeless task.

In this story itself we find the answer. One bulb at a time. That laborious woman cudn't actually see the fruit of her hard labour, one day at a time for so many years to come. probably from where the story starts was the highest point where the fruits of her labours was evident. And none to appreciate her labour for many long years. And yet she kept moving forward. If in this world to see that kind of beauty any human can labour so much, with determination and love, since it needs love to keep doing day after day what she did, if any human can achieve such magnificence. Then what the spiritual travellers are aiming to achieve is beauty and gradeur beyond measure. How can we be naive enuf to even think that, this magnificence can be achieved in just a metter of few years, or probably few years more. untill the soul attains sufficient purity how can we even hope to see that radience of BELOVED?

cont... with the story...

 We can change the world ... "It makes me sad in a way," I admitted to Carolyn. "What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five or forty years ago and had worked away at it 'one bulb at a time' through all those years? Just think what I might have been able to achieve!"

 My daughter summed up the message of the day in her usual direct way. "Start tomorrow," she said. She was right. It's so pointless to think of the lost hours of yesterdays. The way to make learning a lesson of celebration instead of a cause for regret is to only ask, "How can I put this to use today?"

Use the Daffodil Principle.

 Stop waiting..... Until your car or home is paid off Until you get a new car or home Until your kids leave the house Until you go back to school Until you finish school Until you clean the house Until you organize the garage Until you clean off your desk Until you lose 10 lbs. Until you gain 10 lbs. Until you get married Until you get a divorce Until you have kids Until the kids go to school Until you retire Until summer Until spring Until winter Until fall Until you die... There is no better time than right now.

So let us not just keep stalling that we will start meditating and following HIS words till all these things pass. Let's just do it right now. Who knows when death mite visit us. Even before all these responsibilities are over.

There is simply no better time then right now to start our simple baby steps towards BELOVED...

And she mite be alone... the daffodil woman...

We are not ...

Since with every baby steps of ours BELOVED takes so many more towards us.... HE comes leaping towards HIS babies.

Peace and bliss to all....