It was a cold December morning some 14-15 years back I was standing in the balcony of my house with my elder sister. I was in 6th class then and as like any vacation-loving student I was very excited for we had a long Christmas vacation, which means no school and all play and fun. As we were looking at the rising sun I was all busy sharing my vacation plans with my sister, she was not very much interested in my plans and I was not bothered with whether she was listening or not.
After a while she turned to me and said “ you know what, Christmas is not just about no school and all play, you get rewarded for your good behavior too.” I was surprised, “reward for good behavior!” and the came a lot of questions, “who gives the reward?” “Who gets the reward?” “When?” “Why?” “What?” “How?” all the endless questions.
My sister was just smiling and was looking at me, and then she said very softly, “If you behave properly, i.e. study well don’t trouble anybody do what aai, baba and I say be a nice girl and you will get reward from Santa Claus on 24th December. Hang your socks (clean socks) in the balcony at night and you will get gift from Santa Claus for your good behavior.” From that day to the Christmas Eve I was a very obedient daughter, polite sister, dutiful friend, very helpful, well-behaved girl, “Geeta turned Seeta”.
And finally it was 24th December, the day I was keenly waiting for finally arrived and at night I hung the socks in the balcony, but I was not able to sleep for a long time as obvious I was eager to meet Santa and get my reward for all the efforts I had put in for the past weeks, and every 5 minutes I was there in the balcony to check the socks. “Sleep or you will not get the gift”, my sister shouted, as she was irritated because of my impatient behavior. And I ran to the bed followed her order as I didn’t want to miss my gift for this reason. The next morning when I woke up the first thing that I did was obviously “check the socks” and …. “Yes I did it, I got my gift”, there were a lot of chocolates in the socks.
I was so happy, so happy that I was jumping like a kangaroo in the house. I shared my chocolates with my family, friends, and neighbors. Everyone was enjoying my story, as they knew that Santa Claus was none other than my elder sister.
It was not the first time when she had told me such a thing and I believed it and followed it too. When I was in 2nd or 3rd one day she told me that God is watching us and he gives us a right mark and a wrong mark on our behavior. If we behave properly he gives us right
And when we don’t behave properly he gives wrong and then one day he calculates how many right and wrong are on your record if you get maximum right you get rewarded but if you get maximum wrong marks you are punished. And whenever I did something wrong she said, do if you want to do but remember God will mark wrong in front of your name.
That got so fixed in my mind at that age that even today when I do something I first think for a while what will God give me, if it's right I go ahead, and if it’s a X mark I don’t do it.
One law that I learnt in science became my second lesson after these experiences is that every action has equal and opposite reaction.
Lesson 2: Every action has equal and opposite reaction.
Isn’t it similar to what we know, “As you sow so shall you reap.” A few lines that I like very much from a book, The Art of Living by S.N.Goenka are:
“Our difficulty, our ignorance is that we remain unheedful while planting seeds. We keep planting seeds of neem, but when the time comes for fruit we are suddenly alert, we want sweet mangoes. And we keep crying, praying, and hoping for mangoes. This doesn’t work.”
There is one more saying that I like (and again I don’t know who said it???) is:
If you want to know your past life
Look into your present condition
If you want to know your future
Look into your present action.
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