Are All Tools Equal? Are All Mantras? [was Matangi]

[Guest guest]

Namaste DB:

 

What a beautiful story about your father, and yes, it does seem apt

to the question. It is similar to musical instruments: the highest

quality material makes highest quality sound, and whatever

limitations or gifts the musician brings to it are another matter.

 

The "are all mantras equal" question brings to mind some opinions I

have heard that it does not matter what religion one s to,

if the faith is strong, the prayer works. My perspective is that it

is important to recognize underlying factors that may be present in

prayers, mantras, belief systems, etc. and clarify those elements

and refine them out so as not to continue disharmony within and

without. To my mind, this clarification and refinement process is

about bringing the talents and the tools together successfully to

bring about the unstoppable state.

 

Mary Ann

 

 

 

, "Devi Bhakta"

<devi_bhakta> wrote:

>

> Thank you, Sarabhanga, that is a good and vivid illustration of

your

> point.

>

> But does it resolve the "are all mantras equal" question?

>

> Let me repay your kindness with a small story of my own. My

father,

> now gone more than three years, was a woodworker of great skill

and

> delicacy. When I was a child, he was building fine furniture --

> beautiful, graceful tables, chairs, cabinets, etc. When I was a

> youth, he'd moved on to building clocks, with marvelously

intricate

> casings and tiny fine details and filigrees. By the time I was an

> adult he'd left both of these behind and was doing straight

> woodcarving. That gave him the freedom to retire in comfort --

> corporate CEO's and high government officials paid him well for

> these lifelife birds of prey and whatnot to display in their

> McMansions and/or corner offices. He died having achieved a

> considerable measure of renown in the woodcarving field.

>

> When he was dying, I asked him why he hadn't started with

> woodcarvings, since these are obviously what made him happiest.

The

> othr things often seemed like work, but the woodcarvings were pure

> pleasure for him. Did he not have the skill when he was younger?

>

> He told me, "It was not so much that I lacked the skill; I lacked

> the money to buy the best tools. When I built furniture with my

> cheap, blunt tools, I earned money to buy better tools and then I

> could make finer things like clocks. When I sold the clocks, they

> earned my the money to buy still finer tools, with greater

precision

> and made with more delicacy and better metals. Then I could make

> anything at all."

>

> I asked him, "So tools are more important than talent?"

>

> He said, "They go hand in hand. A person without talent will not

be

> helped much, even by the best tools. But a person of true talent

can

> be limited by bad tools. One who has both talent and the best

tools

> is just unstoppable."

>

> So. That is just one man's opinion, and he wasn't talking about

> mantras. But I see the lesson as similar.

>

> In your example, a talented man working with poor tools

nonetheless

> managed to get you from Point A to Point B. He did what he could --

> in a pinch, he was able to save the day.

>

> But in the long run, in the world of mantras, isn't it also true

> that -- at a certain point -- we want more than simply limping

from

> Point A to Point B? Isn't there a certain point where the

> right "tools" can be the difference between riding in an old,

> coughing jalopy, and soaring first class in a supersonic jet (so

to

> speak? And if this is so, though both mantras will ultimately get

> you to your goal, are some not "more equal" than others?

>

> (I am not arguing that they necessarily are, by the way. My

question

> is not rhetorical but very honest. I would like to know your

> opinion. As well as that of any other members who care to chime in.

>

> Thank you

>

> DB

>

> , "Sarabhanga Giri"

> <sarabhanga> wrote:

> >

> > Namaste DB,

> >

> > On a recent trip by (old) car into the Himalaya, our clutch

> > (previously slipping) was destroyed on a steep hill in the

> forest.

> > The next day, a village mechanic removed the engine and replaced

> the

> > clutch in a few hours, and we were on our way again. The only

> tools

> > this skillful mechanic used were: a large, bent, and badly

> > burred "screwdriver", and a hammer.

> >

> > What you have is not so important as what you do with it!