The Culture of Spirituality

The Culture of Spirituality To save our own freedom, we have to tolerate the freedom of others. And to save our own spirituality, we have to overlook the misuse of freedom by others. I was born in a village in Uttar Pradesh, where, at an early age, I witnessed an incident so upsetting that I have never been able to get it out of my mind. Even today I have a vivid memory of it. Outside my village there was a mango tree, which was laden with fruit. One day I saw a village boy throwing stones at the tree till mangoes rained down on him. What shocked me was that the boy was giving the mango tree stones, while the tree was giving him fruit in return. I did not react to this incident, but I learned a positive lesson from it. I felt at that moment that I was in the school of nature, which was teaching me this: ‘If someone throws stones at you, even then you should give him fruits in return.’ This would epitomise the highest of values in life. Moreover, this is the greatest way to further one’s intellectual and spiritual development. In the present world, someone or the other is bound to ‘throw stones’ at you. If you react, you will get nothing but anger in return. But if you curb any reaction on your part, you will have demonstrated certain very great