Story: He Needed Me

A nurse escorted a tired, anxious young man to the bedside of an elderly man. "Your son is here," she whispered to the patient. She had to repeat the words several times before the patient's eyes opened. He was heavily sedated because of the pain of his heart attack and he dimly saw the young man standing outside the oxygen
tent.

He reached out his hand and the young man tightly wrapped his fingers around it, squeezing a message of encouragement. The nurse brought a chair next to the bedside. All through the night the young man sat holding the old mans hand, and offering gentle words of hope. The dying man said nothing as he held tightly to his son.

As dawn approached, the patient died. The young man placed on the bed the lifeless hand he had been holding, and then he went to notify the nurse. While the nurse did what was necessary, the young man waited. When she had finished her task, the nurse began to say words of sympathy to the young man.

But he interrupted her. "Who was that man?" He asked. The startled nurse replied, "I thought he was your father." "No, he was not my father," he answered. "I never saw him before in my life."

"Then why didn't you say something when I took you to him?" asked the nurse.

He replied, "I also knew he needed his son, and his son just wasn't here. When I realized he was too sick to tell whether or not I was his son, I knew how much he needed me..."

From a forwarded email.

Story:How to grow good corn

Just a filler for an anonymous reader who wanted stories on my blog (will do as a regular sunday feature). It is a forwarded email and do not ask me the source. If you let me know, I will credit it.

James Bender, in his book "How to Talk Well" relates the story of a farmer who grew award winning corn. Each year he entered his corn in the state fair where it won a blue ribbon. One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it.

The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbours. "How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbours when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?" the reporter asked. "Why sir," said the farmer, "didn't you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbours grow inferior corn, crosspollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow
good corn, I must help my neighbours grow good corn."

He is very much aware of the connectedness of life. His corn cannot improve
unless his neighbour's corn also improves. So it is in other dimensions. Those who choose to be at peace must help their neighbours to be at peace. Those who choose to live well must help others to live well, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. And those who choose to be happy must help others to find happiness, for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare
of all.

The lesson for each of us is this: if we are to grow good corn, we must help our neighbours grow good corn.

Friendship is greater than everything

In The Autobiography of a Yogi, Swami Yogananda says,

"Of all the relationship, the highest order is
Friendship. Because, all other relations develop or
come out of some expectations / commitment etc. Like
Father / Daughter, Husband / Wife, Relative etc ..
they demand some commitment in return.. But only
Friendship asks for nothing and provides you
everything!"

Have you ever had that feeling, 'Ah, I swear that I said something similar to someone!' when you read something? I did write in an email a nearly similar quote as you read above and found that now in my gmail archive. I save chats, emails and everything (long live Gmail!) and I could easily search what I said, wrote in the last few years.


me: do u know all other relationships expect something from the other person... except friendship..which is unconditional, doesnt demand anything

Great people think alike, huh?