Mirza Yawar Baig – My Gift for You
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
My friends,
today we live in a world where sometimes
we feel
overwhelmed
by global events, by local events, by politics,
by all kinds of forces
which seem to be far too strong for
us to fight against.
We want peace. We want harmony. We want
mutual compassion.
We want
people to live together
focusing on
the really important things,
which is
our own
physical,
mental,
spiritual
well-being.
But the world seems to be going in
a completely opposite direction
and many times we feel
as if we have lost control.
We feel we we feel we never had
any control
and we don't know what to do.
So I want to share with you my
motto in life and tell you 2 stories.
Those of you who have been listening to
me over the years
have heard both these stories.
But it's a good thing for some things
to be repeated
and for us to be reminded
and for us to remind ourselves.
First my motto.
My motto in life is
I will not allow
what is not in my control
to prevent me from doing
what is in my control.
I will not allow
what is not in my control
to prevent me from doing what is in
my control.
So story 1,
it's a teaching teaching story and the story
is that
there was a little fishing village
and the people of this village used to
dive
for pearls.
Now in this village was
a young woman
who lived with her mother,
and they had no one else in the
world.
This young woman used to die for pearls,
and her mother
was very old and she was blind.
So every day after she came up with
her proper drive, the young woman would bring
the pearls home
and she would sort them out.
And what she considered to be the best
of the girls, 1 or 2 of those,
she would keep them in a bag
separate from the others
and keep that bag safely in a place
which her mother knew. She told her mother
to tear the bag.
The other pearls,
every month there was a pearl dealer who
would come to the village
and all the pearl divers
would
give their pearls to the dealer who would
pay them for it. And this is how
they live their lives.
Now one day this young woman
went
for her dive
and she got attacked by a shark
and she was killed.
When they came and told the mother,
the mother was absolutely devastated
because
not only had she lost her daughter who
she loved very much,
but she'd also lost
the only means of livelihood.
But those who live
have to live.
So
after a few days,
it so happened that it was a time
for the,
visit of the pearl,
merchant, the pearl trader.
So the mother remembered
that her daughter used to keep
pearls in a particular bag in a particular
place. So she took that bag and she
went to the dealer.
And
the dealer knew the story because, you know,
these things spread in the village very fast.
And she gave the bag to the dealer.
The dealer laid out the purse, poured out
the purse in the bag, laid them out
to assess their value
and,
he noticed that there was among those pearls
a black pearl.
Now I'm sure you must have heard the
value of black pearl is many times that
of
a regular pearl.
So this dealer
gave the old woman
full value
for all the pearls,
including the black pearl.
You're overwet and left.
The dealer had an assistant, the young man,
and the young man said to the dealer,
he said tell me
why did you do this?
The dealer says what?
He says why did you give the old
woman full value for all the pearls including
the black pearl which was several times the
value of the regular pearls
because
the assistant said
that
I'm not saying you should have robbed her.
I'm saying that
you could have given her
the value of a regular good pearl
in exchange for the black pearl. You do
not need to give her the actual value
of the black pearl,
which is several times the value of the
normal pearl.
And he said she didn't even know it
was there because if she knew if she
had known that there was a black pearl,
she would have mentioned that. She would have
said, look, here are the pearls and there
is a black pearl in there. She didn't
know that. She didn't know that and she's
blind.
The dealer looked at the man
and at his assistant.
He said, you know, you're right, she is
blind
but I'm not.
She is blind but I'm not.
So why must you and I continue
to work
when the whole world seems to be blind
to the injustices that are happening
because
the world may be blind
but we are not.
And so I ask myself
if not me,
then who?
My second story
is a true story
narrated by
Lauren Eiseley, the poet and the writer.
And Lauren Eiseley says
that he was
in
a beach resort
and every morning used to go for a
walk on the beach.
And one night there was a tremendous storm
and the next morning when Rodney came out
of his his
his villa to go for a walk on
the beach, he saw the beach was littered
with debris from the sea
thrown up by the storm of the previous
night.
He said as he walked along
he saw in the distance
somebody who seemed to be doing some kind
of a dance you know
bending down
and touching this the sand and standing up
and making a throwing sort of motion. As
he came close, he found that it was
actually a little boy
who was bending down and picking up things
from the sand and throwing them into the
sea.
As brother as he got closer and he
saw that this little boy was picking up
starfish
which had been thrown out on the
on the beach in the night,
and he was throwing the starfish into the
sea.
Not as he looked around and said when
he saw there were literally thousands of starfish
on that whole beach,
so he said to the boy, he said
tell me
why are you doing this?
Yeah the boy had a starfish in his
hand. He said because
these cannot move
on the sand
and if I don't throw it into the
sea
it will die. When the sun comes out,
sun gets hot, it will die.
So I'm throwing it into the sea.
Lord Nizdi laughed
and he said just look at this beach.
He said can you even count the number
of starfish which are on this beach? The
boy said no.
God like this said look
How many beaches? How many thousands of square
miles of beach
are there in the world?
The voice said, I don't know.
He said,
all those beaches at some point in in
the year, many times in the year, they
experience storms in those areas, and
those beaches are littered with 1,000 upon 1,000,
maybe millions of starfish.
Have you any idea how much that is?
The boy says, no.
So a lot of scientists say what difference
will it make?
You are one little kid
here.
What difference does it
make? Why are you doing this?
The little kid
looked at the starfish in his hand. He
looked at Lord Nizli, he threw the starfish
into the sea and he said it made
a difference to that one.
It made a difference to that one.
One. A lot of my business I walked
away.
He said I walked for a while
and then I turned around
and I came back to the boat
and he said that boy and I
threw starfish
into the sea
for a long time.
That's why I say
I would not allow what is not in
my control
to prevent me from doing
what is in my control.
It is not in my control to stop
the storms.
It is not in my control to throw
every starfish that is wished
back into the ocean,
but it is in my control
to pick up that 1 starfish which I
can pick up and throw that 1 starfish
into the sea
and know with complete and total certainty
that I made a difference to that starfish
which is the difference between life and death.
And there is nothing more powerful than the
difference between life and
encouragement to you,
I applaud
and
I stand with and I support
all those people in the world
who are who stand for good,
who stand against oppression,
who want
humanity
to live like human beings,
who want to alleviate
suffering
who want to help those in need
and want
to stop the oppression
of those workers.
I remind myself anew,
do not allow
what is not in your control
to prevent you from doing
what is in your control.
Thank
you.