Woodcutter

By Dr Maitreyee Joshi

Some stories are always there in our memory. One such story is about the woodcutter and God. The woodcutter, while cutting wood, loses his ax in a nearby well. He sits crying on the edge of the well, when God appears. God asks him why he is crying and the woodcutter tells him the reason. God immediately jumps into the well and brings out an ax of gold and asks the woodcutter if the golden ax belongs to him.....to which he replies in the negative.

I want to refer to the story only upto here because I want to use the well and the axe metaphor for our conversations.

I mean it often happens that we are talking to someone and before he has completely spoken and before we have tried to decipher the meaning from his perspective, we jump into the deep well of our own memories or set perspective and bring out something and show it to the one in front of us and he is dismayed by our response because that is not what he meant and the mismatched conversation goes on and on.

God was in a testing mode but we are plain impulsive in our responses.

Well well, I do it often...I too need to learn to listen in a real sense keeping myself aside.

By Dr Maitreyee Joshi