The Eye Of The Bird

In my last blog, I just talked about how Shree Krishna in his Bhagavad Gita and all our scriptures tell us to choose what is worth doing at the moment, rather than what seems to be pleasant to us. This got me really nostalgic and I thought of talking about the Mahabharata, more specifically about Arjuna at a time when he was a student of archery under his teacher Dronacharya. 

Most of you would be quite familiar with this anecdote when Guru Drone would ask everyone, that is his students to shoot at the bird that was fixed at the branch of the tree, when he asked all his students what they saw, they would say they saw the bird, the body of the bird, perhaps its wings, and none of these answers would satisfy the Guru. 

Then it was soon Arjuna’s turn, and he was asked what he saw, and Arjuna, the brave archer said that all he could see was the eye of the bird, and nothing else. I am aware there are different viewpoints on this topic, some say that Arjuna only looking at the eyes of the bird indicated that he was a narrow-minded person and that he lacked a holistic vision, but I always felt different. 

I thought that just like Arjuna was very sure about what he wanted to achieve, we must also be absolutely crystal clear about our goals, and there cannot be any kind of vagueness there. As for myself, I can say that I have a few ambitious goals that I have to achieve by the middle of next year, and truth to be told, I am not even sure how am I going to achieve them, as the results haven’t been too fruitful so far. 

But, one thing I have learnt so far is to be absolutely stubborn and do whatever it takes to achieve my goal, as of now I am not really seeing the body of the bird, or its wings, now I am only focusing on the eye of the bird, and I am sure to hit it right this time.

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