SHANTi a true story

A true story from the EAST, where the sun rises and the technique and art of meditation and "sitting" are at home.

The turtle is called AMMA in Malayalam, the language of Kerala

On the coasts of Kerala in southern India, fishermen still make their own boats and nets. When the men go fishing, they usually stay out at sea for several days because the whole village lives from their catch.

Families with eight to twelve children are the rule there, because there is no other way of providing for their old age. There in Kerala, in a small village near Valikau, there was a famine not too long ago because the men from the village went several weeks without a catch.

The currents had changed in recent years along with the weather and the schools of fish swam on different routes. Chandu and his wife Aditiya and their twelve children had been hungry for weeks and the last of the leftover rice had been used up days ago.

Chandu had asked everyone in the village for some food, especially for his children, but they were all in a similar situation.

So he decided to visit his uncle who lived 20 kilometers further north, but he couldn't help him either. 

As it was already getting dark, Chandu decided to go home via the beach, as there were known to be too many cobras on the path through the fields at night

It was a full moon night and Chandu was very lucky. A turtle swam onto the beach in front of him and laid its eggs. He waited patiently to take some of the eggs home with him.

The next day, everyone in his family was fed. He even took some home for his neighbors. Soon after, the next day, when hunger returned, one of his younger daughters asked him: “Baba, why didn't you take more eggs? The tortoise lays a lot more eggs!”

“Yes my child,” Chandu replied, ”but, the turtle mom is also a mom  and she would be sad if I took more eggs away from her.”

When friends from the village told me this story, warm tears flooded my eyes and small streams ran down my cheeks. Even today i still get a warm heart when i think of the education this simple fisherman gave his daughter with his example and this sentence for her whole life.

More than we in the West manage with our entire educational system, i think.

We only see WELL with our hearts!