Quote of the week (7)
The quote for this week is specially used by a Yoga instructor to engage the attendants on the best practices of Yoga. While yoga has a rich background in Hinduism, today’s contemporary society attends yoga lessons for its diverse health benefits. Ranging for strength, flexibility and balance, people also learn how to move their bodies in new ways. Being an art, Yoga has to be done in particular ways in order to reap maximum benefit and avoid injury. As an art of relaxation, certain rules have also to be observed in order to get the best out of it. The first part of the quote says that, ‘It is not how far we go’
What the instructor means is that contrary to popular thought, while as an art yoga has its laid procedures, performing all the procedures is not the most important thing. As clarified by the second part of the quote, ‘It’s how we go far,’ the most important thing is learning to perfect the procedures. In its wholeness, the quote emphasizes the need to perform certain things well as opposed to rushing through the paces in order to complete certain tasks. The quote means that the means to the ends is more important than the end itself.
As a young child growing up, I was obviously oblivious of the meaning of this quote. I sat next to the brightest pupil in class. My desk mate doubled up as my friend. During the mid of the first school term continuous assessment test, I duplicated all his answers because I had not prepared for the exam. When the test scores were brought by the tutor, I was one of the best performers in class, which was oddly unusual. It was the teacher’s habit to revise the tests in class in order to help us correct the questions we had got wrong.
The teacher asked me to moderate over the revision seeing that I had done exceptionally well. I was at pains to reconcile my exceptionally high marks with my lack of knowledge on the concepts in the test paper. I eventually came clean with the teacher. A very disappointed teacher added that she was not interested in correct answers but students grasping the concepts in class. The teacher gave me a dressing down in front of the students for my misdemeanors and fraud. Seeing this quote, I retrospectively remember the lessons I learnt back then.
Quote of the week (8)
As a force, love influences the actions of other individuals. Love is not the result of an action but the cause. This implies that we do some things out of love. Love is not the result of a process like a product would be. On the contrary, love is a power that enables us to do that which we may normally be unable to do. As illustrated by the use of imagery like money, electricity and steam, love is the influential force that enables us to act like we do. Many a people are dumbfounded when it comes to the concept of love. Not knowing what to make of love, many people have described it in a myriad of different ways.
Wittingly and philosophically, this quote throws a spanner in the works. The quote describes the force that allows us to forgive unmentionable transgressions dealt to us by those we trust. The quote describes the power to move mountains in order to help those we hold dear to ourselves. In its long and winding wording, the quote personifies the story from the bible told to us in Sunday school when I was five years of age. The story featured Jacob who wanted to marry Rachel, the woman of his dreams. The arrangement with Rachel’s father was that Jacob works in his farm for seven years for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Seven years later, Jacob was given the bride; who happened to be Leah, Rachel’s elder sister.
The father’s thinking was that customs would not allow the younger daughter to be married before the elder one. Since Jacob loved Rachel so much, he worked in the farm for another seven years in order to get Rachel’s hand in marriage. The patience, perseverance, dedication and determination in this story can only be inspired by love; a force so powerful, one walks the end of the world to attain that which he loves.
