A big pile of Pooh!

5^th April 2012

It’s often the last key on the ring that opens the door! (Unknown)

Everybody looks at life with a different vision.  If three people look at a tree, one will see how many metres of valuable timber there is, the second will see it as firewood to be burned to keep the family warm.  The third will see it as a marvel of nature with a value far beyond its worth in money or firewood.  What we live for determines what we see in life and gives clearer focus to our inner vision.

It always makes me smile how everyone has an opinion or everybody sees a situation differently, I’ve seen and heard a lot of that the last few days, and of course no one is right but at the same time everyone is in their own thinking. 

Just thinking out loud there, I’m not going anywhere with it!  I treated myself yesterday to my favourite book on audio, “The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff. It’s the nearest thing I have to a bible, I don’t think I’ve ever really wanted to read a book more than once, but this one I like to dip into now and again to help ground me.  It’s a clever yet easy to read little book about Taoism which is a philosophy not a religion, I won’t go into that too much but it’s generally how I try to live my life not because I read it in a book but because I already was doing so and then read it in a book and realised it. 

Anyways just a small piece from the book stuck in my mind yesterday as I was driving to town, it starts with Winnie the Pooh reading his poem Cottleston Pie, which goes;

Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie,

A fly can’t bird, but a bird can fly
Ask me a riddle and I reply;
Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie

(there’s more but you’ll have to buy the book or a Pooh book to read it ;-) )

The books using the poem to explain that cleverness has its limitations and the thing that makes people truly different – unique, in fact – is something Cleverness cannot really understand.  They refer to that something special as Inner Nature.

So using the poem the author explains that first verse like so;

“a fly can’t bird, but a bird can fly.”  Very simple.  It’s obvious, isn’t it?  And yet, you’d be surprised how many people violate this simple principle every day of their lives and try to fit square pegs in round holes, ignoring the clear reality that Things Are As They Are. 

It then uses a writing of Chuang-tse to illustrate this and then comes back and continues;

In other words, everything has its own place and function.  That applies to people, although many don’t seem to realise it, stuck as they are in the wrong job, the wrong marriage, or the wrong house.  When you know and respect your own Inner Nature, you know where you belong.  You also know where you don’t belong.  One man’s food is often another man’s poison, and what is glamorous and existing to some can be a dangerous trap to others.

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Again today I’m just voicing my thoughts in a bit of a mitch motch way so I’m not quite sure if that makes sense without having read more of the book, I think it does.  I suppose I’m trying to get across that if you’re living your true self and respect your inner nature then life just flows, yes we all have problems and down days but you just accept them for what they are and handle them.  I’m not happy all the time but even when I’m not happy I’m okay because I know that I will be happy again soon and this is just my hormones or a certain situation making me feel that way. 

A fly can’t bird but a bird can fly.  Work out what you can do and where you fit, I did and I’m so glad, my life’s so much easier now.

I most definitely recommend this book, but I also recommend all the Winnie the Pooh books too, great reading for grown ups or little ones.  You can beat a bit of Pooh ;0)