Instilling confidence and making one believe in their own capabilities is the hallmark of a good leader. Like how it took Lord Rama to make Lord Hanuman believe in his very own strengths.
As usual, our story! There was a village nearby a mountain, it had a small population. One day, a Sanyasi (An ascetic who gives up materialistic life), came to the village. Usually, sanyasis are treated with reverence and so did the people of the village treat him.
He stayed near the village temple. He would not interact with anyone. He occasionally accepted food or other offerings given by the people. People didn’t know where he came from, why he came to the village and how long he would stay.
When someone came to him for seeking blessings for solving their problems. He would not utter anything, but just lift his hand as a gesture of blessing.
However, during every full-moon, just a few hours before sunset, he would start climbing the nearby hill and return back the next morning.
People started to get curious on the sanyasi leaving for the hill every full-moon and returning back the next day. So, they decided that on the next full-moon, two of their men would follow the sanyasi surreptitiously to find out where he went.
The full-moon day came and the sanyasi as usual started climbing the hill. The two men followed him at a distance. It was dusk when the sanyasi reached the top and started his descent on the other side. But, when the men who followed reached the top and looked for the sanyasi, he was seen nowhere nearby.
Suddenly, they saw a ball of light (Jothi) on the opposite mountain. It appeared for a few seconds and vanished. The men were awestruck and thought that the sanyasi, with his powers, had become a divine ball of light.
The next day, they expected the sanyasi to return but he didn’t. That confirmed the fact that the sanyasi has truly attained enlightenment and turned into a divine ball of light.
The next full-moon a few people from the village went to the hilltop during dusk and waited for the divine light to appear. As it got dark, and there the divine light appeared and vanished after a few seconds.
The people were thrilled, awestruck at the appearance. From then on, people started worshipping the divine light every full-moon. As a result, people with ailments got cured, family problems got resolved, the financial troubles mitigated and, overall, the well-being improved.
It started to attract people from nearby places too. The magic of the divine had an impact on their lives too.
A few curious folks wanting to explore more about the divine light, made a plan for an expedition to the opposite mountain. The next full-moon, they climbed the opposite mountain to the probable spot which was close to the edge of the mountain. Dusk arrived and they waited for the light!
The light appeared and disappeared after a few seconds. It was a train, with its headlights on, that came out of the tunnel at the edge of the mountain and went into another tunnel. The expedition team could not believe their eyes that what the people worshipped was not a divine light but the headlight of a train!
But, they were still not able to understand how the problems of the people got solved and the ailments cured. That’s when they realized that the sanyasi just moved out of the village to another place. But his act coincidentally instilled confidence in the minds of the people and made them believe in themselves without them knowing the fact. Everything was in the mind; being confident and believing in oneself did the magic and the divine light was just a catalyst to that effect.
Good leaders make people believe in themselves, however there might be situations where even the leaders might be clueless but in those times they have to appear confident for the team to remain motivated.
Like in Star Trek: The Next Generation, in the episode – “Attached”. When Capt. Jean Luc Picard and Dr, Beverly Crusher would be escaping out of a prison and would be lost midway. The captain would get the tricorder and say confidently, “This way”. But Beverly would find that he was just guessing and would ask, do he do that all the time.
Capt. Picard would say, “No, but there are times when it is necessary for a captain to give the appearance of confidence…”
Image Credits: Pixabay
Awesome as usual!!! Thank you.
Thank you. Rajaram!