Storytelling Week 12: Greed Makes the World Go 'Round

Gold: Flickr

There are many forces that rule this earth. 

Look around you… do you see all the people who are making excuses and  using their religions for hating and killing each other?  Do you see the greed that surrounds this world?  Do you see the people who waste, while others have to go without?  This is not how it was meant to be. 

The earth was created with an order- a very specific order that was designed to hold its shape… but humans are apparently pretty good at messing things up. 

I am here today to explain to you one of the balances that humans have messed up the most.  This imbalance is the root of many of the problems that exist in our world today.  When the balance between Saraswati and Lakshmi is thrown off it is not easily restored, but that is what humanity will have to do one day. 

Traditionally, Saraswati is the representative of peace, while Lakshmi is the representative of wealth.  They should be held in a balance in life, but people tend to focus only on Lakshmi.  The story says that Saraswati and Lakshmi cannot be kept together at the same time because  humans tend to focus on Lakshmi’s wealth.  Saraswati gets jealous of this attention and she tends to leave, resulting in a focus on just  wealth,  and a feeling of restlessness.  This is the root of the idea that “money cannot buy happiness”.  No matter what you do, if you are only focused on Lakshmi, you will lose sight of Saraswati and you will not be truly happy because there will be no peace. 

Although this one imbalance may seem small, it has big impacts in life.  It not only changes the way you live and your outlook on life, but it affects other balanced relationships in the world.  The story goes that Lakshmi does not like to be alone, so when Saraswati leaves, her not-so-desirable twin Alakshmi shows up to keep her company.  This is problematic because Alakshmi leaves humanity with even more undesirable things in life because she represents all the things that Lakshmi does not- everything that is unwanted. 

For this reason, everyone must eventually make the journey to finding who they are.  Humans will only find happiness and peace when they stop focusing on wealth and money.   

There is no good.  There is no evil.  There is only balance. 

To find that balance, humanity will have to find themselves and find their true importance in life.  The balance will be restored only when people stop the greed and learn to focus on others.  When the balance is restored, you will know.  World hunger will end, people will stop suffering from disease because pharmaceutical companies will work together, everyone will be cared for and loved, there will be no anger or jealousy, all stray animals will have a home, and there will be no war. 

If this seems too idealistic to be true, it is because you are human, and you too have the same outlook on life.  You too are caught in the imbalance of Saraswati and Lakshmi, but fear not, for one day you will be enlightened. 

Author’s note:  This story was based on Pattanaik’s Seven Secrets of Vishnu:  Link to Videos, specifically sections C and D.  In this part of the video series, there was a strong focus on the balance between Lakshmi , Saraswati, and Alakshmi.  I really enjoyed learning about it and it seemed to make a lot of sense to me.  I decided I wanted to write about how it related to the world, but not from a human perspective.  I tried to make the speaker mysterious so that the reader can put in their own idea of who the author is, but I also tried to identify them as someone with great power like a god. 

Week 12 Reading Notes: The Seven Secrets of Vishnu part D

Tivikrama's secret:  Ignorance breeds insecurity and arrogance. 

Vishnu:  Wikipedia

Saraswati= peace Lakshmi= wealth
It is interesting to see the relationships that revolve around Lakshmi.  Because she is jealous of Lakshmi's attention, Saraswati always leaves when Lakshmi shows up.  Lakshmi then uses Alakshmi for company. 

"The journey from what I have to what I am"
It could be really cool to write a story based around greed and it could have this idea as the moral.  Someone could have a lot of material things and lose them and discover the true wealth in knowing who they truly are. 

Devas- insecure and complacent
Asauras- generous

Evil means "the absence of God" but in this religion that doesn't make sense.  They say that everything on earth is a "manifestation of the divine" and thus it cannot be evil. 

This video also explains that evil actions are the actions that happen without a reason or explanation.  This also makes no sense in Hinduism because Karma is a force that causes everything to have a reason. 

It could be really cool to do a religion based story and talk about the forces behind everything in the world and just kind of combine pieces of all religions in it, but it would take a lot of research and I don't want to offend anyone. 

Source:  Pattanaik's Seven Secrets of Vishnu:  Link to Part D video

Week 12 Reading Notes: Pattanaik's Seven Secrets of Vishnu

Kurma- "Wealth eludes the insecure"

Kurma- Wikimedia Commons

Source of Videos:  Pattanaik's Seven Secrets of Vishnu Link to Videos

Mining, hunting, fishing, harvesting- generate wealth but they are violent

It could be interesting to write something about using the world's resources for monetary gain and harming the earth.  It would be an easy moral or underlying message to add to any type of story. 

Spiritual morality- unaware of immortality

This could be interesting to incorporate in a story.  It could be about someone who does not believe in any sort of afterlife and their intense fear of dying as a result. 

The importance of food, especially milk and butter. 

It could be cool to do some research about why milk and butter are so important and write a story that revolves around food items.  It would add in a little bit of my own interests from the pre nutrition part of my degree. 

Vishnu and Lakshmi's relationship is interesting because she is powerful without him yet she chooses to rub his legs and sit at his feet.  He is important but so is she and they are always found together.  Alakshmi is the opposite and she goes with Lakshmi but she rises from the milk as a poison.  I really like these three characters for a story because they have interesting relationships. 

Desirable vs undesirable in nature. 

Week 11 Story planning: A few different ideas

Right vs Wrong: Pixabay

I have a few different ideas this week for story planning.  My story will be based off of Pattanaik's Seven Secrets of Vishnu Link to Videos. 

I liked the idea of Vishnu and Mohini because they are two sides of one god.  It would make a cool story to have them be two personalities from one person.  I could also write up a story about them being twins.  I could use their characteristics and turn them into special talents or superpowers and create a story based off of that. 

Another idea I really liked was based on the story about the man and the fish.  He saved the fish from the water and let it grow big where it was safe, but the story points out that although he saved one creature he did an injustice to another.  This rule of Vishnu is interesting to me because it talks a lot about how humans are the only animals that can empathize and can make moral decisions, and that is what makes us different from other animals.  In this story I could create a place where animals make moral decisions or I could try to envision a world in which humans do not empathize or use their moral compass.  It would depend on which way I took this story, but it could be a scary story, or something with a moral.  If I base it around animals it could be kind of cute and it could be about baby animals trying to figure out the difference between right and wrong. 

I also thought it could be a cool idea to create a story about the balance between Dharma and Adharma.  The two forces are opposite of each other and one basically represents peace between humans and nature and sharing for all, while the other represents greed and destruction.  The two forces could be personified and they could fight which would be interesting to write about.  It could also be kind of comical if I personified them as twins and one is an evil twin.  They would have to run around cleaning up each other’s messes. 

Week 11 Reading Notes: Seven Secrets of Vishnu: Part B

Fish:  Wikipedia

Matsya's secret:  "Only humans can empathize and exploit" 

Mark of Vishnu is on the forehead and it emphasizes imagination which separates us from other animals. 

Manu is swimming and a fish comes up to him and asks him to save him from a larger fish and promises in return to save Manu one day.  This could make an interesting prompt for a story post. 

The idea that there are no rules in survival is interesting as well.  The video talks about how animals do not judge what they are doing but they do whatever it takes to survive.  Humans do not do this because we have moral judgement and we choose what is right and what is wrong.  We do not abandon the injured or take advantage of the sick or injured or those who are not paying attention like animals do.  Animals will attack at any point to eat even if the other animal is giving birth.  It does not matter because it is for survival.  This could make a cool story if I wrote about animals with a moral compass or humans without a moral compass.  It is weird to imagine a world where nobody has a sense of judgement of right and wrong.  (Territory and Property) (empathy, greed)

Dharma vs Adharma

Nature is destroyed because of human greed. 

A king tries to save a dove from a hawk.  If the hawk cannot eat it is bad but the hawk cannot eat the dove or a different dove or a rat or serpent because someone will have a bad end in either decision. 

There are always exclusions somewhere= the root of this rule. 

Source:  Pattanaik's Seven Secrets of Vishnu part B Link to Videos

Week 11 Reading Notes: Seven Secrets of Vishnu: Part A

Vishnu:  Wikimedia Commons

Mohini is the female version of Vishnu.  She enchants to bring attention to spiritual reality.  Material and Spiritual reality are interesting concepts that I have never seen before.  It could be interesting to write something about Mohini and her powers to draw attention to spiritual reality.  Maybe she and Vishnu could be twins instead of being male and female versions of the same god. 

Although women are represented by material reality it is not because of a patriarchal society.  It is because women "give form" to life when they have children and men do not.  For this reason women are associated with material reality.

Material reality- red, spiritual reality- white, Vishnu- infinity

Unborn child does not think or feel while it sleeps

Maya- mental material reality and Brahma uses Maya to judge Phrakrhatii

In this section of the videos it talks a lot about the state of the child in the womb and how that relates to the gods.  The unborn child is in an undisturbed sleep and he or she does not know about what is going on around them.  It is compared to a god sleeping on water undisturbed. 

"Without Maya man would be at the mercy of nature, but with Maya man can dominate nature"  This is an interesting idea that could make some sort of story.  Maya could be a magic power or something like that. 

Source:  Pattanaik's Seven Secrets of Vishnu Link to Videos

Storytelling Week 10: The King Who Couldn't Stop Gambling

Once upon a time in a fairly small kingdom there lived a king named Max who just couldn’t stop gambling.  His kingdom would have been massive but he just kept betting on things and losing.  Sometimes he won though, which kept his kingdom afloat.  His subjects were pretty used to it, because a lot of crazy things happened as a result of his gambling. 

One day the king went out to his gambling spot and began his usual wagering with other people.  King Max was making all kinds of bets, and mostly losing them that day.  Eventually another king came along to bet with King Max, which was interesting because he usually didn’t get to bet with other kings.  The new king introduced himself as King Ben and he proceeded to describe a predicament that his kingdom was in.  They had a bunch of land, but it wouldn’t grow anything except mushrooms.  All of his subjects were so sick of eating the fungi and they needed a source of food with real nutritional value.  He wagered a bet to King Max and said that if he won he wanted all of the flower pots in the small kingdom and he wanted them filled with rich dirt that he could grow new crops in.  King Max agreed to the bet, as he always did, and they rolled the dice.  King Max lost the bet, and thus all the townspeople had to give up their flowerpots. 

Flower Pot- Pixabay

The next day King Max went to the gambling spot once again.  This time he met with a prince who was there on behalf of his town that had so many cows that they could not feed them all.  It had turned into quite the predicament for the small village, and he wagered with the king to take all of the cows off of his land.  The dice were rolled, and King Max lost once again.  This time, instead of losing something, his town gained thousands of cows, and there ended up being more cows than people in the village when they were done moving them all there.  This was the only way that King Max ever won anything in betting.  He lost almost every bet, but sometimes when people desperately needed to get rid of things, they bet them away, and King Max would take them back to his village. 

The townspeople were used to the craziness that came with being the subjects of the horrible gambler King Max, so they were prepared for almost anything.  The cows were a bit of a surprise, but these people were resourceful and they figured out just what to do.  They went to the town where king Ben lived and they offered him manure for his land to help it grow more good food.  In exchange they said they wanted their flower pots back and they wanted some mushrooms.  King Ben’s problems were solved so he quickly agreed to this solution.  The townspeople then returned to their village and began a thriving milk business where many people would come to buy supplies that came from cows.  The little village soon overcame king Max’s bad luck in gambling by making a good fortune for themselves from what they had available, and the village grew and grew into a thriving kingdom… with a king that still would not stop gambling!

AUTHOR’S NOTE:  This story was based on a part of the Mahabharata Epified Link to Reading Guide and Videos.  I liked the theme of gambling in the story and I thought it would be interesting to twist it and create a new story from it.  I kept the idea of a king doing the gambling so that it would be a person of power, but I changed pretty much everything else in the story so that it was something new.