49: Albert Einstein’s Cigar – Think in terms of benefits, not features!

Attitude is not what you learn from school, it is innate. There may be number of instances in one’s life but some are really memorable and leave a life-long message not for you but for others also. But, one thing is certain that attitude is like pregnancy, no matter how long you hide it, it will come out.

There is an old example of measuring pessimistic or optimistic attitude by asking people their views on glass half-filled with water. Pessimistic person would say glass is half-empty while the optimistic will say it’s half-filled.

On this, Winston Churchill has rightly understood that “Pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity while the optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty”.

Once a man asked an artist, “How do you make such beautiful things from stone? He replied, “Beauty is already hidden there, I just remove extra stone”. Meaning thereby, your happiness is within yourself but just remove your worries.

I had a strong credence in my 70s that the world is a dangerous place to live not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.

An incident as old as four decade is still fresh in my mind when I happen to visit a very pious and scientific believer and follower of the Science Grounded Religion – Nirmal Singh Ji – to whom the followers address as Shrimanji.

The moment I entered his room, I noticed that a photo of Albert Einstein – a great thinker, with Cigar in his lips, was hanging in the lobby, who has firm belief that anyone who fulfills the minimum eight moral conditions – vegetarian, teetotaler, refrain from adultery, theft, bribery and gambling including lottery, shed his belief in existence of God in any form and repay his debts at the earliest possible, understands the moral values in life. Above all, he should have the quality to comprehend them, with an aim to give something new to the world for the generations to come.

I could not digest that as a person, who is a non-smoker and has become an icon for others, keeping a photograph of a personality with Cigar in his room.

Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the general theory of relativity and known as one of the most brilliant people our world has ever seen. He always liked to perform through experiments in his own head. He began wondering if, while riding at the same speed as light next to a beam of light, that beam of light would look stationary and this was eventually realized as the theory of relativity.

Despite his scientific upbringing and career, he actually believed in God – something larger than himself. Even though he was not a very good father, husband, but, he valued creativity over knowledge.

I could not resist myself from asking, “Shrimanji, I don’t take pleasure in the hanging of photograph of a great philosopher with a cigar, in your room.”

Without waiting for a fraction of second, he said, “Dear Harish, where is the Cigar in the picture? I don’t see it in the photograph. What I could see is a genius person who has given a lot to the world.” He also narrated the little story from the Hindu epic Mahabharata, about the renowned Archery Master – Dronacharya – training the Pandava brothers in the art and skill of archery. When Arjuna, the ace-archer, was asked the same question – What all do you see? He stated without hesitation, “I see the eye of the fish.” And Guru Drona exclaimed with delight, “Shoot!” and Arjuna’s arrow unwaveringly pierced right through the eye of the fish.

Finally he said, “Always think in terms of benefits, not features!” His elucidation about the picture hanging on the wall compelled me to think about the photograph of a great thinker with a master’s mind. Frankly speaking, now, I too could see the photograph of Albert Einstein with his qualities, without cigar on his lips.