My Mountain and That of Mohammed's
I very much liked the song "Lord Don't Move the Mountain" when I heard it on The Pursuit of Happyness: "Now Lord, don't move my mountain, but give me the strength to climb." (Couldn't find the song, so if anyone would share it with me, much appreciated!)
Anyway, as I was looking up that song, I landed on The Hockey Rodent who interestingly noted:
"You don't need to move the mountain. You don't need to move Mohammed. The mountain ain't going anywhere. And Mohammed will undoubtedly move himself. All you need to do is motivate Mohammed to move in the direction of the mountain."
Good management lesson.
As you might already know (I didn't at first, hence this explanation), it was referring to the proverb: "If the mountain won't come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain." Meaning one should know when to adapt to the situation. (This proverb in turn originated from the equally meaningful story of Prophet Muhammad.)
Three lessons from three mountains.
Finally, just to do justice to my obsession with quotes, let me just note the other beautiful verses that said something similar on this topic:
Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers,
but to be fearless in facing them.
Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain,
but for the heart to conquer it.
...
Grant me that I may not be a coward,
feeling your mercy in my success alone;
But let me find the grasp of your hand in my failure.
-- Rabindranath Tagore
I have thanked Thee a thousand times for my roses,
but never once for my thorn...
Teach me the glory of my cross;
teach me the value of my thorn.
Show me that I have climbed to Thee by the path of pain.
Show me that my tears have made my rainbow.
-- George Matheson
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3 comments:
Rabindranath Tagore's poems were chosen as the national anthems of my country and that of Bangladesh too. He won the Nobel for Literature (Asia's first Nobel). My favorite poem of his is My Country Awake:
Where the mind is without fear and the head held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening thought and action;
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
And yes, it was written for India to break free from British rule :-)
Hey I lovee that gospel song too!! haha.. dun think can find the mp3 though ^^
yodha: Thanks for the info! =) Have you read "Memories of Rain" by Sunetra Gupta? Romance novel; the story was built intertwined with verses from Tagore's poems (songs?). Hauntingly beautiful. They left a very deep impression on me.
phoenix: Yeah, cannot find. Ahahah. Y'know one factor that impressed me about the movie: this insert song, the son's jokes, even the TV programme that they watch, their meanings fit into the plot very nicely!
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