Or should that read A Sage and a Wise Beggar?

In my first blog post, Pay Attention I noted that some people may think I have some real “pie-in-the-sky ideas”.  One of the things I believe, that some may not, is that there are signs given to us all the time which are meant to show us the way in our lives.  We just have to notice them. 

A couple days ago I wrote a blog post about ladies getting Arrested for Begging in Qatar.  Last night while reading my book before bed I came upon the following passage, which of all things, included a conversation with a beggar.

A wise sage met a beggar on the street one day.  The beggar, not knowing to whom he was speaking, stopped the sage and asked him three questions: 

Why are you here?

Where are you going?

Is there an important reason that you are going there?

The sage looked at the beggar and asked how much money he generally made on a given day.  On hearing the honest answer given to him, the sage said, “Please come and work for me.  I will pay you ten times that amount if only you will ask me these three questions before I do my meditation, each and every morning.”

I’ve since learned that reflection is the mother of wisdom.  We must carve out some time each day to ask ourselves why we are here, how we are living and whether we are making the highest us of the gifts that life has given us.  We must pay attention to life.

Sometimes the signs are obscure or at times we may need to interpret what we observe but in this case, the message is pretty obvious to me.