This is a story of the guy named Julien who was a very successful lawyer. He was famous, rich, and he fought cases only to defend some really wealthy people. He had a big mansion, a private jet, and of course, a Ferrari. But even after achieving these huge things in his life, he was not satisfied. He wanted more fame, more money which led him to a point where he was working for almost 18 hours a day.
As a result, he got divorced, he barely interacted with his family and he looked like an 80 year old man even though he was just 53. So once during a regular courtroom session, he felt some pain around his chest area and suddenly he fainted. He was rushed to a nearby hospital where doctors declared that he’d just got a heart attack. When Julien came back to senses, doctors advised him not to go so hard on himself, as he really was not in a position to sustain all that pressure.
They asked Julien to quit his job and to live his life peacefully with all that he has earned. This came as a shock to him. He had been winning all cases his entire life, but when it came to the case of his own life, he looked like a loser. He took a few days to digest this fact and slowly he started to realise all his mistakes.
So one fine morning, he took a very bold step. He started selling every materialistic things that he possessed. He sold his mansion, his private jet, and he even sold his Ferrari.
Once he was done selling things, he set out on a journey in search of the true meaning of life. This journey was towards the mystical land of India across the great Himalayan range where Indian monks resided. These monks were not ordinary, as they were among the people with highest level of wisdom, and they were capable of liberating the potential of anyone’s soul, body and mind.
Julien heard from his sources that these monks live happily for more than 100 years, that too with an energy of a young man. It took him days to find one of those monks who upon listening to Julien’s story, agreed to take him to their secret village.
Julien started living there with those monks in that village. Watching Julien’s dedication, monk leader decided to teach Julien the principles of life on a condition that Julien will not keep that knowledge to himself. Rather, he would spread it to the outside world. So the monks started narrating a story.
Imagine you’re sitting in a beautiful garden which is full of different type of trees, flowers, and you can see many birds chirping around. The flowers in the
garden smell really nice and you are having a good time there. You notice that there’s a lighthouse in the middle of the garden and suddenly the door of that lighthouse creaks open as you can see a sumo wrestler coming out of the lighthouse.
It’s really weird to look at the sumo wrestler, as he’s just wearing an underwear made of thin wire. He wanders around and finds a golden stopwatch lying in the garden. As soon as he tries to pick it up, he slips and he falls on the ground, lying motionless.
After some time, you could see that he gets back to his senses, probably because of the nice fragrance of the rose in the garden and he looks towards his left. On his left was a path paved out of small diamonds which led to a place where the sumo wrestler can find all the happiness in his life. He starts walking on that path and soon gets out of sight.
Julien asked monk if this was some kind of a joke as this story made no sense at all. The monk then said that this is no ordinary story, as this story has seven
biggest principles of life. He then went there and started explaining the story, leading it to its hidden meaning.
The first principle is related to the garden, which symbolizes our brain.
If you sow good seeds, you’ll eventually see nice fruits on trees, good plants bearing beautiful flowers, and nice smooth grass. But if you put garbage inside the garden, or if you just stop watering the plants, the place will soon turn into a dump.
Similarly, if you flood your brain with positive thoughts like kindness, love, empathy, and if you keep motivating yourself, your brain will develop into this beautiful garden bearing good thoughts. This will help you achieve great things in life with inner peace.
But if you think negative or if you don’t give your brain some regular exercise, it will turn into garbage dump which can only yield something poisonous. It’s rightly said, an empty mind is devil’s workshop.
The second principle is related to the lighthouse, which symbolizes goals in your life.
A lighthouse shows the right direction to the ships sailing in an ocean. Similarly, we should choose the right path in our life. You can only reach a destination if at all you know your destination.
Choose the target and work on achieving it. You might have to face some difficulties while moving towards your goal. But if you’re consistently moving in the right direction, sooner or later you’re going to reach your destination.
The third principle is related to the sumo wrestler, which symbolizes kaizen.
Kaizen is a Japanese word that means continuous learning and improvement. Sumo wrestler has to be very specific with his diet and discipline to achieve this huge physique. Similarly, we need to always keep learning.
It is similar to developing the habit of reading books because books are the best mentors. Not only you learn things from books, but you always keep improving in every small thing that you do in your life. Moreover, books are a consolidation of everything that the authors have learned in their entire lifetime, and you can have all that knowledge in just a few hours. So take part in every activity which you think can help you improve in your life.
The fourth principle is related to the underwear that the wrestler is wearing which is made up of wires, which symbolizes self-control and discipline.
It might be a small thing, but without that underwear, the wrestler will be naked, and that really won’t be a pleasing sight. Now if you have seen cable wire from inside, you might be aware of the fact that it usually is made up of many thin wires which together forms a cable. These thin wires might be weak alone, but when put together are even stronger than an iron rod.
Similarly, our self control and discipline is made up of every small thing that we do in our life. Be it waking up early or eating healthy. We feel that these small things don’t really matter. But in reality, these are the only thing that matters.
You won’t see an instant impact, but in the long run, these small things can bring some big changes in your life and they will define who you are as an individual.
The fifth principle is related to the golden stopwatch which symbolizes time.
No matter how rich or poor you are, you only have 24 hours in an entire day, not even a second more or less than anyone else. But the way we utilize these 24 hours is what makes us happy or sad, rich or poor.
Most of us have this habit of procrastinating which is nothing but a waste of time. By the time you’re done with building castles in the air, someone else out there just signed a hugely profitable deal. By the time you woke up in the morning, someone else is running from the gym feeling fresh, fit and happy.
This does not mean that we should always keep working. Instead, we must enjoy and have some fun activities in our day-to-day life. And what’s really important is to manage everything in those 24 hours.
Every successful person knows how to manage time. So they manage to do every single activity in the same 24 hours that each one of us has got.
The sixth principle is related to the fragrant rose.
There’s one really famous saying in China which means that there’s always a little fragrance remaining in the hand of those who give flowers to others. So here this flower and its fragrance symbolize social cause.
It doesn’t matter how much you earn or what heights you reach, the satisfaction of helping others is priceless. No wonder why some really rich people in today’s world do charity work, investing their hard-earned money in developing some rural village, and many more things.
So if you want to have that priceless feeling of happiness and satisfaction, help others selflessly and you’ll find yourself happy most of the time.
The seventh principle is related to the path of diamonds, which represent the small moment of happiness that comes our way in life.
These moments are always in the present time. Our human brains are designed in such a way that we tend to get disturbed thinking of our past and worrying about the future.
You never really enjoy the small happy moments that we have in the present. It can literally be anything, playing with your kids in a nearby park, or maybe spending some quality time with your partner.
These present moments are supposed to be lived in present and these are the real diamonds in our life. If only you understand this now, you are really going to be good at relationships, and well, a real happy, contented person.
These were the seven lessons that the monk taught Julien which completely changed his life. As promised, Julien spread out this knowledge to the outer world, and that is what we all should do to help our loved ones get all the happiness in life. So share this summary with everyone you care about.
