A thought on stories

Stories have profound way of impacting life. How effectively they are told and how the meaning unfolds to the listener is what makes the real difference. Well I had this thought while listening to one of the priests preach. He made on interesting point though....Often the essence of a story is lost and what remains with the listener is just the story. How true.

Totally unaware was of this very interesting mail shared by friend some time back and I could not have understood its meaning or rather its essence earlier as I have understood it now and it will surely stay with forever. Contents of the mail are shared below. Hope you to get the essence.

Why we tell stories…

There was once a disciple of a great teacher. Day after day the disciple would sit at the feet of his teacher listening to his instruction. Many people would come to visit and inevitably the teacher would engage them by telling a story.

One day the disciple asked; "Guruji, why do you engage people by means of stories? Why don't you just give them your teaching straight out?"

The guru answered: "Bring me some water."

Now the disciple knew his teacher to be a very formal and disciplined man. He had never asked for water at this time of the day. Nevertheless, he went immediately to fetch it. Taking a clean brass water pot from the ashram kitchen, the disciple went to the well, filled the pot with water and returned. He offered it to his teacher.

"Why have you brought me a pot when I asked only for water?"

~ Author Unknown

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"The story is one of the basic tools invented by the human mind, for the purpose of gaining understanding. There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories."

~ Ursula K. LeGuin

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And before I am done let me share with you this one interesting website (of course there are others too) that uses story telling for organizational development do visit if you interested in learning more.

http://www.makingstories.net/index.htm

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