The art of story telling.

Every culture carefully nurtures a set of stories in the form of mythological tales which are passed from generation to generation.  Stories serve several purposes like entertainment, recording historical incidents and inspiration.  We provide a special place for "true" stories.

We know that one of the characteristic of great leaders is the ability to tell stories very effectively.  I like to think of stories as very effective instruments to achieve a desired mindset.  Whether in a written or a spoken form or related in the form of a verse (ballad)  stories are indeed very powerful. 

People of all ages absolutely love stories and are held very spell bound.  I am curious to know - how does one become an effective story teller ?  Can it be an acquired ability ?  I would think of it as an essential part of any leadership training.  I have seen some people have a very natural ability to convert an incident into a story.  Some are able to create a story from nothing

What makes a story interesting ?  It is clear  that novelists, script writers and film makers are masters at  being able to create interesting stories or to simple narrate a story in an interesting way. 

Overall I have many questions and am really interested in learning from other readers - this subject and skills of effective story writing / telling.  I am very fascinated by this subject.

 

Sadhana for Self Understanding

All seekers of self understanding ask the question  - what should I be doing to make the self understanding happen faster ?  I will attempt to provide my own learnings

1.  Self understanding is a biological process.  You can only create favourable circumstances for it, but you cannot realy accelerate it.  The process is of transformation through maturity growth and evolution. 

Factors that create favourable circumstances are

1. Presence of a living Guru in your life ( one who is a master and also is skilled at guiding you)
2. Your state of complete surrender to your Guru
3. You being part of a study group.
4 Your silence practice - consistency and depth
5.  Your determination and priorities towards self understanding

Factors that create unfavourable circumstances are

1. Comparison shopping for a Guru, scripture or group
2. Excessive verbalization of the scripture
3. Thinking that it is not practical
4. Thinking that it is very hard and not for me mortal
5. Getting into arguments / defending your opinions with people who are not on the same path

Hope this puts a perspective around sadhana for your understanding