Giving, Receiving and taking!

Outside the room which I use as the out patient service area, where I work, there is a mango tree, which has mangoes, still needing time to reopen. 

Yesterday, I noticed two men throwing stones to fell the raw mangoes. Theirs was an attempt to take the mangoes before they were ready. I noticed that tow bunches fell. They tasted one or two and left the remaining under the mango tree and left. 

I pondered over it since then to understand the human instinct. 

The difference between taking and giving !

The mango tree gives its fruits away by dropping them when they are almost ripe. Even a strong wind will allow many ripe mangoes to fall for passers by to gather. A tree gives away its fruit when ripe to birds, monkeys and humans.

Those who pluck the mangoes from the tree before they are ripe, use a pole to hook them to drop them in to a bag attached to the hook. They do so, so that mango pulp does not get smashed with the impact of falling on to the ground. They may then keep mangoes wrapped up in paper to ripen them. 

What I saw yesterday was a violent form of taking mangoes. Felling them by throwing stones can be an instinct. 

We live in acquisitive world. The pursuit is to get, take and even grab. 

I found an opposite attitude recently. A family leaves a bowl of mangoes outside their gate for others to take away with an instruction that take, but each person only two. The family does this to share their produce as well as to install an attitude of taking just enough by leaving some for others. 

Taking is receiving only when mindfulness of others is in focus. 

We receive what is given; we take what we want.

Both have different meanings in depth psychology. 

We receive not because we deserve, but because of the favours or kindness of others. We take because we feel entitled and exercise our right to possess. 

It is important to look at this mind set in human behaviour. 

The most difficult experience is to let go of what has been our expectations. I have struggled with this recently in my involvement in the department where I work!

To come to a position where one lives by receiving and not by taking is an attitudinal change. I am still not sure, if I am willing or able to live by that calling!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)