Thoughts on Coelho's thoughts

Reading Paulo Coelho's one page Story of the Pencil, I remembered a photo on a wall of my house of a little girl writing with a pencil and below it the caption reads: Anyone can make a mistake. That is why pencils have erasers.

In the story Coelho says be a pencil because (in my own words):
1. The hand that wields the pencil is God
2. Sharpening the pencil causes pain to it, but makes it sharp
3. Using an eraser allows you to rub out mistakes
4. What is important in a pencil is the graphite, not the wood enclosing it
5. Pencil leaves a mark, so be careful of your actions

The hand that guides our actions - is it God's hand? Is it fate's hand? Is it the hand of the habit? It it the hand of tradition? Is it the hand of the Intelligence? Of a sane, rational healthy mind?

It is perhaps necessary to distinguish which hand is at work when we act. The thoughts prior to the act and the consequences arising from the act should tell us I think which hand is behind it.

Weeding in his garden Paulo Coelho faces the dilemma whether to kill the wild weed of nature in order to protect the orderly garden created by the hand of man? He remembers Krishna encouraging the despondent Arjuna on the eve of the War in Kurukshetra that the doer is merely effecting the deed that is already written to happen. "Do you really think you can kill anyone? No one kills and no one dies." And that cleared his dilemma; he proceeds to weed out his garden.

What an encouragement to kill! Did not Krishna unwittingly help assuage the guilt of man towards needless violence? In the name of order, in the name of justice, in the name of law, in the name of religion and truth?

I think about it even as I write these words and it occurs to me that while it is necessary to maintain the garden, it is ot necessary to kill the weeds - if they were 'rehabilitated' in a corner of the field of the garden where they can grow independently.

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