Flowers for the Women Wearing Veils - Volume I — Page 155
! ! 155 the pioneers were steadfast and motivated more and more people and the work continued. After advising the parents , I would now like to advise workers and children to be steadfast. Master Sahib has told me that some parents and their children did not cooperate with him in this matter, which is why this project was stopped half way through and has now been launched again. I say that if they had been steadfast it would have had an impact and the project would have been sustained. Why did they re - start the project? Because they had recovered from the first time’s failure and its impact upon them. They realized that the project had not been completed before because no assistance was forthcoming , yet they still re - started the project. This is called lack of perseverance. They forgot what had occurred earlier and once again, began their work. However, they should remember that without perseverance, success can not be achieved. The Parent ’ s Cooperation i n their Children’s Moral Training Then there is also the matter pertaining to the responsibility of parents. Initially they say, let us cooperate with and assist th e person who looks after their child ’s learning ? But in due course , the y become like the person, who was s at under the [burning heat of the] sun and yet upon being advised to move into the shade h e ask s what the person advising him would give him in return for moving into the shaded area. Similarly, p arents believe that someone who pursues [ teach ing ] their children , mus t have something to gain. A nother story related to th is is of a customer who was told that all tailors are thieves, and they tend to pinch some fabric for themselves. One day , he took some fabric to a tailor to have a cap made. He asked the tailor, “W ill you be able to make a cap from this fabric?” The tailor said , “ C ertainly. ” T he customer, remembering what had been said about tailors being cheats, thought to himself that perhaps the tailor only said he was able to do it so that he might keep some fabric for himself also. With this thought in mind, he asked if he w ould be able to make two caps from the fabric. The tailor again said , “Certainly. ” This proved his suspicion that the tailor was a cheat. He thought to himself, if I had n ot ask ed for two, he certainly