Parables and illustrations for educating in values
Compendium of anecdotes, parables, fables and texts with values for personal growth
Parables and Illustrations for Values Education |
Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba and Rabbi Abbahu was them had two of the largest rabbinical scholars of his time and, coincidentally, both appeared the same day in a village to deliver their respective sermons, each one of them to attract a considerable audience.
Rabbi Hiyyá was trying to serious legal issues, whereas the teachings of Rabbi Abbahu consisted mainly of stories and parables. Thus, it was not long until all the people who gathered to listen to Rabbi Hiyyá passed with the crowd gathered to listen to the wonderful stories of Rabbi Abbahu.
Understandably, Hiyya was somewhat disappointed when he saw that he was left with nothing more than a few listeners. Later that same day, he said Abbahu:
-I'll tell a story. On one occasion, two merchants came to a village to sell their wares. One of them was selling precious stones and the other sold cheap jewellery. At first, the people of the village met around the dealer who brought the most expensive goods. Naturally, they were curious to see close fine gems. But when it came buy and not only to look, they flocked to the merchant of the jewellery, and it was he with whom he spent his money.
"Once upon a time"... "Once upon a time"... "Long, long ago, in a not too distant place"... Few phrases have as high power of suggestion on the human being as these, which usually begin these short stories called tales. No matter the age, social status, time or culture... To hear or read of "Once upon a time" almost magical words... we all feel subjugated especialmente children and jovenes by the opening of a legendary and mysterious, magical, fantastic world that captivates our attention and our imagination, we start from the everyday monotony which opens the doors of a world where everything is possible.
The stories always have been used as an important methodological resource for learning values and beliefs, not only by the educational authorities, but even by the spiritual traditions, where teachers tend to "speak in parables". Today, the stories are used increasingly as an important way to practice self-help, which consists of a self-care with which we seek personal development by ourselves, in an autonomous way, which you should use simple and effective techniques that do not require complicated, most practitioners of the therapy's own knowledge. For this reason, the stories are an excellent tool for anyone who wants to engage with their personal growth. This virtue of simplicity that have stories make them extremely attractive, as all educators know to work values in the classroom, as they can be understood even by the most ignorant men, with which the truth is made accessible to the public, something impossible if transmitted by more elaborate channels, that only they would understand a few.
Its evocative strength is reinforced, on the other hand, for its fun and festive, since it is easier to accept the truth when it is exposed in the form of captivating and entertaining history, as the pleasure that causes your reading or hearing brings down our barriers, our resistance and our conditioning.
Also here the reading of short stories incluyendo other type of texts such as poems and sentencias can do in several areas of understanding, at different levels of interpretation, and all of them offer great number of educational possibilities.
1 imaginative level:
First, the tales have an "empathic" quality, therefore by far to be the scene of history, by very fantastic to be, very loss is in the recesses of time, enter a story always seems to us that the story is possible, that can happen to us here, right now, just around the corner; that, in a way, we are the protagonists of the story; that this happens by, very close in space and in time. Hence, the stories seem always current, always to meet our curiosity, our need for fantasy, our search for something different and wonderful.
This "magical dimension" satisfy and stimulate our imagination and our fantasy - qualities that we are needed in a world increasingly materialistic and tech - constitutes the first level of the story. But this dimension not exhausted, nor much less, their potential, since the essential characteristic of the tales is the multiplicity of levels that can be understood, to the point that its most exclusive property is its enormous ability to adapt perfectly to different levels of development and different points of view of the readers, in such a way that each will perform the stories according to their capacity to understand your needs and interests.
2 fun level:
Stories - as well as all account - give us characters, situations and plot intrigues that meet our need for evasion. It is one of the objectives of all story - above even of your intentionality communicate some messages, entertain, amuse, which often use humor as a pedagogical resource: they teach, Yes, but to delight, to make education more easily digested, into "no-Squeak", to make the humor of the situations that fall our mental barriers without effort. Hence an important part of the stories that derived naturally towards the joke, or that many of these easily become moralizing stories.
3. cultural level:
Most of the tales are of anonymous origin, and were broadcast in the beginning orally, to end up being picked up in collections which cross borders and creeds, that survive over time and in different cultures, which are rooted in the cultural heritage of diverse peoples and civilizations, until they end up becoming traditional tales. Here, then, the literary and cultural dimension of the stories, because we put in contact with a group many times, rather than local or national heritage, is truly universal.
4. ethical level:
This level refers to the intention which have almost all the stories convey a moral teaching, propose some ethical conduct. The plot intrigue is, from this point of view, the enactment of certain moral values, which are exemplified and illustrated with characters and situations that take real character of allegory, parable in which are shown the unfortunate consequences of a wrong behavior, or the reward that follows a correct action.
The plot contains an ethical message, the so-called "moral", which should be derived intuitively at the end of the story. This moralizing intention is at the origin of most of the folktales that have come down to us, used precisely to convey moral values "perennial" to all kinds of audiences, because the ethical truth enters our minds more easily if you are exemplified and illustrated with simple and engaging stories that meet our need for fantasy, imagination and funusing a symbolic language which points to our intuitive level, that if arises in a theoretical way, with discursive language of abstraction.
5. symbolic level
Finally, crossed the threshold of ethics, access the latest dimension from which you can interpret a tale: the "symbolic". We could also describe it as "spiritual".
Everyone knows that spiritual traditions have always used the tale to transmit his teachings, with a very precise intention: transcend the mind logical and thoughtful, discursive and linear thinking that divides, analyzes and classifies. This is the essence of the process of "Awakening" that leads to enlightenment, which is only possible through intuition, using that global look that captures the essence intuitively.
Precisely to intuition are running most of the tales, which is intuitively capture, or you lose your message, not being possible to understand them thinking, reflecting, dissecting them in parts as it would operate the scientific method of the discursive mind. To transcend this dimension of the mind, the truth arrives directly to the heart, bypassing the barriers and mental filters that distort his truth. For this reason, spiritual teachers, especially those in the Eastern tradition, have always used the stories as a basic tool of their teachers when it comes to "start" on the inside knowledge to his disciples.
In addition, the vast majority of the metaphysical, ethical, and philosophical truths not can be explained clearly using the conventional language, which fails to express the nuances - sometimes unspeakable - of spiritual experience. However, a simple parabola, an anecdote, an example, an allegory, a legend are able to explain, in its apparent simplicity, the more unfathomable mysteries and the higher truths. For this reason, all the great spiritual masters have spoken always "in parables".
On the other hand, these stories essential particularity is that they can be understood even by the most ignorant men, with which the truth is made accessible to the public, something impossible if transmitted by more elaborate channels, that only they would understand a few.
Finally, it is easier to accept the truth when it is exposed in the form of captivating and entertaining history, as the pleasure that causes your reading or hearing brings down our barriers, our resistance and our conditioning.
This symbolic level is, without doubt, the deepest level that you can read a story, although it is not always present. Much of the traditional tales - including the "childish" - sink their roots in myths, legends and stories where symbols and archetypes illustrating allegorically spiritual truths, clearly emerge so it can "translate" to a "initiatory" level, which is not equivalent to affirm that its creators work out with this intention.
Recall, for example, the tale of Pinocchio, a child well-known history in which apparently is difficult to see a symbolic content. But to translate it in this way: Gepetto is Dios Padre, who creates Pinocchio (the man) as a wooden doll (which symbolizes the mud of our materiality). He wants a real, flesh and blood child (i.e., God wants man reach his spiritual self-realization and becomes man-God, say a perfect being, which is achieved when the human being develops the spark divine that he keeps inside). But temptations and requests of the world pull of Pinocchio, which suffered a fall in the abyss, a descent into "hell", which is released because it is capable of redeeming himself with a good action, delivering even his life to save his father Gepetto.
This sacrifice is what gives Pinocchio (human beings subjected to the materiality of the "wood") the necessary merit so that, finally, it happens to be a human being of truth. This means that, after the Odyssey by this material world, man develops his divine nature through the sacrifice and surrendering to God.
As we see, account the "Awakening" adventure history of human consciousness, the gigantic cosmic process whereby the human soul acquires the "lighting". It is exciting to see how, in such short lines, and in a simple way, this story becomes a real allegory about the cosmic evolution of human consciousness, on the history of evolution. All religions and philosophies included in the "perennial tradition" are condensed in this simple story.
Of course, we do not intend to say that all the stories have to translate them in this way, much less. Our purpose to put this example is the attention on the deep symbolic content that tend to have a special kind of stories, those belonging to the various spiritual traditions, which have created these stories to communicate his wisdom and experiences, answers to the eternal questions of the human being in its evolution on this Earth: "Who am I?""Where I come from?", "where I am going?", "Are what we in this world, and for what?", etc.
Most of the tales are of anonymous origin, and were broadcast in the beginning orally, to end up being picked up in collections which cross borders and creeds, that survive over time and in different cultures, which are rooted in the cultural heritage of diverse peoples and civilizations, until they end up becoming folktales where it is still possible to decipher its symbolic codeIf you have the ability to intuitively read between the lines and are awake attitude to capture his transcendent message.