When bitter words hurt you.

The pace of our lives is faster than ever before. There is no time for people to assemble together and talk. Conversation often occurs in not more than a couple of sentences between people. Yet, people can still make scathing remarks, ridicule and hurt others by what they say. For some, such words spoil their day.For some they linger on for months, years or for a lifetime.
How can you remain unperturbed by the wounding words?
Once a saint and his shisyas went on the streets of a village. Some people offered them food. The saint and his followers accepted some food that they wanted to eat and thanked them. There was an atheist who was irritated by the group of saint and followers. He confronted them and started abusing them. They tried to ignore him but he followed them and continued to threaten and abuse them. At a point he started throwing stones at them.
One by one , the shisyas started losing their cool. They wanted to shout back at him or beat him up. But the saint was as calm as ever. He turned to the person throwing stones, looked in to his eyes and smiled at him. This intimidated the angry man , he turned back and went away.
The shisyas were surprised at how the Guru can keep his cool. They asked him how he could smile at someone who hurt him? The Guru told the shisyas , 'What did we do when some people offered us food?' . They replied ' we accepted the food and thanked them'. 'Yes', said the Guru 'We accepted the food and hence we thanked them. But when the angry man abused us, I did not accept his abuses. When I did not accept the abuses, they belong to him, not us.'
The shisyas were enlightened. When somebody offers us something we have the right to accept them or reject them. What we accept belong to us, what we refuse to accept does not belong to us. No words can hurt you if you refuse to accept them.
Such is the power of vedas that teach us not only philosophies of ageless and timeless values but little ways of life. Lets worship the lotus feet of God Almighty to give us peace and happiness.