Am I as admirable as that ant? Wise sayings about ants. Let us be mindful about what they say.
If an ant carries an object a hundred times its weight, you can carry burdens many times your size.
One bee cannot build a hive; one ant cannot build a colony.
It is the ant, not the lion which the elephant fears.
No one cares about an injured leg of a tiny ant. It has to be healed for its own walking. Such is the norm of nature which seems to be always unwilling to compromise.
We must respect ants and not crush them with our feet as so many people are likely to do. Children tend to step on them with their feet. We can avoid that by stepping aside. Red ants are spiteful, and once while I was sitting on a rock, I saw some going in a straight line. I fed them with some biscuit crumbs and before I could exclaim, I had been bitten. I accept the fact that I was foolish, and I should not have sat on that rock, but I was furious. My husband was laughing at my stupidity.
Anyway, they are tiny creatures, and it proves that even elephants are afraid of them. All of us can work on our skill set and not assume that if we are not physically strong, we cannot face the world. We can work in a group and perform better. Look at the colonies of ants. A community can save a village, a town, a country and the earth.
Offering sugar to ants is like giving prasad
According to the principles of Hinduism, God resides in the soul of all living creatures. Therefore, we should not kill ants. We can offer some sugar and grains to them and by doing this we are blessed. Sri Paramacharya of Kancheepuram said that if we are not able to offer prasad for guests, we can offer a little sugar to ants, it would be like giving prasad to them. We also say that by offering sugar to black ants Lakshmi will enter our homes.
Ganesh’s beloved insects are the black ants. If black ants gather in large numbers in our home, we should make Ganesh’s favorite food, Laddo and share one with them.
Small black ants are gentle insects and there is another story about them. The devas (minor gods) wished to worship Shiva on the earth, so they took the form of tiny black ants and started living in the Erumbeeswarar temple in Tamilnadu. They caused no harm to the devotees, and they fed sugar and grains to the divine insects. After some time, the ants were transformed into their original forms.
Down in the plantations, where the bananas grow,
An ant stepped on an elephant’s toe
The elephant said with tears in his eyes,
“Pick someone your own size. “ – Anonymous.
Please smile and learn to respect and emulate ants.
Aim Hrim Klim
Photo by Maksim Shutov on Unsplash