Thomas Hitoshi Pruiksma

author, poet, teacher, and performer

Broken Cart Full of Feathers: A Kural Conversation with Mark Silver

Strength That Knows and Knowing Our Strengths

With Heart of Business founder Mark Silver I was honored and moved to explore power, relationships, awareness, and discerning one’s limits as reflected in chapter 48, “Knowing Strength,” from THE KURAL: Tiruvalluvar’s Tirukkural.

Here are a few highlights and where in the video you can find them:

  • Knowing strength and strength that knows. 4:42
  • The power of all our relations. 7:01
  • The ecological relations of words and powers. 12:32
  • The necessity of awareness in being generous. 15:13
  • On discerning how far is too far. 22:37
  • Can you tell us more about the historial context of the Kural? 31:35
  • How did you inhabit the world of this work before translating it? 37:57

Mark Silver is a fourth-generation entrepreneur who has run a distribution business, turned around a struggling non-profit magazine, and worked as a paramedic in the San Francisco Bay Area.

He is the author of seven different in-depth programs and a number of other smaller teachings and classes for entrepreneurs. Together they form a comprehensive entrepreneurial wisdom academy curriculum.

A designated Master Teacher (“muqaddam murrabi“) within the Shaddhilliyya Sufi lineage, he has received his Masters of Divinity with a speciality in Ministry and Sufi Studies.

As a coach, consultant, mentor and spiritual healer, he has facilitated thousands of individual sessions with entrepreneurs and has led hundreds of classes, seminars, groups and retreats. His weekly writings and teachings are followed by thousands of people around the globe.

He lives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, with his wife Holly, twin sons Sam and David, their aging and loving cat Rafi, their 100 lb husky-malamute-shephard Rocky.

https://www.heartofbusiness.com/

Here are the verses we talked about, in both English and Tamil:

471
Assess a deed’s power one’s power opponents’ power and the power
Of one’s friends—then act

வினைவலியும் தன்வலியும் மாற்றான் வலியும்
துணைவலியும் தூக்கிச் செயல்

473
Many have fallen midway—moving to move
Not knowing their strength

உடைத்தம் வலியறியார் ஊக்கத்தின் ஊக்கி
இடைக்கண் முரிந்தார் பலர்

474
Failing to fit others ignoring his limits and flaunting
Himself a king falls quickly

அமைந்தாங் கொழுகான் அளவறியான் தன்னை
வியந்தான் விரைந்து கெடும்

475
Even the axle of a cart of feathers breaks
If heaped with too many

பீலிபெய் சாகாடும் அச்சிறும் அப்பண்டஞ்
சால மிகுத்துப் பெயின்

476
If one at the end of a branch keeps climbing
His life is over

நுனிக்கொம்பர் ஏறினார் அஃதிறந் தூக்கின்
உயிர்க்கிறுதி ஆகி விடும்

479
A life that won’t live within limits appears full
Then falls completely

அளவறிந்து வாழாதான் வாழ்க்கை உளபோல
இல்லாகித் தோன்றாக் கெடும்

480
Generosity that doesn’t know what one has
Destroys what one has

உளவரை தூக்காத ஒப்புர வாண்மை
வளவரை வல்லைக் கெடும்

From chapter 48, “Knowing Strength.”

Translated from the Tamil by Thomas Hitoshi Pruiksma
THE KURAL: Tiruvalluvar’s Tirukkural
Beacon Press, Boston