Onion-bulb Principle: The Introduction

INTRODUCTION TO THE ONION-BULB

I once read a story about a teacher and his students. The teacher asked the students to bring a bulb of onion to class the next day. When they got to the class, the teacher asked each of the students to peel the onions layer after layer. In other words, they were to remove the rings one after the other. When the students were through with the assignment (need I tell you with tears-laden eyes?) the teacher asked them what they saw. The students chorused “nothing.” The teacher insisted on them to look again at what was left at the end of the peeling, and asked them again, “what do you see?” Again came the answer louder, “NOTHING.”

“Nothing” is a reasonable answer, but that is the problem with that word. It is reasonable but not absolute. Because after we have exhausted all we know or seem to know, there is always still a lot that we do not yet know. There is much more to us, to the innate abilities and potentials inside us, and to the many things around us than meet the eyes. There is so much on the inside of everybody than anyone around them can ever know. There is so much more to you than you are showing off at the moment in your life. There is so much in you than you could ever make use of in your entire life. That is the generosity of your creator. He created answers to all the questions you will ever encounter in life in you ever before you were released to come to this world. He deposited solutions in you beyond the problems you will ever need to confront in life before you were allowed to come into the world. But, I do not know of, I do not even think there is yet any man who has been able to as much as possible use about 40% of his abilities before his demise. Not one.

If you are gaining anything in your life, relationship and family, business and contacts, education and whatsoever you do today, you can gain much more. In fact, you have greater abilities than even your thoughts or day dreams. Your abilities and greatness can only truly be compared and measured by the deposits of God inside you, and that is unfathomable.

And back to the teacher and his students. When the students didn’t know what else to say, the teacher then told them, “After the onion is gone, the universe remains.” What a statement! The onion is too small compared to the size of what remains when it is gone. After you have tried “everything”, there is yet much more that you could still try. After you have done all you think you can, there is yet so much more you could still do. There is always something else after everything. I have heard countless stories of people who tried just one more time, and that was their winning time. After they tried “everything” and it didn’t work, they tried “again” and things changed for them. Marylyn had told herself that if after this exam, she still fails, then she would never go to school again because schooling is probably not for her. By the way, that was after nine times of writing WAEC. Unbeknownst to her, that was the winning time.

Soichiro Honda had his idea rejected by Toyota, had his factory bombed by war missiles, had the remains of his collections swallowed by earthquake, but tried again, and eventually got the Honda brand that got the applause of the world. Henry Ford failed in his early attempts and got broke (equivalent of bankrupt) five times before he created the successful Ford Motor Company. Harland Sanders had his “wonderful” secret chicken recipe rejected 1,009 times before a restaurant eventually accepted it. Albert Einstein did not speak until he was four, did not read until he was seven, was expelled from school tagged “mentally handicapped,” need I tell you his end? Thomas Edison was tagged “too stupid to learn anything” by his teacher, was fired from two jobs for not being productive enough, made about 1000 failed attempts at the electric light bulb, and even burnt down his factory in the process before eventually making one that worked. Maybe you think the first plane that the Wright brothers made flew. Oh no! They made tons of failed prototypes before one agreed to stay in the air. Talk about failure, how many times have you tried? The whole world is filled with stories of successful failures. And do you really want to succeed? Failure is the first step towards success. Go try again.

Whenever you find yourself saying, “There is nothing here,” “nothing else can be done…”etc., that is when you should look apart from yourself for the “universe” that remains. An anonymous person wrote, “…peel the onion unto the last and learn to work with the spacious vacancy remaining. Once this is so, we can turn to the pile of skins previously discarded, and find new meanings therein. We can cook up a broth that is flavourful and nourishing, easy to concoct yet infinite in variety. So peel the onion, see the layer that is slightly different from the last. Take it all the way. I can’t promise that you won’t cry…but it’s possible you may find that possessing nothing is a rare treasure, and most delectable feast.” Let’s take a look at the onion for a minute.