The cyclone⁸

A middle-class couple from Calcutta were traveling to Europe in a large ship. After a few days, all of a sudden a cyclone of the worst type came, and it began raining heavily. Many tiny boats were capsized. The passengers in the large vessel raised a hue and cry because there was no way they could save their lives from imminent catastrophe.

The wife said to her husband, “Everybody is crying because we know that our lives can be counted in minutes. How is it that you are so calm and quiet? Do you have no worries or anxieties? Do you not think that in a few minutes we shall all die? Why are you so silent?”

On hearing this the man took a pistol from his pocket and aimed it at his wife. The wife said, “You crazy man, what are you doing? Is this the time for you to make jokes? What will people think of you?”

The husband gave a broad smile and said, “Look, you know that it is I, your husband, your dearest one, who was aiming a pistol at you. You know perfectly well that I will not kill you because of my tremendous love for you. Now God, who is the Author of all Good, is infinitely more compassionate than I am or than I ever could be, and we are His children. Do you think that He will allow us to be destroyed, or that He will destroy us? If an ordinary human being like me cannot kill you because of the little love that I have for you, how can God destroy us? He has infinite Love for His children, although we do not know and never will know how His Love works in and through us. His Love and Compassion work in and through us in a way that we will never understand. May God’s Will be fulfilled in God’s own Way. Today let us just be observers, and tomorrow let us participate in the fulfilment of His Cosmic Will.”

Immediately the cyclone stopped and everything became calm and quiet. The wife, with utmost pride in her husband’s wisdom and gratitude that the storm had stopped, fell at her husband’s feet.