The young man said, “Do I have to tell my father a lie?”
His friend replied, “Tell me frankly, which is more important in your life: not telling a lie or this girl whom you love with all your heart and soul?”
The young man said, “This girl is infinitely more important in my life than one insignificant lie.”
The young man brought the girl to meet his father and said, “Father, you know, we are brahmins, and this girl is also a brahmin. I would like to marry her. Do you have any objection?”
Immediately the girl said, “No, no, no! I am not a brahmin, I am not even a kshatriya. I am fourth class. I am a farmer’s daughter.”
The father became furious. He said, “You lied to me? Brahmins are not supposed to tell lies. You are my son, and you told me a lie. I never expected that you would tell me a lie. This farmer’s daughter is not even third class, and yet she was the one to come forward and tell the truth.”
The old man said to the girl, “I am begging you to marry my son because you are the real brahmin here. You have told the truth, whereas my son is a brahmin by birth but not by nature. He has told me such a lie. Now I am begging you to marry my son because you are of a higher class. You have shown us how a real brahmin should behave. Please consent to marry him.”
She said, “Yes, I will marry him, but first I have to take permission from my father.”
The old brahmin went to the farmer’s house and begged the farmer to give his permission for the marriage. The farmer said, “Oh no, no, no! If I allow this marriage, people will hate me. They will say I am an opportunist. I am fourth class. How can I come up to first class? People will be very displeased with me if I do this.”
The father of the young man said to his son, “You have ruined everything. Now I want you to marry her because I see that you are low class and she is first class. Unfortunately, her father does not want her to marry you. What am I going to do?”
Then he said to the farmer and his daughter, “I beg of you, please reconsider. I will take full responsibility. If the villagers speak ill of this young girl because she has married a brahmin, I will tell them, ‘No, it is I who begged them to get married because I wanted to raise the standard of my family. My son is such a liar, but a farmer’s daughter had the courage to tell me the truth. So this farmer and his daughter are the real brahmins, and my son and I are shudras, the fourth class. Please lay the blame on me. I wanted them to get married because I have seen a real brahmin in this girl. There are many young people who tell lies and their parents cannot catch them. When they are in love, the boys say that they are brahmin or the girls say that they are brahmin. But in your daughter I have seen a real brahmin girl. And if people speak ill of me or my family, I do not care. I want them to get married.”
The farmer was so moved by the words of the brahmin father that he allowed his daughter to marry the brahmin son.From:Sri Chinmoy,Life’s bleeding tears and flying smiles, part 9, Agni Press, 2001
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/lts_9