Both of them were married. The wife of the lazy one did not appreciate the fact that her husband did nothing for her. He did nothing for the family either, and the relatives always ridiculed the wife. The wife felt miserable that her husband was so useless, whereas his brother worked so hard. Everybody always appreciated the brother.
The wife repeatedly begged her husband to start working. Finally he agreed and found a job. Soon he was working day and night. Everybody was pleased with him and appreciated him.
Suddenly the nice brother who had always worked hard stopped working. Now he began wasting his time just like his brother used to do.
This brother’s wife became sad and mad. She said, “Everybody is appreciating your brother now and not you.” She begged her husband to go back to work.
He said, “No! In this world we share our good and bad qualities. When I am perfect, he is imperfect. When he is perfect, I am imperfect. Since we are one, it has to be that way. This is how the world goes on.
“It is like day and night, light and darkness. When there is darkness, then only will people appreciate light. If there is only light, nobody is going to appreciate it. When my brother is darkness and I am light, at that time everybody appreciates how good I am. And when I am darkness and he is light, everybody appreciates how good he is.
“So in order to get real appreciation, one of us has to play the role of ignorance and the other has to play the role of wisdom. We share these roles equally. We are close brothers. This is how we want to go on. After some time if he becomes lazy again, then I will go back to work. Wisdom and ignorance must go together, just as darkness and light must go together.”From:Sri Chinmoy,Is your mind ready to cry? Is your heart ready to smile? part 5, Agni Press, 1981
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/mrc_5