These two friends were disciples of a spiritual Master. The spiritual Master felt miserable at the way they were always fighting. One day he asked them, “Why do you quarrel and fight? Don’t you remember that once upon a time you were good friends?”
The two friends answered, “Yes, but now we have become bitter enemies and we don’t think that we will ever be able to revive our friendship. What can we do?”
The spiritual Master soon appeared in a dream before both of his disciples. To the first one he said, “Tell me how you expect to be happy in this life. Are you not miserable now that you and your friend have become enemies?”
In the dream the disciple replied, “I am really miserable. I don’t want to hate him. At the same time, I can’t prevent myself from hating him.”
The Master said, “I have discovered a way for you to become happy. If you do what I ask, you will find happiness.”
The disciple said, “Master, I promise to do whatever you ask. Please tell me how I can be happy.”
The Master said, “You can be happy if you can make your friend happy. Then only will you be happy. Tomorrow, as soon as you see him, the first thing you will do is embrace him. The moment you embrace him, all the wealth of Heaven will descend on him and he will be happy. Then, you yourself will also become happy.”
The disciple said, “All right. I will do it since I want to keep my promise to you. After all, once upon a time he was my close friend. If he becomes rich, then I am sure he will give me some of his wealth and make me rich also.”
The same night, the Master also appeared before the other disciple in a dream and said, “Are you not unhappy now that you and your friend have become worst enemies?”
The disciple replied, “It is true that I am miserable, but I can’t help hating him. I will be happy only if I see him die.”
“So that is how you want to be happy?” the Master asked. “That is the only way?”
“Yes,” said the disciple. “There is only one way — if I can kill him.”
The Master said, “All right, I will make you happy. Tomorrow, as soon as you see him, you will embrace him. As soon as you touch him, he will immediately die.”
The second disciple was so excited that he would be able to kill the first one and couldn’t wait for morning to dawn.
These dreams all took place in the inner world, and both disciples kept them quite secret. The following day each of them ran towards the other’s house so that he could embrace the other one and make himself happy.
As soon as they saw each other, the one who was given the capacity to kill his friend all of a sudden thought, “Once upon a time he was my friend. How am I going to touch him and kill him? Am I doing the right thing?”
While he was hesitating, the other disciple came and embraced him. Immediately all the wealth of Heaven descended into him. He said, “What have you done? What have you done? Had I been able to embrace you first, I would have killed you. Now you have embraced me first. How am I going to become happy in my own way? You are trying to make me happy in your way, not my way.”
With his occult power the spiritual Master came and stood in front of them. The Master said, “You fool, you wanted to be happy by killing your friend. But look at his friendship! He was willing to make you happy and then become happy in your happiness. He is definitely superior. But I want both the superior and inferior to go together. Then only will I be happy.
“You have received all the wealth of Heaven. Now give him half of your wealth. Then both of you become friends once again. In this way you will become excellent disciples.”The hooligan’s wife had previously committed suicide because her husband would not give up stealing. At first the hooligan was very sad and miserable that he had lost his wife, but even then he would not stop stealing. The only other member left in his family was his little three-year-old son, his only child.
The king said, “Since everybody else is failing, I will try to catch the culprit myself.” So one night the king disguised himself as a thief, broke into the hooligan’s house and kidnapped the hooligan’s son.
When the hooligan returned home the following day and saw that his only son was missing, his heart was completely broken. He said, “My wife warned me not to continue this kind of life, but I didn’t listen to her. Now my only child is gone. What is the use of continuing to steal and torture people?”
So the hooligan became a mendicant and began leading a very simple, ascetic life. Often he thought of his wife and child, especially his child. He kept asking himself, “Who could have kidnapped my only son? I don’t have the heart or the capacity even to try to find him again. Whoever has stolen him will never return him to me.” He continued to lead a very pure and pious life and in six months’ time he was totally changed.
In the meantime the king was keeping the child in his palace. He happened to have a son of the same age and he started showing both of them the same affection and love. One day both the children fell extremely sick and no physician was able to cure them. As a last resort one of the physicians said, “I know of a particular herb which will cure them. It is very difficult to procure, but I shall try.”
In the meantime, the ascetic hooligan happened to come near the palace to pray and meditate for his illumination. Somebody reported to the king that a saint was praying and meditating nearby. The king said, “I need the prayer of a saint. Ask him to come here, and I will beg him to help me.”
So, at the request of the king, the saint came to the palace. His consciousness had totally changed and nobody could recognise him as the former hooligan. The king told him, “I have two little children. Both are dying. Would you kindly come to see them and pray to God for their recovery? I will give you whatever you want.”
The saint said, “I will pray to God to save them, but I will take nothing from you.”
The king took him into a private chamber and showed him the children. The hooligan could not recognise his own child because the child had received such good care. He had got excellent nourishment and, even though he was sick, he looked totally changed.
The doctor then entered the room and quite happily told the king, “I have procured the herb, but I have enough for only one child. Who cares for the other child! Let your child be cured.”
The king said, “Oh no, I can’t do that. If we have enough only for one child, please give it to the other child.”
The ascetic asked, “Why?”
The king said, “Although he is not my own child, I want him to be cured. Like me, his father too has a heart. Already I have stolen his child. I know that his heart is totally broken because he has lost his son. But what could I do? I had no alternative. His father was the worst possible hooligan. He was destroying the whole kingdom, robbing and killing people. When I captured his son, inwardly he was totally destroyed. He has never been seen again. This was the only way I could put an end to my kingdom’s suffering. But I will never forgive myself if I allow his child to die, since already I have killed his father inwardly.”
The king turned to the physician and said, “I order you to give the medicine to the other child and let my child die in front of my eyes. I do hope that one day the hooligan will find his child, even if by that time his son is a young man. If the hooligan gives up his profession, then I will gladly go to his house and return his son.”
The sage immediately fell down at the feet of the king and would not get up. “What is the matter?” the king asked. “I asked you to pray and meditate.”
The saint said, “O King, I am the hooligan you are speaking of and this is my child. I caused so much trouble for your subjects. I deserved the punishment you gave me. Today you have proved what kind of heart you have. Please keep my child. I promise that I will never steal again. I have taken to an ascetic life, but if you want to, you can throw me out of your kingdom or kill me.”
The king said, “I now consider you a sage and I will gladly take care of your child. You will remain in the palace as my court sage. I am so grateful that you have come to pray and meditate for the recovery of the two children.”
The two sons were both cured, and the hooligan and the king shed tears of gratitude.The second one said, “What will you give me if you fail?”
The first one said, “All right, if I cannot find a good job for you, I will give you two hundred rupees from my salary. And if I find a job for you, what will you give me from your salary?”
The second one said, “I will give you four!”
So the first one looked for a job for his friend here, there and everywhere. Finally he found a good job for him that paid five hundred rupees per month. He was very excited that he had found this kind of job for his friend and said to him, “So, I have won the bet. When you get your first month’s salary, you have to give me four hundred rupees.”
The friend just handed him four rupees and started walking away.
The first one said, “Wait! Why are you giving me four rupees? You are supposed to give me four hundred.”
The friend said, “Did I tell you four hundred? I said four.”
The first one said, “You fool, I said that I would give you two hundred rupees if I didn’t get you a job and you said you would give me four if I did. It was understood that it was four hundred.”
The second friend said, “I said four. I didn’t say four hundred.”
The second one already had the job, so what could the first one do? Instead of winning four hundred rupees, he had to be satisfied with four. He was furious because he had worked so hard to find his friend a job, so he sued his friend.
When the case came before the king, the king asked the second friend, “Is it true that you were supposed to give this man four hundred rupees?”
The man replied, “O King, that is wrong. He told me that if he lost the bet, he would give me two hundred rupees. Then I told him I would give him four if he won. I lost the bet and I kept my promise; I gave him four rupees.”
The king turned to the first one and said, “He is right. He didn’t say four hundred.” Then the king gave the first one four hundred rupees and he accepted it gratefully. Next the king turned to the second one and said, “I need clever people like you in my court.” He gave a job to the fellow who had fooled his friend.
The clever fellow worked in the court and the king was very pleased with him. After some time the king told him, “People say that you are very good and wise and that you have many good qualities. Only one bad quality they find in you — that you do not admire others.”
The man said, “O King, I admire only two persons. The first person is your noble self. You gave me this job. You are so good, so kind, so great. There is nobody as great as you. Therefore, I admire you and I am extremely grateful to you.”
The king was very pleased with him. Then he asked, “And who is the other person you admire?”
The man said, “It is my friend whom I fooled about the four hundred rupees. He was my closest friend. I had led a vagabond life for so many years and he worked very, very hard to find me a job. I really admire him and I feel very sorry that I deceived him. Of course, there is a vast difference between you and my friend. But compared to others, my friend is by far the best. Therefore, I sincerely admire him.”
The king said, “Since you admire him so much and he is an honest man, bring him to me. I will give him a job in my court as well.” In this way the king brought the two friends together again.
One day the king asked them, “So, are both of you satisfied?”
They answered, “We are satisfied, but it is not because of our capacity. We are satisfied with you. We are satisfied with your wisdom. We are sincerely pleased with our lives because you care for us. Otherwise, we would not have become good friends again. It is you who have made us good. It is you who have made us great. It is you who care for us infinitely more than you care for yourself. Therefore, we are extremely, extremely grateful to you.”Her father was very sad because she was so careless. He thought, “When she gets married, her husband and relatives will scold her like anything.”
Many times he told his daughter, “It is one thing to be fearless and another thing to be careless. It is one thing to show bravery and another thing to show bravado. You must be fearless and, at the same time, careful. Always lock the doors and windows, especially at night.”
One day the father had to go out of town on business. He told his daughter, “Tonight I won’t be here. You have to lock the doors and windows properly!”
His daughter said, “Yes, of course I will do it.” But as usual, she did not lock the doors and windows properly when she went to bed. In the middle of the night a thief entered into her room and showed her a dagger. “Tell me where your father keeps his money!” he said.
The daughter screamed, “I don’t know, I don’t know! Otherwise, I would tell you.”
Then the thief snatched her necklace and ran away.
She was frightened to death and said, “Father is right. From now on I will lock the doors and windows properly.”
When the father returned the next day, he said, “Fortunately you are all right. But look what an expensive thing you have lost! At least you didn’t tell the thief where I keep my money and jewellery.”
She said, “I don’t know where it is. Otherwise, the way he was showing me the dagger, I would have told him immediately.”
The father said, “I am lucky that I never told you. Anyway, I am grateful that you were not hurt.”
In few months’ time the father said to the daughter, “The time has come for you to get married.”
The daughter said, “Whomever you choose, I will gladly marry. You have good taste. I leave it all up to you.”
The father said, “I will select several people. Let them come and see you one by one, and you can make a choice.”
So the father brought five candidates. The first one the daughter didn’t like at all. The second one didn’t like her and she also didn’t like him. Like this, the third and fourth candidates came and left. When the fifth one came, the daughter felt something respond inside her. But outwardly she gave no sign that this would be her future husband.
Before the young man left the house, the girl went to her father and said to him, “Father, I really love this man. This is the one for me. I hope that he likes me as well. Could you go and ask him?”
Her father said, “I will ask him, but I am sure that he likes you. Otherwise, why would he have come and asked to marry you?”
The father approached the young man and said, “Do you really love my daughter?”
He answered, “Of course. I would not have taken the trouble of coming here if I did not love her.”
So the date was fixed for their wedding. On the day of their wedding, the bridegroom said to his bride, “I have a special present for my future wife,” and he placed a necklace around her neck.
O God, it was the same necklace that the thief had stolen a few months earlier. The bride was confused. She cried out, “Where did you get this necklace? Who sold it to you? This necklace was stolen from me. I felt miserable that I had lost it. Now you have bought it from someone. If you can tell us who sold it to you, we will be able to catch the thief.”
The father smiled and smiled. Finally he said to his daughter, “It was I who asked him to disguise himself as a thief and take your necklace away because you were not listening to me. I knew that one day you would get married and you would still be very careless. I knew that he was a very nice young man, and I felt that you two would fall in love and one day get married. So he listened to me and stole your necklace. In this way you learned to be careful. Now you will be going to his house. Always be careful and lock the windows and doors properly. Carelessness is not a good thing!”
The wife went to her husband’s house and was always very careful. She and her husband lived a very happy, prosperous life.The rich man said, “If You give me more money, I will give some away to charity. Giving to charity means that I am giving it to You, for I am seeing You inside human beings. So I will give You some of the money.”
Then God said, “Then can you tell everybody now that one day you will be giving away money to charity?”
“Of course,” answered the man. “I can tell the whole world that some day I will definitely give away money to charity. But right now, please, by Your Grace, let me keep all the money intact so that nobody can steal it. If You listen to my request, then I will fulfil Your request to give money away to the poor and needy.”
So God gave the man more money and the man kept the money for some time. Then God came to him and said, “You have kept your money safe. Now you can give some money away to Me — that is, to the poor and needy.”
The rich man said, “Yes, but can You not do me a favour? At least for ten years I wish to keep the money intact. Then I will give some away.”
God said, “No, I want you to give money now to the poor.”
The man said, “O God, if I give money away, then my wealth will not remain intact. I will lose some money. But if You allow me to keep the money for ten years, then I promise I will give You a very large sum.”
After ten years God came back to the rich man and said, “Now ten years are over. Will you not start giving some of your money to the poor and needy?”
The man said to God, “At least for thirty years more let me keep the money for myself.”
God said, “Now you want to keep it for thirty years! Previously you said only ten years.”
The man said, “True, I said only ten years, but now I want to keep the money for another thirty years. Otherwise, I am not going to give a thing to the poor.”
God said, “When will thirty years ever come? It will take such a long time.”
After thirty years God came again. The man was very old and couldn’t even see properly. Even then he hadn’t given any money to the poor.
God said to him, “What are you doing? Even at this time you won’t give money to the poor?”
The man said, “Still I am hiding the money under my bed.”
God said, “What will happen when you die? Do you want to give your money to your children or to the poor?”
The rich man said, “To be very honest, I don’t want to do either.”
“Why, why?” God asked.
“If my children get the money,” the man said, “nobody will know that they got the money from me. They will be very rich, but very few people will know that they are useless people and it is I who have given it to them. I have always been very jealous of both my sons. If they put the money in the bank and get interest, naturally they will become richer than I now am. After ten years, people will say that the children are richer than their father was. At that time I will feel very sad in Heaven. I will feel jealous that my children have surpassed me. O God, I don’t want my children to be richer than I am, and I don’t want to help the poor. I want everybody to say that I was the richest man, even though they hate me because of my stinginess. Who cares for generosity? I want everybody to say I was the richest member of my family.”The friend said, “Stop, stop! I have a servant who has to be infinitely worse than yours in stupidity.”
So they said, “Then let us have a competition. Let us bring both our servants and see which is more stupid. Let us invite our friends and relatives to observe their stupidity.”
They found a place to meet and invited all their friends and relatives. When the contest began, one friend said to his servant, “Look, I badly need a diamond ring. Do you think you can buy me one?”
“Of course,” said the servant, “if you give me money.”
The master gave him one paisa. One hundred paisas equal one rupee and nine rupees equal approximately one dollar. But the servant took the money without saying anything and left for the market.
Then the other master said to his servant, “Can you please go to my garden and see if I am there or not?”
The servant said, “Certainly, I will go there right away.”
Everybody laughed and laughed. Now it happened that the two servants met on the way to perform their respective tasks. They were very good friends and one of them said, “What can we do with our masters? They are such idiots. Because of my master, I also have to become a fool. I have such respect for my master that I carry out his orders, even if they are stupid. Today is Sunday. On Sunday he has asked me to bring back a diamond ring for him. He has given me money, but today is Sunday. How can I buy a diamond on Sunday when the stores are closed?”
The other servant said, “Look at my master! He does not know whom to ask when he wants to know if he is in the garden. Should he not ask the gardener? The gardener should find out if the master is in the garden or not. Why is he asking me? Now I have to go there to see if he is there or not.”
So both of them had made their own discoveries. They said, “They always make fun of us. They say we are fools. Now many, many people are waiting for us to return with the answers. They are waiting to see if one of us can buy the ring and the other can find out if the master is in the garden. But let us today make fools of our masters. Let us go back there in front of many people and expose our masters as fools.”
So the servants returned with folded hands. One of them said to his master, “You always laugh at me. But today you are acting like a fool.”
The master said, “Why? Did I not give you money to buy the diamond ring?”
“Yes,” the servant said. “You gave me the money. That is no problem. But don’t you know that today is Sunday? Today the stores are closed.”
Everybody laughed and laughed. Then the other servant said with folded hands, “I am so sorry. Every day you laugh at me. But today you have asked me to go into your garden to see if you are there. I wish to say that the right person to ask would be the gardener who works in the garden, and not me. The gardener will be able to see if you are there better than I can.”
All the friends and relatives laughed and laughed. Then they took a vote and the servant who asked about the gardener won.One day the rich man wanted to walk along the street in his own village and he asked his servant to follow him. It was a puja day, a festive occasion. The servant was so happy and proud that he was walking with his master on such a special day. Everybody would see that he was with his master that day.
The rich man was generous to others, but with regard to himself he was very strict. So he was wearing very simple clothes, even simpler than the servant’s. The servant said, “Master, what will people think of me if I have on more expensive clothes than you? With your money I have bought these clothes. You are rich and great. Can you not wear something nicer?”
The rich man said, “No! Everybody knows me in this village. Who cares whether I wear simple or beautiful clothes? Since everybody likes me, I don’t have to wear anything expensive. These simple clothes that I have put on are sufficient.”
So the master and servant went from one place to another in the village. They saw many people, some of whom they had never met before. Everyone was nice to them.
The rich man and servant stayed overnight at a friend’s house. The following day the rich man wanted to go to another village, wearing the same clothes.
The servant said, “Let me run back to your house and bring extra clothes for you. Otherwise, what will people think? I am your servant. Even if I wear the same clothes for two days, nobody will mind. I don’t need clean and ironed clothes. But you do need a change of clothes. You are an important man.”
The rich man said, “No, I don’t want to waste time. We are going to another village, so who cares what I wear? Nobody knows me in that village. I can wear simple things or expensive things and nobody is going to know who I am. So it is useless for you to go and bring nice clothes.”
The servant said, “Here people know you, so you don’t have to wear beautiful clothes. There people don’t know you, so you don’t have to wear nice things.”
The master said, “If you have wisdom, then you can manage with next to nothing. But if you are a fool, then you feel that you need many things. If you wear expensive things to please other people, then you are a fool. If you want to show off to your friends and neighbours, you are a fool. Again, you are a greater fool if you go to some other town and want to show absolute strangers how great you are.
“You have to be wise! Seek wisdom and not stupidity. In my own village I do not need anything since everyone knows who I am. And in another village they don’t care for me, so why do I have to impress them?”All of a sudden he was surrounded by three hooligans who shouted, “What have you got?” When they saw the necklace, they started strangling the priest and taking away the necklace. It was very easy for the three of them to take the necklace away from the poor priest.
The priest said, “Wait! You can have my necklace, but why do you have to strangle me? Why do you have to kill me? I am not resisting.”
When they stopped strangling him he said, “This necklace is just stolen loot anyway. I am giving it to you cheerfully. I am not begging you to let me keep it. You are so strong. The best thing is for you to just take it.
“I don’t feel sorry because somebody just gave this to me while I was coming back from my puja ceremony. I saw three or four people like you who had just stolen some things. They were showing what they had stolen to each other. As soon as they saw me, they said, ‘Don’t bother us. If you tell anybody that you have seen us, we shall kill you’. So I said, ‘I am not going to tell anybody’.
“They thought that I was going to send the village chief, who would bring guards and arrest them. So they threw this necklace at me to make me keep quiet.
“Now I am going home. You can have the necklace.”
The hooligans asked, “Where are these people with all the stolen things?”
The priest said, “They are straight ahead. They have very beautiful, expensive things. You perhaps cannot even imagine so much wealth!”
The hooligans said, “We are much stronger than they are. We will go and attack them.
The priest said, “I see that you people are much stronger.”
Then, out of joy and gratitude, the hooligans threw the necklace which they had just taken from the priest back at him.At one spot he saw a green field with brinjals or eggplants. When he saw the brinjals he said to his court jester, “Look, such huge and beautiful brinjals! I have never seen such big and beautiful brinjals in my life.”
The court jester said, “You are right, you are right. They are so beautiful. I can see that they are also very good, very tasty.”
The king said, “Brinjals have countless seeds. Because of the seeds, I hate brinjals.”
The servant immediately said, “I too hate brinjals. Because of the seeds I never liked them. The taste is horrible.”
The king turned to the court jester and said, “A moment ago you said that they were so nice, good and tasty. Now you are saying that they are not tasty. Why are you changing your mind?”
The court jester said, “King, you have to know that I am your servant, not the servant of a brinjal. If you say ‘good’, then I say ‘better and best’. If you say ‘bad’, then I say ‘worse and worst’. I am your perfect slave. Whatever you say, I just add to it. I want to be your perfect servant. I don’t want to become a servant of a brinjal. Who wants it, who needs it? I need only my Master, not an eggplant!”So the king asked the minister to make an announcement about what he wanted to do. Thousands of people came to the palace to get money to build a house. They all said they were homeless, and the king believed them because he knew that there were many poor people in his kingdom.
The minister was very wise. He said to the king, “You do so many things for your subjects, but many times they don’t properly use the things that you have given them out of your compassion. Often they misuse what you give them.”
“Explain this to me further,” said the king.
“Certainly I will,” said the minister. “But first I would like to ask you a question. Do you not think that if you do something for me, then I will do something for you?”
“Certainly!” said the king. “It is give and take.”
The minister said, “There are many times when we want to do things for others. But first we have to know whether or not they deserve it.”
“What do you mean?” asked the king.
The minister said, “Thousands of people have come here to get money to build houses. But let us see how many of them actually deserve it. Will you listen to my request? I want to tell them that if they work for you for two hours a day for only one week, then you will give them money for a house.”
The king said, “Who is such a fool that he will not work for two hours a day for one week to get a house? Everybody will agree. I am very happy that this is your request. I am more than ready to give them everything free, but if you want them to prove that they deserve it, I am happy that you are making such a simple request.”
“Yes,” said the minister. “One week will fly away in no time. Then we will give them money to build a house.”
O God, after the minister made the announcement, out of the thousands of people who had come, only one hundred stayed to work. The others all left because they didn’t want to work for two hours a day for one week.
The minister said to the king, “It is only these hundred who really deserve the money. I don’t really want them to work. I just wanted to see if they were willing to work. Please give them the money. These people really need the money and truly deserve it.”
So the king gave money to the hundred people who had stayed.From:Sri Chinmoy,Is your mind ready to cry? Is your heart ready to smile? part 7, Agni Press, 1981
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/mrc_7