A person was advised by a holy man to gift a vegetable a day and told that he would attain great merit by doing so.
The poor man strictly followed the advice. After death, he was reborn in a royal family and grew up to become a king. He was able to recall what he had done in his past birth. So, he continued to gift a vegetable a day.
Surprisingly, after death, he was reborn as a beggar. The man was unable to comprehend the reason and so sought the advice of the holy man who had earlier blessed him.
From the sage, he learnt that prior to becoming a king he had been very poor and so a gift of a vegetable a day was sufficient to give him a lot of virtue. On the other hand, as a king he was endowed with prosperity. So, thereafter, the gift of just a vegetable a day was quite insufficient to earn him merit of any consequence.
The person realized that the extent of charity needed to earn a certain degree of merit depends upon one's financial status!!
"The value of a man resides in what he gives and not in what he is capable of receiving." - Albert Einstein
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Coffee & Cups
A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor.
Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.
Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to hot coffee.
When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: 'If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is but normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups and were eyeing each other's cups. Now if life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, but the quality of Life doesn't change. Some times, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee in it.' Don't let the cups drive you... Enjoy the coffee instead…
THINK SIMPLY. THINK WISELY. SPEAK THE TRUTH
BE BLESSED & BE A BLESSING TO OTHERS !!!
Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.
Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to hot coffee.
When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: 'If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is but normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups and were eyeing each other's cups. Now if life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, but the quality of Life doesn't change. Some times, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee in it.' Don't let the cups drive you... Enjoy the coffee instead…
THINK SIMPLY. THINK WISELY. SPEAK THE TRUTH
BE BLESSED & BE A BLESSING TO OTHERS !!!
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