Date: 16 FEBRUARY 2018

Time uploaded in London- 20-52

Written by London swaminathan

Post No. 4752

PICTURES ARE TAKEN from various sources.

WARNING: PLEASE SHARE MY ARTICLES; BUT DON’T SHARE IT WITHOUT AUTHOR’S NAME AND THE BLOG NAME. BE HONEST; OTHERS WILL BE HONEST WITH YOU.

There is a famous Upanishadic couplet saying that everything is controlled and owned by God. One should not be greedy to take other’s property.

There is a story to illustrate this point. There was a king who had some ego problem. He gave lot of gifts to the poets and bards and expected everyone to praise him as the Anna Data (Giver of Food). Once he called two of his beneficiaries and asked them who gave them money and everything. One of them was a sycophant and replied immediately,

Oh, My Lord, You are the one who helped me and without you people would have died of hunger.

The other person, who is a great scholar said, everything is given by God. Isavasyam Idam sarvam.

The king did not like this answer. He wanted to hear the praise of every one. But he did not dare to say it in public. The king wanted to teach him a lesson. He sent them home.

Later the king filled the inside of a big pumpkin  with costly gems and sent it to the person who praised the king. The scholar who praised god instead of the King was given two small coins. They were not of big price.

The person who received the pumpkin did not know what was inside and so he decided to sell the pumpkin. He was very dissatisfied with the king. At that time the scholar who got two coins was passing his house. The person with a big pumpkin told the scholar to take the pumpkin. He readily agreed and gave his two coins to him.

When the scholar went home, opened the pumpkin and found it was full of costly gems. Then he ran to the king and told that he got a treasure from a pumpkin. The person who sold the pumpkin was also there and he told the king that he sold it to him for two coins of lesser denomination.

The king realised his mistake and felt everything in the world was done by God and controlled by God. The king’s vanity was completely cured by this occurrence.

Unassisted by the hand of Providence, human endeavours are fruitless.

He remembered the famous first couplet of Isavasyopanishad:

Isavaasyamidam sarvam yathkinchajagathyaam jagath
Thena thyakthena bhunjeethaah, maa gridhah kasyaswid-dhanam

“All things of this world, the transitory, the evanescent, are enveloped by the Lord who is the real Reality of each. Therefore, they have to be used with reverent renunciation, without covetousness or greed for they belong to the Lord and not to any one person”.

–Subham–