<Prev |  Next>

Once, there lived an elderly man who had wealth aplenty. He wished to invest some capital and wanted to distribute the interest out of it amongst the blind, mentally imbalanced, cancer victims and the like. He divided his wealth for the noble causes of education, for the welfare of the sick, and to serve the sadhus who renunciated the world to realize God. The old man institutionalized charity trusts for each of these causes. He advised that the wealth should be utilized for these causes and attained the lotus feet of God.

Thereupon his son donated money as per his father’s wish. He too attained the holy feet of the Lord. The mantle then descended to the grandson. He thought “Grandpa has documented his will for charity. I’m donating money to the saints. But how do I differentiate between the real saint and the fake ones? Could I ever find whether one has seen God? I would not even know whether he austerely performs Japa (chanting the Name of God). Mere outward look seldom reflects the inner self of a person”

He thought so and said to an elder, “We can donate to the sick; we can donate for the cause of education. But my grandfather has established a charity trust to serve the sadhus. He has said that the wealth from this trust should be given to the sadhus. But it is impossible to find a true sadhu. Therefore I shall stop this charity. “

The elder told him, “ You should not stop the charity. You need not analyse whether the sadhu is true or fake. Your grandfather had real love for sadhus. He had a very high regard for sadhus and felt that sadhus should not suffer due to hunger and so institutionalized this trust. His good thoughts would take the money to the right sadhu.”

The grandson had no faith in what the elder said. In order to teach him the truth, the elder immediately told him, “Bring two pumpkins. Cut one of them and place gold coins in them. Then glue them together. Keep the other pumpkin as such.  I shall go and fetch the true sadhu.” I shall also bring a fake man in the attire of a sadhu. See what happens.” He enquired and brought a true sadhu . Likewise, he also brought a fake one dressed as a sadhu who had no character. The elder told the grandson to give the pumpkin with gold coins to the fake sadhu and the ordinary pumpkin to the real sadhu. He told the grandson to see what happens.

The sadhus walked for some distance. The fake man was intuited to threaten the real sadhu to exchange their pumpkins. The real sadhu just gave off the pumpkin in hand and received the other pumpkin in exchange as he was not concerned at all about which pumpkin he received. The grandson who was watching all this was surprised ! The fake one was dissatisfied with the pumpkin in hand and the real sadhu got the pumpkin with gold coins finally. He thought, “What could be the reason for this?”

The reason for this is not the people in the scene. The founder of the trust did not start the institution for advertising. He did not start the institution just because he had money. He felt that the hard earned money should be used to serve the real sadhus. This thought seed conducted this good act.

<Prev |  Next>

Home • e-MM • Contact

Radhe Krishna