What is the quality that keeps us rooted in the reality of the present? Bhagawan lovingly reminds us through a little story today.
Contentment, humility, detachment – these keep you on the path of Truth. A street-hawker had on his head a basket full of empty bottles, as he walked along to the bazaar. He hoped to sell the lot at a profit of ten rupees and, in ten days, he calculated his earnings would have accumulated to a hundred rupees. With that as capital, he planned to switch on to more profitable deals, so that he imagined he could make a pile of a lakh of rupees in a few months and build a bungalow with a lovely garden tended by a regiment of servants, beaming all round the house. There, he saw himself on a sofa in the greenery playing with his grandchildren. As he was engrossed in that charming scene, suddenly he saw among his grandchildren, the children of one of the servants; he got angry at this unwanted intrusion. Believing his fantasy to be a reality, he suddenly grabbed the child and gave it a swift hefty push, only to find that the basket of bottles had fallen on the road and all hopes of even the ten rupees lost! That was the end of a dream built on the slender basis of greed.
– Divine Discourse, Oct 24, 1965.
Contentment cannot be won by the ignorant one, who piles one wish on another and builds one plan after another, who pines perpetually, worries always, and sets the heart ablaze with greed. – BABA
