LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP

LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP

Once a fox was roaming around in the dark. Unfortunately, he fell into a well. He tried his level best to come out but all in vain.

  

So, he had no other alternative but to remain there till the next morning.

  

The next day, a goat came that way. She peeped into the well and saw the fox there. The goat asked "what are you doing there, Mr. Fox?"

  

The sly fox replied, "I came here to drink water. It is the best I have ever tasted. Come and see for yourself."

  

Without thinking even for a while, the goat jumped into the well, quenched her thirst and looked for a way to get out. But just like the fox, she also found herself helpless to come out.

Then the fox said, "I have an idea. You stand on your hind legs. I'll climb on your head and get out. Then I shall help you come out too."

  

The goat was innocent enough to understand the shrewdness of the fox and did as the fox said and help him get out of the well.

 While walking away, the fox said, "Had you been intelligent enough, you would never have got in without seeing how to get out."

That's why we say, "Look before you leap".

GREED-A CURSE

Once upon a time there lived a cloth merchant in a village with his wife and two children. They were indeed quite well-off. They had a beautiful hen which laid an egg everyday.

It was not an ordinary egg, rather, a golden egg. But the man was not satisfied with what he used to get daily. He was a get rich-trice kind of a person.

  

The man wanted to get all the golden eggs from his hen at one single go. So, one day he thought hard and at last clicked upon a plan. He decided to kill the hen and get all the eggs together.

 So, the next day when the hen laid a golden egg, the man caught hold of it, took a sharp knife, chopped off its neck and cut its body open.

There was nothing but blood all around & no trace of any egg at all. He was highly grieved because now he would not get even one single egg.

His life was going on smoothly with one egg a day but now, he himself made his life miserable. The outcome of his greed was that he started becoming poorer & poorer day by day and ultimately became a pauper. How jinxed and how much foolish he was.

So, the moral of the story is- one who desires more, looses all. One should remain satisfied with what one gets. 

The old fisherman

The old fisherman

Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms to out-patients at the clinic.
One summer evening as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly awful looking man. "Why, he's hardly taller than my eight-year-old," I thought as I stared at the stooped, shriveled body. But the appalling thing was his face ... lopsided from swelling, red and raw. Yet his voice was pleasant as he said, "Good evening. I've come to see if you've a room for just one night. I came for a treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and there's no bus 'til morning." He told me he'd been hunting for a room since noon but with no success. No one seemed to have a room. "I guess it's my face ... I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments..."



For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me. "I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch. My bus leaves early in the morning." I told him we would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch. I went inside and finished getting supper. When we were ready, I asked the old man if he would join us. "No thank you. I have plenty." And he held up a brown paper bag. When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him for a few minutes. It didn't take long time to see that this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body. He told me he fished for a living to support his daughter, her five children, and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury.



He didn't tell it by way of complaint. In fact, every other sentence was preface with a thanks to God for a blessing. He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease, which was apparently a form of skin cancer. He thanked God for giving him the strength to keep going. At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the children's room for him. When I got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded and the little man was out on the porch. He refused breakfast. But just before he left for his bus, haltingly, as if asking a great favor, he said, "Could I please come back and stay the next time I have a treatment? I won't put you out a bit. I can sleep fine in a chair." He paused a moment and then added, "Your children made me feel at home. Grownups are bothered by my face, but children don't seem to mind."
I told him he was welcome to come again.



On his next trip he arrived a little after seven in the morning. As a gift, he brought a big fish and a quart of the largest oysters I had ever seen. He said he had shucked them that morning before he left so that they'd be nice and fresh. I knew his bus left at 4:00 a.m. and I wondered what time he had to get up in order to do this for us.
During the years he came to stay overnight with us, there was never a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden. Other times we received packages in the mail, always by special delivery ... fish and oysters packed in a box with fresh young spinach or kale ... every leaf carefully washed. Knowing that he must walk three miles to mail these, and knowing how little money he had made the gifts doubly precious.

When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a comment our next-door neighbor made after he left that first morning. "Did you keep that awful looking man last night? I turned him away! You can lose roomers by putting up such people!"
Maybe we did lose roomers once or twice. But oh! If only they could have known him, perhaps their illness' would have been easier to bear. I know our family will always be grateful to have known him. From him, we learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude to God.

  

The Sweet Mangoes

The Sweet Mangoes

  

Once there was a man who liked to eat mangoes. One day he decided to get the sweetest mango available, from the very top of the tree. Mangoes which are exposed to the sun the most are the sweetest.

So he climbed up to the top, where the branches were thin. He managed to pick up a few sweet reddish fruits, but, in an attempt to climb down, he slipped and started falling towards the ground. Fortunately, he caught the branch as he was falling and remained helplessly hanging on the tree.

Then he started to call nearby villagers for help. They immediately came with a ladder and sticks, but could do little to help him.

Then after some time one calm and thoughtful person arrived – a well-known sage who lived in a simple hut nearby. People were very curious to see what he would do, as he was famous in solving many people’s problems in the area and sometimes very complicated ones.

He was silent for a minute and then picked up a stone and threw it at the hanging man.

Everybody was surprised. The hanging mango lover started to shout:

“What are you doing?! Are you crazy? Do you want me to break my neck?” The sage was silent. Then he took another stone and threw it at the man. The man was furious: “If I could just come down, I would show you.! ”

That’s what everybody wanted. That he came down. But how? Now everybody was tense, as to what would happen next! Some wanted to chastise the sage, but they didn’t. The sage picked another stone and threw it again at the man, even more forcefully.

Now the man on the tree was enraged and developed a great determination to come down and take revenge.

He then used all his skill and strength and somehow reached the branches which were safe to start going down. And he made it! Everybody was amazed.

“Where is the sage?!” – exclaimed the rescued man. “Oh, he is a wise man. So he didn’t wait for you to beat him,”- said the villagers. “I will really smash him completely!” “Hey, wait a minute. He is the only one who helped you. He is the one who provoked you, who induced you to help yourself.”

The mango freak stopped for a second, thought for a moment and admitted: “Yes, all your good intentions and compassion didn’t help me. But he expertly induced me to give my best and save myself. I should be thankful and not angry.”

  

The Curse of The Bullock

Long time ago, in a small village lived an old woman with her daughter. While the old woman was hard working, her daughter was lazy and selfish. They had a bullock. “We should take proper care of our bullock.” The old woman would say. “Hah! Animals should serve us, not we serve them,” the daughter would reply.

There was a pond, at some distance from the old woman’s house. Every afternoon, she used to take the bullock to the pond to have a bath and to drink water. Meanwhile the lazy daughter would eat and sleep.

One day, the old woman fell ill. She requested her daughter to take the bullock to the pond. “It is very hot today, dear! The bullock must be thirsty,” said the old woman. “Look! I have some sweets here.

I know you love sweets, dear. Take the bullock for a drink. While he is drinking water, you can eat these sweets,” the old woman added, handing a box of sweets to her daughter. The greedy girl agreed.


But as soon as she was out of her mother’s sight, the lazy girl tied the bullock to a tree and sat down to eat the sweets. The thirsty bullocks waited for the daughter to finish eating the sweets. “I hope she eats fast.

I am really thirsty,” thought the bullock. But after having eaten all the sweets, the daughter returned home and lied to her mother that she had taken the bullock to the pond and that the bullock drank water from the pond.


The bullock was extremely angry. He cursed the daughter, “In your next birth, you may be born as a Chatak, a bird that drinks water when only it rains. As you kept me thirsty today, so will you remain thirsty.”

The Curse of The Bullock came true. In her next birth, the daughter was born a Chatak. It is said that a Chatak is a bird that waits for rains, remaining thirsty throughout the year, despite having water all around.  

Bad Temper

There once was a little boy who had a bad temper. His father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence.

  

The first day, the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence.

 Finally the day came when the boy didn't lose his temper at all. He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper.

The days passed and the boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone.

  

The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He said, "You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same.

  

When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won't matter how many times you say I'm sorry. The wound is still there."

A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one.  

The Bone in Throat

Once upon a time, there was a lazy wolf living in a jungle. Near his house was a pond. Many animals came to the pond to drink water. The wolf was always in search of food.


One day, he was sitting near the pond hoping to get something to eat. When suddenly he spotted a dead bull. “Aha! What a luck! Now I can eat all I want,” he thought and his mouth strated watering.


He began to eat the bull. A thought struck him, “if another beast comes this way he will ask for a share. I had better eat fast.” ‘Grub! Grub! Grub! Grub1’ he chewed, faster and faster.


In his haste, a piece of bone got stuck in his throat. “Ohh! Errk!” cried the wolf. He tried to bring it out of his mouth. He tried to cough it out but in vain. Next, he tried to swallow it down but he failed.


“Ooh, the bone in throat hurts. What shall I do now?” thought the wolf. Suddenly he remembered that a crane lived on the nearby riverbank.

The wolf went to the crane and pleaded, “My dear Crane! I have got a bone stuck in my throat. I will give you a present, if you pull it out of my throat with your long beak.”


The crane took pity on the wolf. He asked the wolf to look up with his mouth open. The crane then put its head into the wolf’s mouth and pulled out the bone.


“Oh! What a relief!” the wolf sighed.


“Now where is my present?” asked the crane.


“What present?” the wolf replied, pretending not aware of its promise.


“You said that you would give me a present if I remove the bone from your throat,” said the crane humbly.


“Hah! Is it not a present that you put your head into my mouth and got out alive? I could have easily crushed your head while your beak was inside my mouth,” said the ungrateful wolf and went away.
The crane felt helpless and decided not to help any ungrateful creature in the future. 

The Bonded Donkey

In a small village, there lived a potter. He had a donkey. Everyday his donkey would carry soil from the field to his house. Since the field was quite far off, the potter would rest under a tree midway, tying his donkey nearby.

One day, the potter forgot to take the rope with which he tied the donkey everyday. When he reached the tree, he thought, “How do I tie this donkey today? He might run away if I sleep.

“The potter decided to tie down holding the donkey’s ears so that the donkey would not run away.

But this way neither the donkey was comfortable nor the potter was able to take rest. A saint, who happened to be passing by, saw the potter holding on to the donkey’s ears. Then the saint wanted to know what the problem of the potter was.

When the potter told the saint what the problem was, the wise saint said, “Take the donkey to the place where you tie him everyday. Pretend to tie him using an imaginary rope. I assure you he won’t run away.” The potter did what the saint had said.

He left the donkey and went to take a nap. When he woke up, to his surprise and relief, he found the donkey standing in the same place.

Soon the potter prepared to leave for home. But the donkey did not move. “What is wrong with this donkey!” exclaimed the potter in frustration.

Luckily, the potter saw the wise saint again. He ran up to the saint and told him about the donkey’s strange behavior. The saint said, “You tied up the donkey, but did you untie him?” Go and pretend to untie the rope with which you had tied the donkey.” The potter followed the saint’s advice.

Now the donkey was ready to leave for home. The potter understood that donkey was the bonded donkey. The potter thanked the wise saint and went home happily with his donkey.  

The Arrogant Swans

In a far away kingdom, there was a river. This river was home to many golden swans. The swans spent most of their time on the banks of the river.

  

Every six months, the swans would leave a golden feather as a fee for using the lake. The soldiers of the kingdom would collect the feathers and deposit them in the royal treasury.

  

One day, a homeless bird saw the river. “The water in this river seems so cool and soothing. I will make my home here,” thought the bird.

  

As soon as the bird settled down near the river, the golden swans noticed her. They came shouting. “This river belongs to us. We pay a golden feather to the King to use this river. You can not live here.”

  

“I am homeless, brothers. I too will pay the rent. Please give me shelter,” the bird pleaded. “How will you pay the rent? You do not have golden feathers,” said the swans laughing.

  

They further added, “Stop dreaming and leave once.” The humble bird pleaded many times. But the arrogant swans drove the bird away.

  

“I will teach them a lesson!” decided the humiliated bird.

  

She went to the King and said, “O King! The swans in your river are impolite and unkind. I begged for shelter but they said that they had purchased the river with golden feathers.”

  

The King was angry with the arrogant swans for having insulted the homeless bird. He ordered his soldiers to bring the arrogant swans to his court. In no time, all the golden swans were brought to the King’s court.

 “Do you think the royal treasury depends upon your golden feathers? You can not decide who lives by the river. Leave the river at once or you all will be beheaded!” shouted the King.

The swans shivered with fear on hearing the King. They flew away never to return. The bird built her home near the river and lived there happily forever. The bird gave shelter to all other birds in the river.