Tests are Important
There once lived a very godly man in a village. He was a gentle soul who always wished everyone well. But some of the villagers wanted to humiliate the holy man. They gathered some discarded, beat up old shoes and strung them together with thread, fashioning a sort of shoe garland. When the holy man was out one day, they hung the garland above the door to his house.
They thought, "This crazy fellow is always intoxicated with God; he won't even notice what we have done. When the shoes hit him on the head, we will all enjoy a good laugh." Sure enough, when Venkatnath was about to enter his house, the shoe garland fell on his head. The culprits expected the holy man to be enraged by this and to come after them. Instead, he started laughing and said, "My Lord! You are so merciful to me. You have given me the foot-dust of your devotees as protection."
When someone insults you, there are two possible reactions you can have. You can lash out at the offender, or you can gain something positive from the experience. If there were no opposition in your life, you would never be tested. And if you are never tested, how can you gauge your level of spiritual progress? If you remain calm despite there being every reason in the world for you to get angry, you have succeeded. If you refuse to hate despite there being a valid reason to hate, you have won. You should not desire for life to be free of tests. These tests prove our true mettle and shape us into better individuals.
There once lived a very godly man in a village. He was a gentle soul who always wished everyone well. But some of the villagers wanted to humiliate the holy man. They gathered some discarded, beat up old shoes and strung them together with thread, fashioning a sort of shoe garland. When the holy man was out one day, they hung the garland above the door to his house.
They thought, "This crazy fellow is always intoxicated with God; he won't even notice what we have done. When the shoes hit him on the head, we will all enjoy a good laugh." Sure enough, when Venkatnath was about to enter his house, the shoe garland fell on his head. The culprits expected the holy man to be enraged by this and to come after them. Instead, he started laughing and said, "My Lord! You are so merciful to me. You have given me the foot-dust of your devotees as protection."
When someone insults you, there are two possible reactions you can have. You can lash out at the offender, or you can gain something positive from the experience. If there were no opposition in your life, you would never be tested. And if you are never tested, how can you gauge your level of spiritual progress? If you remain calm despite there being every reason in the world for you to get angry, you have succeeded. If you refuse to hate despite there being a valid reason to hate, you have won. You should not desire for life to be free of tests. These tests prove our true mettle and shape us into better individuals.
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