________________
Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
163
The wife said, "Very good. Do day I will not prepare food for you."
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
as you wish. To
The priest went to the palace to preach and to read out the prayers. While he was reading out the prayers he was endeavouring to please his listeners and he never thought of God. After the prayer was over the dinner began. Various excellent dishes had been placed on tables. People sat on the chairs to eat food but all got up after having eaten two or three mouthfuls. The priest felt sad because social etiquette required that he too should get up with them otherwise the people there would think that he did not care for good manners and social formalities. He thought that they might laugh thinking that he must have been starving for days. So, he had to get up from his table though he did not like it. At once, he ran home and said to his wife, "Dear wife, I am dying with hunger. So, prepare food immediately and serve it to me."
The wife said, "Why? Were you not satisfied with the food served at the royal dinner?"
He narrated to her what had happened and why he had returned home so soon. The wife was a clever woman. She said, "Please read out the prayers once more. There you read the prayers to please the emperor and his guests and just to exhibit your way of reading out the prayers. Your objective was not to please god. Your prayers could not reach God and so the royal dinner could not reach your stomach. Now you read the prayers in such a way that they will reach God and if you do so I will food for you." The moral of this story is prepare that if you perform austerities, only to show off they will not reach the soul and they will not influence the soul.
For Private And Personal Use Only
He whose soul is pure and simple easily enters the needle-eye of dharma. We pass the thread through the eye of the needle before stitching anything. As long as the thread is pure and clean it keeps running through the needle's eye. But, if there is a knot in the thread, it impedes the movement of the thread. Our soul also cannot
