About Wellsprings

This site is a cluster of wellsprings. Wellsprings of heartwarming anecdotes, stirring stories, age-old fables, epic tales, mythical musings, good deeds, life's lessons, inspiring insights, and much more. None of these are our own but they have something for all of us. That's why we have taken the liberty of putting them together, acknowledging the source or the author wherever we could.

  • The real and the ideal

    When a Zen master was weeping at the funeral of his favourite disciple, a young monk who saw him took him to task, saying, “I would have thought that you were beyond…

  • The song of eternity

    A monk was walking in the monastery grounds one day when he heard a bird sing. He listened, spellbound. It seemed to him that never before had he heard, but really heard,…

  • Unanswered prayer

    In ancient India much store was set by the Vedic rites, which were said to be so scientific  in their application that when the sages prayed for rain there was never any…

  • Prayers all

    The village priest was a holy man so each time the people were in trouble they had recourse to him. He would then withdraw to a special place in the forest and…

  • Prayer from the heart

    Late one evening a poor farmer on his way back from the market found himself without his prayer book. The wheel of his cart had come off right in the middle of…

  • Prayer in a sigh

    A cobbler came to Rabbi Issac of Ger and said: “Tell me what to do about my morning prayer.  My customers are poor men who have only one pair of shoes.  I…

  • Depart as friends

    When Earl Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, announced that his nephew, Prince Philip, was engaged to Princess Elizabeth, Mahatma Gandhi said to him, “I am delighted that your nephew is going…

  • Going higher

    It intrigued the congregation to see that their rabbi disappeared each week on the eve of the Sabbath. They suspected that he was secretly meeting the Almighty, so they deputed one of…

  • The truth

    A soldier was asked to rush back home from the battle front because his father was seriously ill. He was permitted to leave as he was all that his father had. When the…

  • The bad coin

    There was once an old Sufi who earned his living by selling all sorts of odds and ends.  It seemed as if the man had no judgment because people would frequently pay…