Once, two persons were sitting near a temple, talking with each other. It was getting dark and cloudy. By then, another person came there and asked if he can join them. They said ‘Oh! With pleasure.’
As the three continued their banter, it started to rain. They were stuck. The third guy felt hungry and told the other two. “Oh, we are hungry too,” they said.
“He has 3 rotis and I have 5. Let all of us share,” said the second guy. Then a question arose as to how to share the 8 rotis among the three of them equally.
The first person suggested, “Let’s make three pieces out of each roti. Then 3×8 we will have 24 pieces. Then we three can have 8 pieces each.”
Everyone liked the idea. They made 24 pieces and ate 8 pieces each and satisfied their hunger and all of them slept off.
In the morning, the third person thanked the other two for allowing him to spend time with them and felt grateful to them for sharing rotis and being helpful. Out of happiness, he gave 8 gold coins to them and went his way.
After he left, the first person said, “OK, let’s take 4 coins each and go. The second person said, “Since I shared 5 rotis I should get 5 gold coins and you gave 3 rotis you should get only 3 gold coins.”
Slowly the arguments grew and ended up in a big fight. They went to the village head for justice. The head said, “Leave the coins with me and I will think it over and give the judgement tomorrow.”
In the night, God appears in the dream of the village head and asked him what justice he is going to deliver in the morning. The village head said, “The second person’s stand of 5:3 appears logical to me.”
To that God laughed and said, “You did not carefully analyse their narration. As per my justice, the first person must get one gold coin only and the second person must get 7 gold coins.” The village head was surprised.
God explained, “The first person no doubt made nine pieces out of his three rotis but ate off 8 pieces himself and shared one piece only. The second person made 15 pieces from his 5 rotis and gave away 7 pieces for sharing. Hence 1:7 sharing is my calculation and my justice.” The village head accordingly delivered the justice the next day and explained the rationale to all.
From the above story, we need to understand the way we look at things and God looks at things is totally different. From what we have and from out of it how much we are willing to share with others is what God looks at.
A donation of Rs. 100 from someone having Rs. 1000 is valued more by God than a donation of Rs. 3 lakhs from someone having Rs. 30 crore. It is not important how much we have but how much of it we share with others.
Image of Hindu God Indra on postage stamp issued by Laos in 1974, courtesy: Eli at https://www.stampboards.com/