There was once a king who was a follower of a Saint. Once, the Saint asked him to show him his treasure. The king felt very happy and personally took him to show him his rich treasure, which was a huge collection of diamonds, rubies and other precious stones.
The Saint asked, “How much profit do you make from these stones?”
The king said, “Nothing. In fact, I have to spend a lot on keeping a tight security around them.”
To this, the Saint replied, “Let me show you a stone even more precious than these.”
And they set off. After a long walk, they reached the house of an old widow who was grinding wheat to make flour using a grind-stone.
The Saint smiled and said to the king, “This stone makes flour for hungry people and also helps this old lady make a living. Isn’t this more precious than all of your stones? There is a great difference between being expensive and being useful. What you call precious is only expensive; those stones have no value otherwise. This old rugged grind-stone is helping people make a living while your stones are wasting a lot of money unnecessarily just on security.”
Image: A painting by renowned artist Shashikant Dhotre, from his Facebook page.