Story of Vysya - Helping Others

- We should drown our selfishness in love, but in helping the poor and doing such things we should never fall into the danger of priding ourselves on that account. We are simply instruments, not free agents.

- In a certain village there was once an old woman, who lived by preparing and selling cakes. She would set about her business punctually at 4AM every day. She had a hen which announced to her the break of the day as punctually, so much so that in course of time she gradually got into the belief that day would not break unless her hen raised its trumpet voice. One day, it so happened that the village boys offended her. She vowed vengeance and said, "Very well, these little fellows do not know who am I. I shall move with my hen to the next village and see how the day would break here; let the fellows suffer an eternal night. These little fellows offend me!"

- She did as she vowed that very night, and the next day, when someone came to the second village from the first, she said to them "You see, if you had appeased me, all this would have been avoided; poor men, I pity you; You have to suffer eternal night." They asked what the matter was and she replied, "Why, I have brought my hen here and so the day would not have broken in your place." It is needless to add that the men had a hearty laugh at the idiotic woman's self importance.

- A similar mistake all of us are committing; we think that, but for us, such and such a thing would never happen; we die but the world goes on all the same. We should warn ourselves against such mistakes.