Based on the book “Perennial Wisdom through Stories” by Swami Ananda Saraswati
Early in the morning, long before the Sun had risen, a fisherman went to the river nearby with his nets. He sat down by the banks, and knowing that he had to wait until dawn to start catching fish was looking for some opportunity to spend his time. As he moved his feet along the sand, he hit something that felt like a pouch of stones. He bent, picked it up and started throwing one stone after another into the river. He threw one stone, imagined its travel in the air, waited for it to fall into the river and once he heard the “plop” of the stone hitting the water, he threw in the next one.
One by one as the stones were spent, time went by. At dawn, he was left with all but one stone in his hand. Alas to the fisherman’s surprise the sun’s rays revealed that what he held in his hand was no ordinary stone. On the contrary, he was holding a precious gem. It dawned upon him that he has thrown away a whole pouch of precious gems in complete darkness. He kept the remaining one, thanked God for the blessing, got up and threw his net into the river for the daily catch.
Be Aware of the many ‘precious stones’ we throw away in the Darkness of our Ignorance.
Compiled by Anantha Padmanabhan