Love you over and over

A young boy lived in a village with his uncle who was a grumpy old man who never expressed any affection for his nephew. The boy's parents had died when he was a baby and the uncle was his only family. He often felt lonely and would watch with great sadness when walking through the village and seeing a mother who held her child's hand or put her arm around his shoulders or spoke gentle words of love and affection. The boy wished that just once someone would speak to him such words of endearment and affirmation.

One day he walked far from the village and found a place in a valley surrounded by mountains. He watched a bird flying high above him and out of loneliness cried out, "I love you." To his great surprise, he heard "I love you" over and over, and each time it was repeated, it grew fainter and fainter. The boy did not know it was an echo. Then he shouted, "You are so good" and again the echo reverberated the message many times. After that the boy often came to this spot and would call out, just to hear a positive message of love returned to his ear.

Years later he would tell the story to his own son, explaining that he thought at the time that God was speaking to him and providing him with the kind and affectionate words that he so desperately wanted to hear. The lonely sad boy was now a father who held his own child's hand, put his arm around his shoulder, and spoke gentle loving words to him. And he taught his son to always remember that what we give out in goodness comes back to us many times over

Forgiveness: A Lesson From Buddha

The Buddha was sitting under a tree talking to his disciples when a man came and spit on his face. He wiped it off, and he asked the man, “What next? What do you want to say next?” The man was a little puzzled because he himself never expected that when you spit on somebody’s face, he will ask, “What next?” He had no such experience in his past. He had insulted people and they had become angry and they had reacted. Or if they were cowards and weaklings, they had smiled, trying to bribe the man. But Buddha was like neither, he was not angry nor in any way offended, nor in any way cowardly. But just matter-of-factly he said, “What next?” There was no reaction on his part.
Buddha’s disciples became angry, they reacted. His closest disciple, Ananda, said, “This is too much, and we cannot tolerate it. He has to be punished for it. Otherwise everybody will start doing things like this.”
Buddha said, “You keep silent. He has not offended me, but you are offending me. He is new, a stranger. He must have heard from people something about me, that this man is an atheist, a dangerous man who is throwing people off their track, a revolutionary, a corrupter. And he may have formed some idea, a notion of me. He has not spit on me, he has spit on his notion. He has spit on his idea of me because he does not know me at all, so how can he spit on me?
“If you think on it deeply,” Buddha said, “he has spit on his own mind. I am not part of it, and I can see that this poor man must have something else to say because this is a way of saying something. Spitting is a way of saying something. There are moments when you feel that language is impotent: in deep love, in intense anger, in hate, in prayer. There are intense moments when language is impotent. Then you have to do something. When you are angry, intensely angry, you hit the person, you spit on him, you are saying something. I can understand him. He must have something more to say, that’s why I’m asking, “What next?”
The man was even more puzzled! And Buddha said to his disciples, “I am more offended by you because you know me, and you have lived for years with me, and still you react.”
Puzzled, confused, the man returned home. He could not sleep the whole night. When you see a Buddha, it is difficult, impossible to sleep again the way you used to sleep before. Again and again he was haunted by the experience. He could not explain it to himself, what had happened. He was trembling all over and perspiring. He had never come across such a man; he shattered his whole mind and his whole pattern, his whole past.
The next morning he was back there. He threw himself at Buddha’s feet. Buddha asked him again, “What next? This, too, is a way of saying something that cannot be said in language. When you come and touch my feet, you are saying something that cannot be said ordinarily, for which all words are a little narrow; it cannot be contained in them.” Buddha said, “Look, Ananda, this man is again here, he is saying something. This man is a man of deep emotions.”
The man looked at Buddha and said, “Forgive me for what I did yesterday.”
Buddha said, “Forgive? But I am not the same man to whom you did it. The Ganges goes on flowing, it is never the same Ganges again. Every man is a river. The man you spit upon is no longer here. I look just like him, but I am not the same, much has happened in these twenty-four hours! The river has flowed so much. So I cannot forgive you because I have no grudge against you.”
“And you also are new. I can see you are not the same man who came yesterday because that man was angry and he spit, whereas you are bowing at my feet, touching my feet. How can you be the same man? You are not the same man, so let us forget about it. Those two people, the man who spit and the man on whom he spit, both are no more. Come closer. Let us talk of something else.”

The Blind Boy

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: ‘I am blind, please help.’ There were only a few coins in the hat.
A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words.
He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.
Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, ‘Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?’
The man said, ‘I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way.’
What he had written was: ‘Today is a beautiful day and I cannot see it.’
Do you think the first sign and the second sign were saying the same thing?
Of course both signs told people the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was blind. The second sign told people they were so lucky that they were not blind.
Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?
Moral of the Story: Be thankful for what you have.Be creative. Be innovative. Think differently and positively.

The Caliph and the New Clothes – An Eid Story

Two little boys came running to their mother with a request. “Jarir and Mughiz have both got new clothes for Eid. Can we have some new clothes as well?”
Their mother, Fatima bint Abdul Malik, was no ordinary woman. Her father, grandfather and each of her four brothers were at one time or another Caliph and leader of the believers. In fact, her own husband was the present Caliph, Umar ibn Abdul Aziz – who ruled the world’s largest empire that stretched from the Atlantic to the Indian oceans. She promised them that she would check with their father to see if the two princes could have new clothes for Eid.
When Umar ibn Abdul Aziz returned home, his wife related the children’s request to him. The Caliph had a pained look in his eyes. “Fatima, you know how much I value my children, but all the money I have is in front of you”, he said motioning towards the sparsely furnished hut.
Though a Caliph, Umar took care to live honestly and did much to ensure justice. Fatima agreed with her husband, but she said that maybe it would be possible to buy very cheap clothes for the children and they’d just be happy with something new to wear. Finally, the Caliph agreed and wrote a letter to his treasurer requesting that his pay be advanced a month early so that he could buy his children something to wear on Eid.
But the honest and pious Caliph had an equally honest treasurer. The reply he got was this: “Amir Ul-Mumineen, I have great respect for you and I trust and obey you completely. However, if you could guarantee to me that you will live through the next month and do your service to the people (which will entitle you to your pay) then the money can be advanced to you. If you cannot give the assurance of your life, then how can the treasury pay you?”
Caliph Umar ibn Abdul Aziz realised his mistake. Fatima bint Abdul Malik, washed her children’s old tattered clothes for Eid day and sent them out to play. One has to wonder if they were made from the same dust as us.
Once we (Muslims) were kings on this Earth, but it wasn’t because we were large in number that we were respected. It wasn’t because we were powerful that we were victorious. It wasn’t because we were successful that we were admired. It wasn’t because our women were beautiful that they were treated with honour and dignity. It wasn’t because we were intelligent that our example was emulated. It was all due to the faith of Islam. Sometimes, it’s worthwhile reflecting on how far we’ve fallen so we know how high we need to climb.
Eid Mubarak everyone.

For the rulers of today

The Story of Hazrat Abdul Aziz RA and the Pearl
The story is told of the Caliph Hazrat Abdul Aziz RA that he had a pearl of great beauty and value set in a ring.
Shortly after, a severe drought occurred, causing great distress among the people. Moved by compassion, the king ordered the pearl be sold and the money it fetched to be given to the poor.

Someone chided him for doing this, saying, “Never again will such a stone come into thy hands.”

Weeping, the king replied, “Ugly is an ornament upon the person of a king when the hearts of his people are distressed by want. Better for me is a stoneless ring than a sorrowing people.”


Happy is he who sets the ease of others above his own. The virtuous desire not their own pleasure at the expense of others. When kings sleep neglectfully upon their couches, I do not trust that beggars find enviable repose.