পথ হারা পথিক

Once there was a king who had presented his
daughter, the princess, with a beautiful diamond
necklace. The necklace was stolen and his people
in the kingdom searched everywhere but could
not find it. Some said a bird might have stolen it.
The king then asked them all to search for it and
put a reward for $50,000 for anyone who found
it.
One day a clerk was walking home along a river
next to an industrial area. This river was
completely polluted, filthy and smelly. As he was
walking, the clerk saw a shimmering in the river
and when he looked, he saw the diamond
necklace. He decided to try and catch it so that he
could get the $50,000 reward. He put his hand in
the filthy, dirty river and grabbed at the necklace,
but some how missed it and didn't catch it. He
took his hand out and looked again and the
necklace was still there. He tried again, this time
he walked in the river and dirtied his pants in the
filthy river and put his whole arm in to catch the
necklace. But strangely, he still missed the
necklace! He came out and started walking away,
feeling depressed.
Then again he saw the necklace, right there. This
time he was determined to get it, no matter what.
He decided to plunge into the river, although it
was a disgusting thing to do as the river was
polluted, and his whole body would become
filthy. He plunged in, and searched everywhere
for the necklace and yet he failed. This time he
was really bewildered and came out feeling very
depressed that he could not get the necklace that
would get him $50,000.
Just then a saint who was walking by, saw him,
and asked him what was the matter. The clerk
didn't want to share the secret with the saint,
thinking the saint might take the necklace for
himself, so he refused to tell the saint anything.
But the saint could see this man was troubled and
being compassionate, again asked the clerk to tell
him the problem and promised that he would not
tell anyone about it. The clerk mustered some
courage and decided to put some faith in the
saint. He told the saint about the necklace and
how he tried and tried to catch it, but kept failing.
The saint then told him that perhaps he should
try looking upward, toward the branches of the
tree, instead of in the filthy river. The clerk looked
up and true enough, the necklace was dangling
on the branch of a tree. He had been trying to
capture a mere reflection of the real necklace all
this time.


Moral of the story: Material happiness is just
like the filthy, polluted river; because it is a mere
reflection of the TRUE happiness in the spiritual
world.
We can never achieve the happiness we are
looking for no matter how hard we endeavor in
material life. Instead we should look upwards,
toward God, who is the source of real happiness,
and stop chasing after the reflection of this
happiness in the material world. This spiritual
happiness is the only thing that can satisfy us
completely.