Story 94 - The Right way to Profit the Part

Once the hand became selfish and wanted to violate the law of brotherhood or unity and began to reason this way: — "Here am I, work all day, but all the benefit of my work is reaped by the stomach or other parts of the body, I do not eat anything. I should not allow the teeth or mouth to reap all the advantage, I will have everything myself." The hand, after advancing this argument, became willing to carry it into effect. The food that was served on the table milk, meat, all sorts of things, fruit, vegetable,—all those things the hand must now himself eat; the hand must get the benefit of it himself. The hand took a pin, made a hole and poured that milk into it, injected that milk, so that the mouth would not get the benefit. The hand made itself sick, it could not be benefited by it. There was one other way. In order to make itself fat the hand wanted to take honey, and where from does it come? From the bee. So the hand took the bee and made it sting it. The hand got so much honey, it got life of the bee into it, you know the bee dies after it stings. The hand became very fat, all the honey was in the hand. Oh, but this made the hand bitter and painful, it tortured the hand. When the hand had suffered, after a while it came to its senses. The hand said, "All that I earn must not go to myself alone. All that I earn must go into the stomach and there it must be used by the blood, by the hands and feet, by every organ of the body, and then alone can I, the hand, be profited; there is no other way. Now the hand was forced to believe that the self of the hand was not confined within this small area.

The self of the hand will be profited when the self of the whole body is profited; the self of the hand will be profited when the self of the eyes is profited. The self of the hand is the same as the self of eyes, the self of ears and the self of the whole body. So, try to be selfish in the same way as the hand did, and you will suffer the consequences, you will suffer the same way as the poor hand did by trying to execute his selfishness. The Divine law cannot allow you to separate yourself from your own kind. The most sacred truth is violated when you consider yourself not one with your fellow-men. The merchants who do not look upon the interests of their customers as their own, or the shopkeepers who do not regard the interests of their customers as identical with their own, are shunned and avoided by the people and ruin themselves. In your life you will have to realize this, then and then alone will you prosper. O hand, your Self is the Self of the whole universe; your Self is the Self of the eyes, the feet, the teeth and every other part of the body. Feel that, realize that. If you want to keep yourself above misery and make yourself happy, realize and feel this oneness with each and all. Your practice will show, your own experience will prove that when you feel and realize this unity, when you concentrate your mind upon this truth, everybody around you is bound to come up to your help the same way as the hand comes up to help this part, when this part is itching or suffering. Here you feel an itching sensation, the hand immediately comes up there. Similarly if you realize that the Self, the Atman or the true Nature of yourself, is the same as the Self or Atman of your fellow who is related to you as true Self, when you are in need your fellows will immediately come to you and aid you.

MORAL: The right way to profit the part is to profit the whole, as they are one and not separate.

Vol. 2 (206-208)