There once lived a king who was extremely fond of hunting. One day, he was out in the jungle with his ministers and servants, out for a daring adventure longing to be face to face with a wild elephant or a man-eating tiger.
When they were there, hunting, they came across a Sadhu who kept repeating: "My advice will be sold for one hundred coins of gold! Jai Jagadeesa Hare�Jaya, Jai Jagadeessa Hare"
The king now was a good sport. He was willing to try anything once. He thought, "Hey, what are a hundred gold coins to me! And if his advice is really worth it, why then, I shall be a better man!�
So, he went to the Sadhu and giving him the gold said, "Maharaj, now please give me this advice you spoke of."
The Sadhu calmly took the coins and said, "0 king, always remember this�never do anything before thinking of what its effects will be." It was a look-before-you leap advice.
Now the king's minister laughed and thought, "Ha! Such an ordinary thing, and the cost is a hundred gold coins! What a fool the king is!"
The king guessed what was in his mind. Nevertheless, with perfect gravity he said to him, "See that the Mahatma's words are engraved on stone and fixed in the palace so that I can always see them."
The minister was now quite sure that his king was mentally a little weak. But he thought, I might as well humour him, and he went to carry out the king's bidding.
A short time later, one of the king's enemies met the royal physician and said to him. "If you are successful in poisoning the king, I will give you five thousand gold coins." The physician was not a very rich man. Besides, he had a greedy wife and a large number of children to support. And then five thousand gold coins was a large sum of money, indeed! So he agreed to this disloyal scheme.
After a few days, as chance would have it, the king developed a fever. It was too good a chance for the physician to miss. With extreme satisfaction, thinking greedily of his five thousand gold coins, he mixed a potion of poison for the royal patient. He was about to give it to the king. But suddenly his eyes fell on the words engraved in stone�the valuable Look-before-you-leap advice. This set the physician thinking: "If the king dies after taking poison, the courtiers will surely cut me to pieces. Of what use then will five thousand gold coins be?"
So he threw away the poison and mixed another potion for the king�-this time the true medicine.
Now the king was a very clever man. He had noticed every movement of his physician. So he asked, "0 Doctor, tell me truthfully. Why did you throw away the first medicine and mix a second one for me? If you do not give me a true answer you will be executed.
The physician trembled with fear and spilled out the whole plot. But since he had been sincere, the king granted him a pardon. The enemy, however, was tracked down and put to death.
Then the king sent for his minister and said, "The other day you had laughed at the Sadhu's advice. But see how useful it has proved to be. Had the physician really given me the poison, I would have died, the physician would have been killed. There would have been riots. The kingdom would have been in confusion."
The minister had no answer. He hung his head in shame.
Moral Of The Tale:
Words of wisdom may appear to the ears as insignificant. But if we live it out as instructed we shall come to reap its promised blessings. The king had the right-type of reverence and the required faith. The minister had only a rational intellect without the right temper required to press out the juice from the mighty commandments of the scriptural masters' The scriptural sages gives but the "seeds", never the "fruits" to man. Each has to prepare the ground, sow the seeds, water the plant and wait till the tree bears the "fruits." When fully developed pluck them: keep them till they are ripe: now they are ready for eating.
