Fun With Sai

Gift Plot

One day, Baba told a story about a King of Nepal who was well known for granting free gifts of land. One greedy man wanted to get a gift of land from the king. The condition for the grant was as follows:

“You walk in four directions, north, south, east and west, for one hour to mark the area of the land that would be granted to You.” Some people walked slowly so they got a small piece of land. Others walked faster and got a bigger piece of land. Many people ran and got an extensive piece of land. The greedy man ran as fast as he could and as soon as he came back to his starting point he collapsed and died. Baba concluded, “The King granted him the gift of land, not the area that he covered, but just a 6 feet x 6 feet plot for his funeral—that is all he got!”

Prize Vegetable

This story was told by Baba to the Students at Kodaikanal. Once all the vegetables on Mother Earth got together wanting to know which vegetable rated first in the order of merit. All the vegetables prayed to the Creator Himself to do the judging. So, Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesh descended on Earth and examined all the vegetables and came to the unanimous conclusion that one particular vegetable should be the first in the order of merit. That was the onion! While all the other Vegetables had good qualities, the onion had one extra quality of maintaining the same smell throughout its life. Like the onion, we, too, must be constant in our devotion to God, whether we are happy or not.

All the vegetables accepted the decision and gave a hearty applause. Lord Brahma placed His hands on His beard and said, “I bless you. As long as you are on earth, you will always have a beard like mine.” If anyone has not seen the beard of an onion, carefully look at it and you will find one! Then Brahma left.

Lord Vishnu blessed the onion and said, “Whenever you are cut longitudinally, the conch will be seen. Whenever you are cut across horizontally, then the spinning wheel will be seen. If anyone has not seen this as yet, take an onion and cut it and you will see them!

Lord Mahesh said, “Onion, I bless you. Whenever someone hurts you, that person will have to cry and not you.”

Source: Sai Humor, pp. 90-92