Sandalwood Trees – A Simple Story on Awareness

By Rajesh Setty on Sat 20 Mar 2010, 3:00 AM – 3 Comments

When I was in India last time, Kiruba Shankar shared this wonderful story with me.

A king and his troops were going through a forest. The King saw an old man cutting trees. Taking pity on him, he asked the Minister to give that old man an acre of sandalwood trees. The Minister took care of that instantly.

A couple of years later, the King and his troops were again passing through the forest and in fact, they were passing by the area where there were sandalwood trees given away to that old man.

The king noticed that most of the sandalwood trees were gone and in one corner the old man was there. He was burning a couple of sandalwood trees. Upon talking to him, the Minister found out that he was burning those trees to collect coal BECAUSE that is what does – sells coal and makes money.

This is a simple story about awareness. Sometimes we have riches right in front of our eyes but if we can’t see them as such, they are not riches to us.

So, the question is:

Which “sandalwood trees” are you burning in your life because you want to “sell coal?”

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