Once a saint said to another,” I have been attending the congregation for several days, but I am yet to acquire any virtues.” The other saint gave him a basket made of bamboo and asked him to fill it with water. He took the basket to the river. He put it into the river but it would just not hold the water. The next day he again went and asked how to fill the water into the basket because there were several holes in it. He was, however, advised to continue the practice. After some days, he came again and complained that even though he was trying regularly, the basket was not holding water. At this, the saint said,” You have been putting the basket into the water and taking it out again and again. Have you noticed any change in the basket,” The reply was:” One change I have seen definitely. Earlier, the basket had some dust settled on it. Now it is quiet clean. Secondly, the size of the holes of the basket has been reduced.” The saint explained,” If you continue the practice of putting the basket into the water again and again, the bamboos will expand and one day the holes may disappear from the basket at all and it may be able to hold the water. Similarly, a person who goes to the company of saints again and again, his mind becomes clean and the holes in the form of shortcomings will gradually disappear and it will start holding the virtues.”

There are so many kinds of flowers in one garden. A certain kind of flower does not tell the other flower you get out, I’m not going to tolerate you. They do co-exist because of that uniqueness of their diversity of colors and shapes and they become a beauty of the flower-bed and of the whole garden. Our world is also a garden of beautiful flowers. And to maintain this beauty, what is required is oneness, tolerance, love, compassion and empathy. For this, one needs to see one’s own reflection in others in the form of God’s divine light “soul” in everybody. That vision is required where nobody will be separate from self. This vision is beyond our physical form, dress and language and just sees this universal spirit, this universal God Almighty-the Oversoul. If the vision is such, there is divinity. If we limit ourselves to physical forms and cannot reach out to soul that dwells in everybody, then there shall only be difference and diversity becomes a curse, leading to clashes. This is what is happening today. Diversity has rather ruined us and created distances. We are ready to kill each other and consider other’s life as cheap, we do not even forgive small children, newborn babies and are ready to burn them alive and make them the target of our bullets. This way we are seeing the cruel and devilish face of man.