तुझे आहे तुजपाशी..

While reading one of my friends' blog - Have you seen your golden house yet?, it reminded me of a small piece of story from one of the 'VaPu' (popular Marathi author V P Kale) books and thought of sharing it with you all.
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A man was walking in the jungle, carrying a lot of iron chains on his shoulders. Every next step, he used to pick up a stone and polish it on chains and then throw it away. He kept on doing this for long time. A passerby asked him, "What are you doing man? What is it that you are searching for?"

He answered, "I heard about the Philosopher's stone which transforms iron into gold. I am searching for it. If I am able to find it, I will convert all these iron chains into gold and I will be happy forever in my life."

Few years later, same man met this passerby again. He was still carrying the chains, but this time all these chains were of Gold. He was not able to walk as fast as earlier due to his age and the weight of those chains. Still he had a piece of iron in his hand and he was still picking up the stones & polishing it on iron.

Passerby asked this man, "Now all your chains are golden, still you are hungry, that too for this small piece of iron. Hadn't you found that Philosopher's stone?"

Man answered, "As you can see that all of my iron chains are now golden, means I have had found the Philosopher’s stone. But this job of picking up the stone and throwing it after polishing on the iron chains, I was doing it so mechanically, that I could not recognize which stone worked out and made these iron chains golden. In that process, somehow I lost that Philosopher's stone. Now I am again searching for the same stone."
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What is it that this man in the story was looking for? He wanted to be happy by converting all of the iron chains into gold. He actually found the Philosopher's stone also and all his chains were converted to gold. But in the process, he forgot what his need was. Instead of looking at all golden chains that he is having and enjoying what he has, he is now looking for that Philosopher's stone again.

Same thing happens with us all. In this world of rat race we forget what we already have and instead of enjoying it, we tend to run behind the new things always. It’s true what Sant Tukaram said many years ago –

तुझे आहे तुजपाशी,
परि तू जागा चुकलाशी..
(what's yours is within you)

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17-may-2010