Gold Versus Goldsmith

A goldsmith was once melting gold. He used to do it almost every day, but today he was in a thoughtful mood and he started talking to the Gold. This is how the dialogue unfolded:

Goldsmith: Ah! You think you are very valuable, so you have become very high headed. People love to have you, but today you are at my mercy. I will heat you, melt you, beat you, cut and shape you. I shall also pierce holes in you, bend you and grind you, because now you are at my mercy.

Gold: Heat me, melt me, beat me or do as you please! But all that you do shall only purify me further and increase my value by making me more beautiful.

The goldsmith wiped his brow of the smoke and soot that settled there.

Gold: See! The heat and the smoke are bothering only you, not me. The pain of beating me shall tire your hands. I don’t feel the pain, because I am mentally prepared for going through it. And I know I shall emerge fairer, having gone through the ordeal.

How true! Great men are unperturbed by abuses hurled at them. They behave the same way during pleasure or pain. Because the praises or the abuses do not penetrate their aura to really reach them or to cause hurt. They just bounce back and return to the person from whom they have come.

But forbearance doesn’t come in a day. It comes with years and years of practice and self control!