A great point for a New Year's Resolution. Can you live it as well as say it when it comes to your belief in God?
Crossing the
WaterBy Sri
Ramakrishna.
A farmer's daughter duty was to carry fresh milk to
customers in various villages had, one of whom was a priest. To reach his house,
the milkmaid had to cross a good-sized stream. People crossed it by a sort of
ferry raft, for a small fee.
One day the priest, who performed worship
daily with the offering to God of fresh milk, finding it arrived very late,
scolded the poor woman. "What can I do?" she said, "I start out early from my
house, but I have to wait a long time for the boatman to come."
Then the
priest said (pretending to be serious), "What! People have even walked across
the ocean by repeating the name of God, and you can't cross this little river?"
This milkmaid took him very seriously. From then on she brought the priest's
milk punctually every morning. He became curious about it and asked her how it
was that she was never late anymore.
"I cross the river repeating the
name of the Lord," she replied, "just as you told me to do, without waiting for
the ferry." The priest didn't believe her, and asked, "Can you show me this, how
you cross the river on foot?" So they went together to the water and the
milkmaid began to walk over it. Looking back, the woman saw that the priest had
started to follow her and was floundering in the water.
"Sir!" she cried,
"You are uttering the name of God, yet all the while you are holding up your
clothes from getting wet. That is not trusting in God!"
