The more he did…

Austerity means putting aside our selfish ambitions for a higher purpose

– Radhanath Swami

A little boy was sitting and eating a mango. He loved mangoes and so was enjoying the sweet taste of the luscious fruit. Just then his mom came and reminded him that it was his turn of deity worship the next day. In their house it was rule, everyone had to do deity worship by turns and tomorrow was his turn.

“Oh no!” he thought to himself. He did not like to do deity worship. Sometimes he would try to get out of it. Sometimes he would just do the deity worship really quickly so it would be over as soon as possible.

That day he thought, “Oh well, it is my turn, then I have to do it.” The next morning when he started doing the worship, it did not seem so bad. “May be”, he thought to himself, “this could be fun”. But he soon forgot about it as there were so many other things to do.

The next time when it was his turn for worship, he did not mind. In fact he almost found himself looking forward to it. To his surprise he was enjoying it. Soon he started doing deity worship even when it was not his turn.

The more he liked, the more he wanted to do. And the more he did, the more he liked it. The more and more he did deity worship, the more and more he liked doing it. Until one day the liking became loving!

Let’s learn a lesson from this story: Marital relationships go deep when we treat our spouse as a sacred child of God who’s put under our care. To live with such a conception may be an austerity in the beginning, but if we try sincerely, soon we will like it, and our love will grow deep and real, beyond the superficial.