Jai Shri Krishna..
In a bus packed with commuters, the conductor found an old and worn wallet on the floor. He picked it up to examine its contents. It had five hundred rupees and a picture of Krishna. There were no other cards or photos. The conductor shouted, “Has anyone lost his wallet?”
“I have,” replied an old man.
“Can you tell me what it has to prove it’s yours?”
“I don’t remember the exact amount of money but it has a photo of my Lord Krishna.”
“Hmm…anyone can have a picture of Krishna,” the conductor said skeptically, “can you tell me anything else?”
The old man chuckled before he spoke:
“My father gifted me this wallet when I began understanding the concept of keeping and saving money. It had a photograph of Krishna in it. He asked me to always do the right karma. I was a bit too young to worry about that though. I put a photograph of my parents on top of the picture of Krishna. I loved my parents more than anybody else in the world. But that feeling didn’t take long to change. Earlier my world revolved around them but now it was all about me. I felt they owed it to me to give me what I thought I wanted. So as I grew older, I put my own photo on top of theirs. I thought I looked way better than them.
Soon after graduating from college, I fell in love with a girl. She was the most beautiful person I had ever seen. I put her photo next to mine, completely hiding my parent’s picture underneath. Before long, I was married to her and she gave birth to a boy. I removed my parents’ photographs and put my son and my wife’s photo in my wallet. My wife and my son were my worlds. My day began and ended with my son, why, every moment of my life revolved around him. My parents passed away in due course.
My son was growing up, he got educated, got a job, moved out, got married, got kids, and got busy. A few years ago my wife passed, so I removed her picture from my wallet as well. Last year, I fell down the stairs and I phoned my son and asked him to spend a few days with me. He told me to be strong. He did not invite me to his home and did not visit me saying he was extremely busy and stressed out with work and family.
My heart, already wounded, shattered into a million pieces. I removed his picture from my wallet and underneath was the original photograph of Krishna. I had the greatest realization of my life. All relationships are transient, they are based on self-interest, and they are temporary. People came and went but the presence of God remained constant in my life.”
The conductor immediately handed back the wallet without uttering another word.
You need not wait for a jolt to understand the transient nature of this world. Such an understanding, in an empirical way, can be attained by deep contemplation too. Your wallet indicates your priorities in life. Often in the wake of ticking off things, people lose sight of the real stuff, they lose track of their own life.