By the Will of God
In a certain
village in India there lived a weaver, making his living
by designing and selling fine fabrics. He was very
religious. Everyone knew it, trusted him and loved him. At
the market, when a customer asked the price of a cloth,
he would say, "By the will of God,
the price of the yarn is so-much, the labor
was such-and-such; by the will of God the profit for
me is so-much." There was no haggling. People
had so much faith in him that they just
paid up the price and took the cloth.
The weaver really was
very devoted to God. Finished with his supper in the
evening, he would spend long hours in his chapel, meditating on
God, chanting his name and singing to him. But
it so happened that late one night the weaver
couldn't get to sleep, and went out on his porch to
sit where it might be cooler. At that moment a
band of robbers happened to pass along the road in front
of his small house. They had stolen quite a lot of
different things from various places and were having
a difficult time carrying all of them, so they wanted
another man to help them. Seeing the weaver, they
came up and grabbed him by the hand; "Come with
us," they said, and pulled him to the road.
Now they
robbed another house, and put the booty on the weaver's
head (in India this is the usual way of carrying things)
and forced him to march. Just at that moment the police
caught up with them, but the robbers saw them coming
and ran away fast. Now the weaver, with
his heavy load, was arrested. It was so late, they
just had to lock him up in jail, and do the questioning the
next day. He spent the night in jail, repeating the name of the
Lord.
Next day,
he was brought before the judge for trial. Word had
spread through the village that the pious weaver had been
arrested, and the people came in groups to the court and
said to the judge, "Your honor, this man could never
commit a robbery". And they told him
about the weaver's remarkable way of life.
The judge
asked our friend the weaver to state exactly what had
happened. The weaver said, "Your honor, by the
will of God I finished my meal late at night. By the will of
God I was sitting on my porch chanting his name,
when, by the will of God, this band of robbers
passed the house. By the will of God they dragged me
with them and by the will of God they put a load on
my head. Just then, by the will of God, the police arrived, and
by the will of God the others ran away and I was arrested.
Then by the will of God the police put me
in jail overnight, and this morning by the will
of God they brought me before Your Honor."
The judge
understood very well what kind of person the weaver
was and ordered him to be let go. On his way home the
weaver said to his friends, "By the will of God
I have been released and all is well."
Sri Ramakrishna told us many stories
about people devoted to the name of God. There was
the woman who had such faith in God's name that she
was able to walk over water without sinking,
and the man who told the doctor, "Cure me of
anything you like, but don't cure me of my habit
of repeating the name of the Lord!" Then,
too, there was the bird who was dying of thirst,
but would not drink water because it would interrupt his
saying of the name of the Lord! These tales we have told you previously.
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