In plain words
Without knowing that value, without recognising what kind of things are in His treasury, you ask for trifles. You ask only for lumps of charcoal. Because you do not get that charcoal, you fall into dissatisfaction. God stands ready to give you a ruby. Till then, have patience! But we do not have that patience. To get on a bus in the bazaar, people stand patiently in the queue for hours and hours. To go to the cinema they stand in the queue for hours and hours. But before God they cannot stand even five minutes. If their desires are not fulfilled, they fall into all kinds of unrest. These are petty minds. These are petty desires. We must not think it great just because desires are fulfilled, or low just because they are not. You must believe, ‘Whatever happens is for my good.’ ‘God has brought about some failure in this. But what victory He will give me!’ With that hope you must stay. Hope and despair, both, are a help to man, not a harm. We must stay well and steady in both. The optimist invents the aeroplane. He tries to move in the sky, not on land and water. But the pessimist, out of fear, invented the parachute. What the pessimist invented proved a help. What the optimist invented proved a help. Hope and despair, both, are good for man. The hopeful one says there is half water in this tumbler, and is content. The despairing one thinks, ‘Half of it is empty!’ Both of these are Satya! That half is empty is Satya; that half has water is Satya! Both are Satya! We must recognise that Satya. There is no Dharma higher than Satya. But you go along one angle only. So you fall prey to hope and despair. The optimist sees only the rose flower. The pessimist sees the thorns beneath it. Without thorns there is no rose. Both are there. If you pluck the rose without the thorns, that is the skill of your Buddhi. The optimist, looking at the sky, takes delight in the moonlight.