Once upon a time there lived a priest who was extremely lazy and poor at the
same time. He did not want to do any hard work but used to dream of being rich one
day. He got his food by begging for alms. One morning he got a pot of milk as part
of the alms. He was extremely delighted and went home with the pot of milk. He boiled the
milk, drank some of it and put the remaining milk in a pot. He added slight curds in the
pot for converting the milk to curd. He then lay down to rest.
He was extremely delighted at the pot of milk he found and started dreaming about
the pot of curd while he lay asleep. He dreamt that if he could become rich somehow all
his miseries would be gone. His thoughts turned to the pot of milk he had set
to form curd. He dreamt on : “By morning the pot of milk would set, it would be converted to
curd. I would churn the curd and make butter from it. I would heat the butter and make
ghee out of it. I will go to that market and sell that ghee, and make some money. With
that money i will buy a hen. The hen will lay may eggs which will hatch and there will be
many more hens and cocks. These cocks and hen will in turn lay hundreds of eggs and I
will soon have a poultry farm of my own.” He kept on imagining.
“I will sell all the hens of my poultry and buy some cows, and open a milk dairy. All
the town people will buy milk from me. I will be very rich and soon I shall buy
jewellery. The king will buy all the jewellery from me. I will be so rich that I will be able
to marry an exceptionally beautiful girl from a rich family. Soon I will have a handsome son. If
he does any mischief I will be very angry and to teach him a lesson, I will hit him with
a big stick.” During this dream, he involuntarily picked up the stick next
to his bed and thinking that he was beating his son, raised the stick and hit the pot. The pot of milk
broke and he awoke from his sleep. Only then did he realize he was daydreaming.
MORAL: There is no substitute for hard work. Dreams cannot be fulfilled without hard work.
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