A long, long time ago, in a land which is now known as Indonesia there were very poor people and there were rich people, with no classes in-between. It was accepted that the poor worked in the fields for the rich owners and in return, they were not treated too badly.
There was one young man who aspired to the hand of a young woman who was on the edge of the wealthy people. The young man’s name was Buldathi, who was from a commonly village. He was good, worked hard and was intelligent, perhaps too intelligent for the work he did in caring for horses. These were the horses the wealthy used to ride within their bounded fields, for their carriages, and to take them forth to distant towns on marked trails. In those days there were caravans with much wealth and the people would meet them to buy their good wares to bring them back to glorify their homes It was not trade as we understand it these days, but there was the gathering together.
Sometimes the very wealthy if they had too much of any commodity would give it away. Now, with this young man, Buldathi, there was something strange about him; he always refused that which was offered to him. Whereas some of the other villagers had quite good possessions within their domiciles, apparent that there were trinkets and pieces of furniture, he remained poor. His parents quarrelled with him and they said, “You are the worker for this family and you should accept these things to make us a good domicile.
He said, “No!”
He would not do this. He was very adamant about this.
This very young, beautiful woman to whom he aspired said, “If you do not make a good home for me I cannot leave my own home to go with you.”
He was much put about, but he stuck to this; that he would not grace his house either for himself or that young woman with what he was given, only with that which he himself had.
A little time passed and he acquired work with the caravans so that he had to be away. His mother and father were most upset about this because he provided for them and he was their only son. However, because he was kind and did much to help his neighbours, when they were not able to pay him or strong enough to perform these tasks themselves, he was well loved.
Ethra, the young woman, said she would wait for him if this is what he wanted.
Time passed and much happened in the village he left. There were not many like him who would help and in a gradual way during the process of decay a lot of the village became desolated. There was no strength or fire to make others do it. He was the one always who rallied everyone round and said, “look at this old man. He lives alone and his family is gone. The roof on his dwelling must be put right.” Because he said they would.
Ethra became unhappy.
He did become a very wealthy young man. As he became little older working amongst the caravans and eventually, when he made for himself great fortune, he returned.
For this wealthy Buldathi coming back the houses in the village were nothing. Where to put all this wealth that he brought with him? What to do with it? Where to house it? His own mother, who had begotten him, had come Home, but the father was there. He was much older. He was ridden with the inability to move the joints not too well. His own domicile, which he had sprung from, had fallen into great disrepair. The villagers who were there and who remembered him, as well they did for the many good offices he did to them. He would say;
“I will do this and I will do that for you. Look, I will sell this great ruby. I will go the caravans and sell back this great ruby and the money I get for this will….”
And they said..
“No, we do not want it. What we want is the old one, the old friend. The one who would come and do it for to help ourselves.” But that one had gone, gone a long way away..
In a way the tide was turning.
Ethra became unhappy, but she said, “Well, we will meld together and we will make a good house and perhaps, then, your father can come and live with us and we will care for him”. So, on the outskirts of this village they built a domicile with graceful proportions and generous and beautiful in a quiet way to look at. In to it Buldathi put all his treasures for Ethra so that they surrounded her. One would have thought they might have lived happily ever after.
But how strange it is, that they did not?
His old village fell more into disrepair. The father did not want to live in this house that had been prepared within it a place for him and the strangest part of all; those who lived in those grander domiciles did not want to accept him. Why should they accept him, he who had come from this lower village?
He who had now got all these splendid things and had taken the fairest of all the women, Ethra, to be his wife? They would not accept him. They even shunned she, who was the daughter of themselves. What a pretty pass to come to and maybe learn from this? Oh yes, will we learn from it?
In time, he could no longer go to the caravans where Ethra, because of the way her own township was was afraid to be left alone and gradually, he sold all these fine things. Some of the people who thought not much of him break some of this gracious, generous and elegant domicile that was his.
And so, he had to leave and Ethra would not go with him, because she would not go among the lower village and indeed, what was left of the inhabitants of the lower village did not want her to be there. She had become instead of this beautiful young woman, beauty of face and form and manner became in her time a shrew and it was not a happy way.
So Buldathi returned to his own village. To what did he return? He returned to his father’s domicile where the old man still lived and it was very hard for him because he had become soft in the manner of those who with the slightest whim brings all that they want. And they do not have to use these hands in order to obtain that. None-the-less, the good that was within him, the young man that was within the older man was still there. So, he turned to and he made of his father’s domicile a place fit to live in, not with great proportions and elegance and of great beauty, but sturdy to withstand the winds that go across this land and the battering of the elements. When he had done this for his father he did one or two other things for those who were still in great need. Gradually, over the years life returned. I do not mean that more people lifed in it, but life that is in the very soil, life that is in the people came into being and happiness and peace.
And Ethra, with a bill of divorcement, parted from him. She rewedlocked to somebody, who was more on the other side of the land. And what do we learn from this? We learn that as it is laid down by the Great Mind and the Law of the Universe we must be ‘ourselves’, because ourselves is all that we can be, ‘ourselves’ is all that we should be, and ‘ourselves’ is what the Great Mind wants us to be. Happiness is not bought by rubies the size of a pigeon’s egg, nor yet may we live in a lower status and be poor, for we need not to be poor in mind.
And so, the lesson is learnt – to take yourselves strong, and above all, is the greatest weakness that can be, for appraising your own strength you show your own weakness.
Copyright 1994 The Erasmus Foundation.
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