A woman came out of her house and saw 3 old men with long white beards sitting in her front yard. She did not recognize them. She said "I don't think I know you, but you must be hungry. Please come in and have something to eat."

"Is the man of the house home?", they asked.

"No", she replied. "He's out."

"Then we cannot come in", they replied.

In the evening when her husband came home, she told him what had happened.



"Go tell them I am home and invite them in!"

The woman went out and invited the men in"

"We do not go into a House together," they replied.

"Why is that?" she asked.
One of the old men explained: "His name is Wealth," he said pointing to one of his friends, and said pointing to another one, "He is Success, and I am Love." Then he added, "Now go in and discuss with your husband which one of us you want in your home."

The woman went in and told her husband what was said. Her husband was overjoyed. "How nice!!", he said. "Since that is the case, let us invite Wealth. Let him come and fill our home with wealth!"

His wife disagreed. "My dear, why don't we invite Success?"

Their daughter was listening from the other corner of the house. She jumped in with her own suggestion: "Would it not be better to invite Love? Our home will then be filled with love!"

"Let us heed our daughter's advice," said the husband to his wife.

"Go out and invite Love to be our guest."

The woman went out and asked the 3 old men, "Which one of you is Love? Please come in and be our guest."

Love got up and started walking toward the house. The other 2 also got up and followed him. Surprised, the lady asked Wealth and Success: "I only invited Love, Why are you coming in?"

The old men replied together: "If you had invited Wealth or Success, the other two of us would've stayed out, but since you invited Love, wherever He goes, we go with him. Wherever there is Love, there is also Wealth and Success!!!!!!"

An Old Story:

One night a man had a dream. He
dreamed he was walking along the beach with the LORD. Across the sky flashed
scenes from his life. For each scene, he noticed two sets of footprints in the
sand; one belonging to him, and the other to the LORD.

When the last scene of his life
flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand. He noticed
that many times along the path of his life there was only one set of
footprints. He also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times
in his life.

This really bothered him and he
questioned the LORD about it. "LORD, you said that one I decided to follow you,
you'd walk with me all the way. But I have noticed that during the most
troublesome time in my life, there is only one set of footprints. I don't
understand why when I needed you most you would leave me."

The LORD replied, "My precious,
precious child, I love you and I would never leave you. During your times of
trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then I
that I carried you."

The
Master chuckled and then asked the young man to take another handful of
salt and put it in the lake. The two walked in silence to the nearby
lake and when the apprentice swirled his handful of salt into the lake,
the old man said, "Now drink from the lake."

As
the water dripped down the young man's chin, the Master asked, "How
does it taste?" "Good!" remarked the apprentice. "Do you taste the
salt?" asked the Master. "No," said the young man.

The
Master sat beside this troubled young man, took his hands, and said,
"The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in
life remains the same, exactly the same. But the amount we taste the
'pain' depends on the container we put it into. So when you are in
pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things.....
Stop being a glass. Become a lake!"

One day a clerk was walking home
along a river next to an industrial area. This river was completely
polluted, filthy and smelly. As he was walking, the clerk saw a
shimmering in the river and when he looked, he saw the diamond
necklace. He decided to try and catch it so that he could get the 50,000 gold coin reward. He put his hand in the filthy, dirty river and grabbed
at the necklace, but some how missed it and didn't catch it. He took
his hand out and looked again and the necklace was still there. He
tried again, this time he walked in the river and dirtied his pants in
the filthy river and put his whole arm in to catch the necklace. But
strangely, he still missed the necklace! He came out and started
walking away, feeling depressed.

Then again he saw the necklace, right
there. This time he was determined to get it, no matter what. He
decided to plunge into the river, although it was a disgusting thing to
do as the river was polluted, and his whole body would become filthy.
He plunged in, and searched everywhere for the necklace and yet he
failed. This time he was really bewildered and came out feeling very
depressed that he could not get the necklace that would get him50,000 gold coin.

Just then a saint who was walking by,
saw him, and asked him what was the matter. The clerk didn't want to
share the secret with the saint, thinking the saint might take the
necklace for himself, so he refused to tell the saint anything. But the
saint could see this man was troubled and being compassionate, again
asked the clerk to tell him the problem and promised that he would not
tell anyone about it. The clerk mustered some courage and decided to
put some faith in the saint. He told the saint about the necklace and
how he tried and tried to catch it, but kept failing. The saint then
told him that perhaps he should try looking upward, toward the branches
of the tree, instead of in the filthy river. The clerk looked up and
true enough, the necklace was dangling on the branch of a tree. He had
been trying to capture a mere reflection of the real necklace all this
time.

Moral of the story:

Material happiness is just like the filthy, polluted river; because it is a mere reflection of the TRUE happiness in the spiritual world.