The Wealth of the Stone

Here is a story handed down through the years by wise folks...

It is said that one day a monk came in from the desert and reached the outskirts of a village at dusk. He had just settled down under a tree for the night, when a young man of the village came running up to him. The villager cried out to the monk, "The stone! The stone! Give me the precious stone!"

"What stone?" asked the monk.

"Last night, the angel of the Lord appeared to me in a dream," said the villager, "and he told me that if I went to the outskirts of the village at dusk, I would find a monk sleeping under a tree, a monk who would give me a precious stone that would make me rich forever!"

The monk rummaged through his satchel and pulled out a stone. "Perhaps he meant this one," said the monk, as he handed the stone to the villager. "I found it along a mountain path some days ago. You may certainly have it."

The young man gazed at the stone in wonder. It was a diamond, perhaps the largest diamond in the whole world, the size of a large rutabaga. He took the diamond and walked slowly back to his village.

All night he tossed about in bed, unable to sleep. The next day, as the sun began to rise in the eastern sky, he returned to the tree at the outskirts of the village and woke the sleeping monk.

And he begged him, "Please, give me the wealth you have that makes you able to give this diamond away so easily."

adapted from Anthony de Mello, Selected Writings, ed. William Dych, S.J. (Orbis Books 1999) 55-56. For more information about Anthony de Mello, go to http://www.demello.org/.