Keshava Kashmiri was a renowned Pandit, but he was very egotistic. The other Pandits were scared of him. Once he went on a tour around India accompanied by several disciples to defeat in debate all the Pandits in the country. At last, he reached Nadia in West Bengal. He challenged the pandits in that place and invited them for a debate. All the elderly pandits of Nadia got scared and none were willing to take up his challenge. The pandits discussed amongst themselves and decided that only the young prodigy Nimai, the fourteen year old son of of Jagannath Mishra can stand against the Pandit Keshav Kashmiri.

Nimai was none other than Gauranga, who later became well known as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and was venerated as an incarnation of God, because of his ecstatic devotion to Sri Krishna.

That evening, the elderly Pandits of Nadia met Nimai on the Ganges bank and broached the matter. At that time, Keshava Kashmiri happened to come there on a walk, and saw the young boy. On seeing Nimai he enquired,”Are you Nimai, who teaches Sanskrit grammar in the school here?”. Nimai agreed and greeted the scholar and expressed his good fortune of meeting the scholar of great renown. Keshava Kashmiri expressed surprise,”Oh! Then you know me”. To this Nimai replied,”Oh! Who does not know Keshava Kashmiri? I have a small request. Kindly compose a poem on this river Ganga.” Keshava Kashmiri accepted the challenge and spontaneously composed a lengthy verse in praise of the river Ganga. The listeners were spell bound. Nimai told the pandit,” Sir! I appreciate your composition. But there are some errors too. Shall I repeat the verse and point out the errors therein?.” To this the Pandit replied,”Oh! Are you going to repeat the entire verse”. Without hesitation, Chaitanya repeated verbatim the whole verse. The pandit was astonished. Chaitanya pointed out several mistakes in the composition, which made the Pandit hung his head in shame. On being humbled by a mere boy the Pandit was stunned. In the presence of the astonished Pandit, Chaitanya instantly composed a poem. Its meaning is – “ the art of composing poems is a gift of God. By mere learning one cannot become a poet. It is human to commit error. To compose on divine themes. One should be humble. Vanity is futile.”

Keshava Kashmiri was struck with remorse, when he heard this poem. He understood how he had wasted his precious life all these years. He fell at the feet of the young Nimai, his whole body shaking with emotion. At this Nimai exclaimed,”Oh what! A pandit of your stature falling at my feet! Sir, please get up.” Keshav Kashmiri admitted that his humility and devotion to God have opened his eyes.

Keshav Kashmiri handed over all his wealth to the people of the place and renounced everything and became a monk. Gauranga Deva’s victory was acclaimed everywhere.

The princes of the kingdom of Mewar used to go hunting every Vijayadasami day. Once on such an occasion the two princes, Rana Pratap and his younger brother Shakti Sinha went for hunting along with a few soldiers.

When both of them were happily going about hunting, they chanced to aim their arrows on a deer. Being expert hunters they felled the deer with a single aim. Now the question whose arrow felled the deer came up and unfortunately it soon developed into a great prestige issue between the brothers.

Rana Pratap argued that it was his arrow, while Shakti Sinha was equally sure that it was his. The argument soon developed into a big issue and both drew their swords to start a fight over the issue.

The royal teacher (Raja Guru) who had also come along with them was stunned to see the scene from a distance. “Stop the fight”, he shouted and came running, “Children! The country is in the midst of such dangers! Foreigners are already giving a lot of trouble by their attempts to conquer the country. Under these circumstances, being the two pillars of the kingdom, is it proper for the two of you to indulge in such a dangerous fight? Stop immediately!”

He pleaded to Rana Pratap, “Shakti Sinha is younger to you. Why don’t you give the credit to him?”, and again to Shakti Sinha, “Why don’t you show respect to your elder brother and give up the claim over the deer?”

The wise words of the Raja Guru fell on deaf ears. Wonderful is the sway of anger! It can turn the heads of even intelligent people. The princes were in no mood to listen to his wise counsel. Their stubborn attitude pained his heart deeply. He could not bear to see his students and heirs to the throne fighting between themselves and dying in such a state.

The Raja Guru took up his position between the quarrelling brothers, “Dear brothers, Anger, which is like a devil has today taken hold of your understanding. It is in no mood to calm down without quenching its thirst with human blood. But I who am devoted to this Mewar kingdom, whose body is built of its food, can never allow the two princes to die of infighting.”

“Let the devil of anger be satisfied by drinking the blood of this Brahmin today”, so saying he suddenly drew out his sword, and before the paralyzed brothers could do anything, killed himself with his own sword.

The brothers were dumbstruck. In a flash the lifeless body of the Raja Guru fell between them on the ground. They were ashamed to realize the loss of the precious life of their Raja Guru on account of their senseless resolve to fight in spite of his fervent appeals.

The patriotism of the Raja Guru saved the princes from killing each other. Let us remember his great sacrifice for the unity and integrity of the royal family and the kingdom

An elderly carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer-contractor of his plans to leave the house-building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife enjoying his extended family. He would miss the paycheck, but he needed to retire. They could get by.

The contractor was sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor. The carpenter said yes, but in time it was easy to see that his heart was not in his work. He resorted to shoddy workmanship and used inferior materials. It was an unfortunate way to end his career.

When the carpenter finished his work and the builder came to inspect the house, the contractor handed the front-door key to the carpenter:

"This is your house," he said, "my gift to you."

What a shock! What a shame! If he had only known he was building his own house, he would have done it all so differently. Now he had to live in the home he had built none too well.

So it is with us. We build our lives in a distracted way, reacting rather than acting, willing to put up less than the best. At important points we do not give the job our best effort. Then with a shock we look at the situation we have created and find that we are now living in the house we have built. If we had realized that we would have done it differently.

Think of our self as the carpenter. Think about our house. Each day we hammer a nail, place a board, or erect a wall. Build wisely. It is the only life we will ever build. Even if we live for only one day more, that day deserves to be lived graciously and with dignity. We built our life today. It is the result of our attitudes and the choices we have made in the past.

We can build the life we want. It will be the exact result of our attitudes and the choices we make today and tomorrow.

Once a big fat frog and a lively little frog were hopping along together when they had the misfortune of jumping into a pail of fresh milk. They swam for hours and hours hoping to get out somehow; but the sides of the pail were steep and slippery and death seemed to be certain.

When the big frog was exhausted he lost courage. There seemed no hope of rescue. “Why keep struggling against the inevitable? I cannot swim any longer.” He moaned. “Keep on! Keep on!” urged the little frog, who was still circling the pail. So they went on for a while. But the big frog decided it was no use. “Little brother, We may as well give up” he gasped. “I am going to quit struggling.”

Now only the little frog was left. He thought to himself. “Well, to give up is to be dead, so I will keep swimming.” Two more hours passed and the tiny legs of the determined little frog were almost paralysed with exhaustion. It seemed as if he could not keep moving for another minute. But he thought of his dead friend, and repeated, “To give up is to be meat for someone’s table, so I’ll keep paddling on until I die – if death is to come – but I will not cease trying – while there is life, there is hope.”

Intoxicated with determination, the little frog kept on swimming around and around the pail, chopping the milk into white waves. After a while, just as he felt completely numb and thought he was about to drown, he suddenly felt something solid under him. To his astonishment, he saw that he was resting on a lump of butter which he had churned by constant paddling! And so the successful little frog leaped out of the milk pail to freedom.

Once a famous scholar was lecturing on God. Suddenly a man appeared before him.

The scholar asked him: “Who are you?”

The man “ I am the same God whose glories you are discoursing on”.

The scholar replied, “You are God? You look just like us. How do I believe that you are God? I will have to test you out.”

He took the brass water container vessel kept next to him and told God “here, if you can change this to gold only then will I believe that you are God”

God was nonplussed. Before appearing he had thought that all these ardent hearers would ask him for devotion, pure knowledge etc. Here he was, stuck in an ignoble position of having to prove himself. Nevertheless he decided that it was better to prove rather than beat a retreat at this stage.

He took the vessel and at His touch the vessel changed into gold.

He looked triumphantly around and saw that the entire audience had vanished. He looked puzzled trying to understand men.

He did not have to think for long as he saw the entire audience returning all with the brass vessels, big vessels that they could lay their hands on. They wanted the whole lot to be turned into gold.