Nanak and the two villages

Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, came with one of his disciples into a village where most of the people were very nice, sweet, generous and religious. Nanak and his disciple were extremely happy to see this village where people were so pious. Nanak was very pleased. He said, “Let this place be extinguished. Let this place have no existence.”

“How can you do this?” said his disciple. “This is such a wonderful village! All the villagers are so devoted to God. Is this how you show your compassion?”

Then Nanak took the disciple to another village where the people were corrupt and evil and there was all kinds of fighting and quarreling. Nanak said, “I wish this village to prosper.”

“What is this? This is the place that deserves to be destroyed and you are saying it should prosper!”

Nanak replied, “Look here. I said that the first place should be destroyed. This is why: The people there are so good, so spiritual. When the village is destroyed, those people will be scattered. One will go to one village, another to another village, another to some other place, so that each person will be able to spread his good qualities. In destruction good will be spread, so there is no real destruction. In the second village, which is very bad, I said, let them prosper. Let them not go outside the boundaries of their own village or otherwise their evil will spread everywhere. Let them prosper here. This is divine justice. If we go deep within we will see the larger reality and then we will understand the divine dispensation. Otherwise, we will be really confused.”