Her father was very sad because she was so careless. He thought, “When she gets married, her husband and relatives will scold her like anything.”
Many times he told his daughter, “It is one thing to be fearless and another thing to be careless. It is one thing to show bravery and another thing to show bravado. You must be fearless and, at the same time, careful. Always lock the doors and windows, especially at night.”
One day the father had to go out of town on business. He told his daughter, “Tonight I won’t be here. You have to lock the doors and windows properly!”
His daughter said, “Yes, of course I will do it.” But as usual, she did not lock the doors and windows properly when she went to bed. In the middle of the night a thief entered into her room and showed her a dagger. “Tell me where your father keeps his money!” he said.
The daughter screamed, “I don’t know, I don’t know! Otherwise, I would tell you.”
Then the thief snatched her necklace and ran away.
She was frightened to death and said, “Father is right. From now on I will lock the doors and windows properly.”
When the father returned the next day, he said, “Fortunately you are all right. But look what an expensive thing you have lost! At least you didn’t tell the thief where I keep my money and jewellery.”
She said, “I don’t know where it is. Otherwise, the way he was showing me the dagger, I would have told him immediately.”
The father said, “I am lucky that I never told you. Anyway, I am grateful that you were not hurt.”
In few months’ time the father said to the daughter, “The time has come for you to get married.”
The daughter said, “Whomever you choose, I will gladly marry. You have good taste. I leave it all up to you.”
The father said, “I will select several people. Let them come and see you one by one, and you can make a choice.”
So the father brought five candidates. The first one the daughter didn’t like at all. The second one didn’t like her and she also didn’t like him. Like this, the third and fourth candidates came and left. When the fifth one came, the daughter felt something respond inside her. But outwardly she gave no sign that this would be her future husband.
Before the young man left the house, the girl went to her father and said to him, “Father, I really love this man. This is the one for me. I hope that he likes me as well. Could you go and ask him?”
Her father said, “I will ask him, but I am sure that he likes you. Otherwise, why would he have come and asked to marry you?”
The father approached the young man and said, “Do you really love my daughter?”
He answered, “Of course. I would not have taken the trouble of coming here if I did not love her.”
So the date was fixed for their wedding. On the day of their wedding, the bridegroom said to his bride, “I have a special present for my future wife,” and he placed a necklace around her neck.
O God, it was the same necklace that the thief had stolen a few months earlier. The bride was confused. She cried out, “Where did you get this necklace? Who sold it to you? This necklace was stolen from me. I felt miserable that I had lost it. Now you have bought it from someone. If you can tell us who sold it to you, we will be able to catch the thief.”
The father smiled and smiled. Finally he said to his daughter, “It was I who asked him to disguise himself as a thief and take your necklace away because you were not listening to me. I knew that one day you would get married and you would still be very careless. I knew that he was a very nice young man, and I felt that you two would fall in love and one day get married. So he listened to me and stole your necklace. In this way you learned to be careful. Now you will be going to his house. Always be careful and lock the windows and doors properly. Carelessness is not a good thing!”
The wife went to her husband’s house and was always very careful. She and her husband lived a very happy, prosperous life.From:Sri Chinmoy,Is your mind ready to cry? Is your heart ready to smile? part 7, Agni Press, 1981
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/mrc_7