One day, while digging on his tiny plot of land, a peasant found an amazingly beautiful pebble. The pebble shimmered with all the colors of the rainbow, and the peasant thought that his children would probably really like it. They could play with him all day long because he is so beautiful. He put the pebble in his pocket, brought it home and gave it to the children.
Well, children - children everywhere! They played with the strange pebble brought by their father until they got tired of it, after which they left it on the window and forgot about it forever.
One monk, a wandering sannyasin, passing through the mountains, was looking for a place to stay for the night, and a peasant invited him to his home. The sannyasin washed his face and gratefully shared the poor meal with his host. When dinner was over, they began chatting about this and that. The sannyasin was a traveler and knew about everything in the world. He told the peasant about different cities and the customs of the people living there, about mountains and rivers, about the sky, the moon and stars.
After this, their conversation accidentally turned to precious stones. And as if by chance the sannyasin said:
- What are you doing here? I know a place where you can find diamonds right on the river bank. With a little work, you could become fabulously rich. Working on your land by the sweat of your brow, you will live from hand to mouth all your life. Tell me please, why waste life?
The next morning the sannyasin left, but in the mind of the peasant he planted a thought that grew into a frantic desire that completely captured the poor man. Not knowing which river the monk was talking about, he sold his plot and set out in search of it. In parting, he said to his wife and children:
- You have to wait for me at most five years, and I will return rich!
The peasant wandered for a long time and worked hard in many diamond mines, but even after five years he did not find a place where there were so many diamonds that it would not be difficult to mine them. However, during these five years he firmly and clearly understood what a diamond is.
And when he returned home and approached his hut, he could not believe his eyes - the rarest and greatest diamond that could be imagined lay, abandoned and forgotten by everyone, on the windowsill of his house.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru