Story: The Men and the Fruit Tree
This is a TEACHING story – do you look beneath the surface to see what is really there?
Read the story below
There were once three men, all of whom wanted fruit, though none of them had ever seen any, since it was very rare in their country.
It so happened that they all travelled in search of this almost unknown thing called fruit. And it also happened that, at about the same time, each one found his way to a fruit tree.
The first man was heedless. He got to a fruit tree, but had spent so much time thinking about the directions that he failed to recognize the fruit.
His journey was wasted.
The second man was a fool, who took things very literally. When he saw that all the fruit on the tree was past its best, he said: ‘Well, I’ve seen fruit and I don’t like rotten things, so that is the end of fruit as far as I am concerned.’
He went on his way and his journey was wasted.
The third man was wise. He picked up some of the fruit and studied it. After some thought, and racking his brains to remember all the possibilities about this rotting delicacy, he found that inside each fruit there was a stone.
Once he knew that this stone was a seed, all he had to do was to plant the seed, and tend the growth, and wait for — fruit.
