Buddhism

"Buddhism has always been fond of parables and many of these were used by Buddha himself. As envisioned that, 'for men of good understanding will readily enough catch the meaning of what is taught under the shape of a parable as they are the pointing fingers to the gateway of spirituality.'"

A number of disciples went to the Buddha and said, "Sir, there are living here in Savatthi many wandering hermits and scholars who indulge in constant dispute, some saying that the world is infinite and eternal and others that it is finite and not eternal, some saying that the soul dies with the body and others that it lives on forever, and so forth. What, Sir, would you say concerning them?"

The Buddha answered, "Once upon a time there was a certain raja who called to his servant and said, 'Come, good fellow, go and gather together in one place all the men of Savatthi who were born blind... and show them an elephant.' 'Very good, sire,' replied the servant, and he did as he was told. He said to the blind men assembled there, 'Here is an elephant,' and to one man he presented the head of the elephant, to another its ears, to another a tusk, to another the trunk, the foot, back, tail, and tuft of the tail, saying to each one that that was the elephant.

"When the blind men had felt the elephant, the raja went to each of them and said to each, 'Well, blind man, have you seen the elephant? Tell me, what sort of thing is an elephant?'

"Thereupon the men who were presented with the head answered, 'Sire, an elephant is like a pot.' And the men who had observed the ear replied, 'An elephant is like a winnowing basket.' Those who had been presented with a tusk said it was a ploughshare. Those who knew only the trunk said it was a plough; others said the body was a grainery; the foot, a pillar; the back, a mortar; the tail, a pestle, the tuft of the tail, a brush.

"Then they began to quarrel, shouting, 'Yes it is!' 'No, it is not!' 'An elephant is not that!' 'Yes, it's like that!' and so on, till they came to blows over the matter.

"Brethren, the raja was delighted with the scene.

"Just so are these preachers and scholars holding various views blind and unseeing.... In their ignorance they are by nature quarrelsome, wrangling, and disputatious, each maintaining reality is thus and thus."

Then the Exalted One rendered this meaning by uttering this verse of uplift,

O how they cling and wrangle, some who claim
For preacher and monk the honored name!
For, quarreling, each to his view they cling.
Such folk see only one side of a thing.

Sikhism - True Story of Guru Nanak Ji

Guru Nanak Dev Ji’s father once sent Guru Nanak Dev Ji to graze buffaloes in the pastures. While grazing buffaloes, Guru Nanak Dev ji sat under a tree and started meditating on God. Meanwhile, the herd of buffaloes went into the neighboring farmer’s field and destroyed his crop. The farmer saw his crops getting damaged. He became furious and lodged a complaint with Rai Bular, the officer-in-charge of that area. Rai Bular came to inspect the fields, and to his astonishment, he found no damage was done to the crops; rather, the crops were blossoming. The place, at which this miracle took place, is known as Kiara Sahib.

On another occasion, Guru Nanak Dev Ji was sent to graze the buffaloes in the pastures and he fell asleep under the shade of a tree. As the sun rose higher, the shadow moved away. The rays of the hot summer sun began to fall on Guru Nanak Dev Ji’s face. A big cobra came at that place and provided shadow with its hood over the face of the Divine Master. Rai Bular was going through that area with his attendants. When he saw this strange scene, he was convinced that Guru Nanak Dev Ji is not an ordinary person. God had sent him to this world. Rai Bular then touched the Guru's feet in great reverence and thus became his disciple.

Treasure of Prophet Muhammad

She thought till late at midnight and finally decided how to take revenge from him. She could not sleep all night, because she was too eager to take revenge for the idols she worshiped. Even before the first ray of sunlight had entered her window, she was busy sweeping her house. She saved all the garbage in a basket, placed it on the roof of her house and proudly looked at it for a while, then with an impatient look on her face, she looked at the street that she lived on, and thought, "No one has ever seen him angry. Everybody will praise me when they will see him shouting at me and getting mad. They will laugh at him and make fun of him." She looked at the basket again and grinned.

Meanwhile, she heard footsteps, announcing the approach of the end of her waiting. "Finally my prey has arrived," she thought, as she saw a man dressed in clean, white clothes coming that way. She picked up the basket in her hands and threw all the garbage on him when he passed by. Much to the woman's disappointment, he did not say anything and continued on his way.

She did the same the following day thinking, "Maybe this time I will be able to annoy him." But he was too gentle to shout at a woman. She misinterpreted his attitude as fear and decided to repeat the same mischief everyday in order to keep him frightened, so that he might stop preaching the Oneness of God.

This gentleman whom the woman hated so much was Muhammad (pbuh), the last prophet of Allah Almighty. He did not want to disappoint the woman and so continued to walk down the street everyday, instead of picking an alternate route, and prayed for the woman to recognize the Truth.

One day, the Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) did not find the woman to be on the roof of her house with the basket. This worried him, because he thought something must have happened to her for not being over there. So he knocked at the door. "Who is it?" asked a feeble voice. "Muhammad bin Abdullah," was the reply, "can I come in?" The woman feared, "I am sick, and too weak to fight or talk back, therefore Muhammad has come to take revenge for what I have been doing to him." But the permission to enter her house was in such a gentle voice that she allowed him in.

Muhammad (pbuh) entered the house and told the woman that not finding her on the roof had worried him and he thus wanted to inquire about her health. On finding out how ill she was, he gently asked if she needed any help. Hypnotized by the affectionate tone in the Holy Prophet's (pbuh) blessed voice, she forgot all fear and asked for some water. He kindly gave her some in a utensil and prayed for her health, while she quenched her thirst. This made her feel very guilty for being so cruel to him in the past and she apologized for her mean behavior. He forgave her and came to her house everyday to clean it, to feed her and to pray for her, till she was on her feet again. The kind attitude of the Holy Prophet (pbuh) inspired her into the recognition of the Truth, and his prayers were answered in the form of yet another addition into the growing number of Muslims.