is it a lesson for most of us?

i belong to baroda, and ever since i remember, have been getting my clothes stitched with a local tailor . the readymade stuff doesnt fit me well. my tailor, his wife, and two sons, both are hearing and speech impaired, right since birth. we are now used to communicate with him, using very basic sign language. he operates from his residence, and as far as i am concerned, he is an absolutely top class tailor.he has a habit. whenever i give him shirt or trouser length of cloth, he wud return me the balance piece of cloth, once the clothes are stitched. and he insists that we take those small odd shaped pieces of cloth back with us.

curious, at why he does this, once i decided to ask him. as usual he refused to explain, but i insisted, and wrote on a piece of paper, that i must know the reason for his returning the balance pieces of cloth back to us.he then took a piece of paper, and wrote down his explanation. what he wrote that day, shocked me, and shook me out of my senses.

this is what he meant " during our past births, its certain that me and my family must have committed some grave sins. thats the reason we have been punished now, and are unable to speak or hear. in the present birth, i do not want to perform even the slightest wrong - even if it means keeping these leftover pieces of cloth that do not belong to us. cos, in the next birth, i would like to experience the joy of speech and wud love to hear every sound with my ears. i would like to laugh and cry and chat like everybody else. so i always insist that all my customers take back those left over cloth pieces "

i leart the lesson of my life that day. a tailor without any degrees, or qualification to his credit, one who is speech and hearing impaired, had understood the essence of life. and millions of qualified and educated wise men and women, like the rest of us, we spend years reading, attending lectures, following swamis and saints, performing satsangs, going on pilgrimages, indulging in charities and so on, and yet fail to understand what it is to live like a good human being.

this man had learnt the theory of karma without maybe opening a single page of bhagwad gita. hats off to him