Acharya Mahaprajna
We have before us two words on the basis of which we want to pattern our life. It has both essential and inessential ingredients. We do not know what is essential and what is inessential in our life - there are many things that have no meaning. On the one hand a person can live in a modest flat having three-four rooms or in a large bungalow, on the other hand there is one who has an inflated ambition, wants to exhibit himself as a big man and who craves for a house worth five thousand million rupees, a house worth ten thousand million rupees. Let us consider both types of man. How much space does a man need to live? Obviously, he needs a very limited space. He needs a single cot to lie on. He does not use the entire space of his room for sleeping. A room of the size of ten feet or twenty feet is enough for him. He can’t spread his legs all over the room. Only gossipers can say that they need a very wide room to sleep in.
Once two gossipers met. One of them said, “My grandfather was a wonderful person. He had such a large bed roll that it could be spread from one end of the village to the other. The other gossiper said, “The legs of my grandfather were so large that he needed a very large area.“ The first gossiper asked him, “If your grandfather had such large legs, where did he sleep?” The other gossiper replied, “He slept on the bed roll of your grandfather.” This story illustrates that exaggerated statements are made only in gossips but the fact is that a human being needs only a limited space of five to six feet.
