"It is true that all our wealth is gone", replied the father consoling the child, "there is not a single coin left with us. But be sure that it is God who has manifested Himself in our house in the form of this poverty. We have to depend upon God alone. He will fulfill our wants. "
Standing outside the window, the rich young man heard the talk going on in the house. He was touched by what he had heard. He went home directly. From his treasury, he took out a bar of gold and in the darkness of night, unnoticed, he dropped it in the poor man's house through the window. The poor man and his daughter took it as a gift from heaven and glorified God for having heard their prayers. The following night also the youth dropped a gold bar through the window, and while he was attempting to repeat the act on the third night, the poor man happened to see him. Immediately the man fell at the feet of the youth and cried out, "Oh brother, what is this that you are doing?"
The youth replied, "You got the gold bars only by the favor of God. If God had not directed me towards your house on the first day and prompted me from within to help you, how could I have given the gold to you?" Saying this saint Nicholas, for that was his name, embraced the poor man with all love and humility. Poverty as a social evil brought about by the unfair structuring of the economic order depriving some sections of the basic necessities of life, is a phenomenon that needs to be tackled determinedly.
But the poverty of the man that we encounter here in this story, has a different
quality. The lover of God understands it as something visited upon him by God.
He is therefore not interested in merely escaping from it, but is trying to
find out what he is supposed to learn from it, by undergoing the experience fully.
The devotee's response to other afflictions in life, is not going to be any
different; he will patiently understand whatever is happening to him, because
he sees the face of his 'Beloved' even in his misfortunes. lf the 'Bhagyadevata' goddess of wealth
had smiled upon him at one time and the 'Daridradevata' goddess of poverty now frowns upon him,
he cannot afford to choose between the two, if he is to transcend the opposites
of pleasure and pain. It is only when he goes beyond the opposites, that he
encounters the Transcendent which alone can confer bliss on him.