Hello friends, today I’ll tell you a story about a sage and a little boy.

In a village, there was a boy with a very bad habit: he was addicted to eating jaggery. He ate it all the time, which caused his teeth to rot and gave him constant stomachaches. Even with all this pain, he wouldn’t stop eating jaggery. He would often skip meals, but he would never give up his craving for jaggery.

His mother started hiding it, but he would always find it and eat it all. As the days passed, the mother couldn’t bear to see her son suffering. So she decided to take him to a wise person who could convince him that eating so much jaggery was a bad habit. She remembered an old sage who lived in a temple in their village and was always engrossed in prayer. She took her son to the sage and begged him, “Sir, my son has a very bad habit of eating jaggery. Please do something to help him break this habit.”

The sage replied, “My dear woman, give me one week. I will speak to your son after that.” The mother thought perhaps the sage needed to perform some ritual before giving advice to her son. “Okay, sir, I’ll return in a week,” she said.

One week later, the mother and son returned. The sage, with great affection and kindness, explained the difference between eating jaggery and eating too much jaggery. He told the boy that it’s okay to eat jaggery in moderation, but anything in excess is bad. The boy understood. He was happy and left.

Before leaving, the mother asked the sage, “Sir, did you perform a ritual this past week before you gave my son this advice?”

The sage said, “No. I myself was addicted to eating jaggery. I ate a lot of it, and I couldn’t break the habit. How could I advise that child when I had the same bad habit? So, I used this week to overcome my own addiction. Only after I succeeded in giving up my bad habit did I talk to your son.”

The moral of this story is to overcome your own bad habits before advising others.

I hope you liked this story. We’ll meet again with another story. Namaste.