Bliss-Girls

One of the best pieces of advice that I often receive from my father is to face life fearlessly. He tells me not to worry too much about what might happen, to do the best I can, and to face tough situations bravely. In this post, I want to share a story that resonates with this advice.

A wealthy merchant had a daughter who was very dear to him. The merchant used to travel a lot. Before every travel, he would ask his daughter what she wanted him to get from the places he was visiting. On one trip, his daughter asked him to get a tree branch with fresh green leaves and that tree should be unique to the place and have sweet fruits. The merchant could not understand why his daughter was asking for a branch, but he promised to get it for her.

Once he reached the destination village, he asked locals where he could find the sweetest fruit bearing tree. The villager told him that he could find such a tree in the nearby forest. The merchant went into the forest and after hours of searching he found a tree that was lush and green. He saw that the tree was having golden fruits. Without wasting much time, he broke a branch and before he could climb down the tree, a huge 30 foot bear popped out the next branch. The bear held the merchant and told him that he was hungry and would eat him. The merchant begged for his life, the bear took pity on him and offered an alternative. The bear said ‘I will let you go, but on a condition that you will hand me over the first person you see when you return home’. The merchant, without thinking agreed to the bear’s condition and he was set free and the merchant started journey towards his home.

When the merchant arrived at home, to his bad luck, his daughter ran towards him and hugged him. The devastated merchant narrated the whole story and began to cry thinking about handing his beloved daughter to the big bear. The merchant’s daughter, however was not too worried. She consoled her father and told him to speak to his servant and offer him good amount of gold coins in return for the servant’s daughter. The merchant could then tell the bear that the first person he saw was his servant’s daughter and could hand her over to the bear.

The servant, who was a old man, when he heard the request from his master was too shocked. But his daughter was a very intelligent girl. She asked her father to accept the money from the wealthy merchant. The old man protested. His daughter then convinced him that nothing wrong would happen to her. She told her father that if he accepted the money, he would no longer have to work as a servant and about the bear she said ‘The merchant mentioned the bear spoke to him, what kind of a bear would speak? There must be something behind this. So do not worry about me father, please accept the merchants offer’. The old servant did as his daughter suggested. The merchant was very happy to hear this. Few days later when the bear arrived at the merchant’s house, the merchant handed over the servant’s daughter as per their agreement. The merchant was relieved.

The bear took the girl on to the distant forest on a cart. On the way, they stopped a while for a little rest. The bear’s ear was itchy and asked the girl to rub it. The girl was a bit scared and hesitantly scratched his ear. As she was scratching, the bear started to relax. The bear, who seemed aggressive initially was now as calm as the ocean breeze. The girl too was now very comfortable in his company. The took rest for a while and resumed their journey.

When they arrived at the forest, the bear took the girl to a cave. It was a huge dark cave and when the bear opened the door to the cave, the girl was shocked to see a lot of strange animals making strange noises. She was again scared. The bear asked her not to worry and just to follow him. She did as she was asked to. They passed through 4 rooms, in one room there were venomous snakes, in the other there were strange animals which she had never seen before and the other two rooms had strange weapons.

The bear stopped in front of a door and opened the door. As the door opened, an amazing aroma filled the air. They both entered through the door. The girl was amazed to see a huge beautiful golden palace. The girl had never seen anything like this before. She turned around to look at the bear, and to her surprise, there was no bear. Instead, in its place, was the most handsome young man she had ever seen. He was the king of the jungle. The king accepted the girl as his wife and they lived happily every after.

Moral: Fear is a creation of mind. When a tough situation arises, think through from different perspectives and do the best you can.