THE LESSON OF THE LONG SPOONS
A curious seeker once asked the Divine, “Can you show me the difference between heaven and hell?”
The Divine gently led the seeker to two rooms.
In the first room, a great banquet table stood at the center, filled with a fragrant pot of stew. The aroma made the seeker’s stomach growl. But around the table sat people who were pale and weak. Each held a spoon with an impossibly long handle. They could scoop food easily, but no matter how hard they tried, they could not guide the spoons back to their own mouths. Hunger gnawed at them even though food was right before them.
The seeker trembled at the sight. “This is terrible,” he whispered. The Divine said softly, “Yes, this is what hell looks like.”
Then the seeker was led to the second room. Again, the same table, the same pot of stew, and the same long-handled spoons. But here, the people were strong, joyful, and full of laughter. The seeker blinked in confusion. “But how? Everything is the same!”
The Divine smiled. “Look closer.”
The seeker watched and realised: here, each person lifted a spoonful of stew and fed the one sitting across from them. In return, they too were fed. No one went hungry, for everyone thought of each other.
The Divine said, “The difference is not the table, or the spoons, or the food. The difference lies in the heart. Where there is selfishness, there is suffering. Where there is love and sharing, there is abundance. That is the difference between hell and heaven.”
Moral: Heaven and hell are not places far away—they are created by the way we treat one another.
