An attitude to serve

One day the king went to his spiritual master and said, Master you have been helping me in my spiritual life. I am very grateful to you. I want to do something for you. Can I give something to you that you need?

Master replied, I have everything from God. What can you give me? What do I need?

Still king kept on insisting and said, Please tell me if i can do something for you. I will be happy if I can be of some service to you.

Master said, Ok I will be really happy and grateful to you if you can chase away flies that bothers me so often.

King was surprised and hesitantly asked, this is the thing you are asking me to do? Such an easy task.

Master nodded & smiled.

So the King started chasing the flies. But each time he chased them away, they kept coming back. There was no end to the flies.

King thought to himself, I am a king and I thought master would ask me for money or lands in return but he asked me to do such a job.

Now I feel really ashamed that I can't even do this kind of job. I can't even do such an easy task for my master.

Seeing king lost in his thoughts, master said, you wanted to please me, but your mind had a kind of pride in it.

Therefore, I wanted you to go through this experience – an experience of humility.

I want humility from you. That is why, I have given you this job.

King understood his mistake and bowed down in front of his master.

Lesson: To serve is good, but to serve with humility & gratitude is better.