The man took out a small black box from his pocket, opened it, and gave her a ring. She looked very minutely at it – the diamond was so small that it was almost impossible to see it with bare eyes.

The man said, “Don’t be worried” – because she looked worried, shocked too, that after waiting so many years this man brings a wedding ring with such a small diamond. And the man was very rich. The man said, “Don’t be worried, don’t look puzzled.” And from another pocket he pulled out a magnifying glass, and he said, “Look! Look through this glass.”

Our minds are continuously magnifying. That’s how the ego exists. We magnify our virtues, we magnify our sins, we magnify everything. We make much fuss about nothing, much ado about nothing.

This magnifying glass has to be dropped absolutely. And then suddenly you see things in their perspective. We are small: our virtues are small, our sins are small. Neither are our virtues of any worth, nor are our sins of any worth. All that we can do is so small that it is irrelevant.

Your sins are not going to take you to hell. All those priests who go on telling you that are simply magnifying. And your virtues are not going to take you to heaven either, because all those virtues are so tiny, so shallow.

Then is there any hope, or not? There is no need of any hope. You are already in paradise. All that is needed is an unburdened heart to look around. You are already in paradise: you need not go anywhere. You are in existence. Drop the magnifying glass, and your sins and your virtues both will disappear, because they both are creations of the magnifying glass.

An elephant was having an awful time in the jungle because a horsefly kept biting her near her tail and there was nothing she could do about it. She kept swinging her trunk, but he was far out of reach.

A little sparrow observed this and suddenly flew down and snipped the horsefly in half with his beak.

“Oh, thank you!” said the elephant. “That was such a relief.”

“My pleasure, ma’am,” said the sparrow.

“Listen, Mr. Sparrow, if there’s anything I can ever do for you, don’t hesitate to ask.”

The sparrow hesitated. “Well, ma’am…” he said.

“What is it?” said the elephant. “You need not be shy with me.”

“Well,” said the sparrow, “the truth is that all my life I wondered how it would feel to make love to an elephant.”

“Go right ahead,” said the elephant. “Be my guest!”