A Bunch of Grapes

Great demonstrations sometimes come from little wishes.

Once in Boston I was with a friend in a market and I saw a big bunch of fine black grapes. I wanted a bunch, but they cost $3.00, and someone who was with me said: “Isn’t Swami extravagant.” Hearing this remark, I decided that I would not buy the grapes. I said to myself: “The Lord knows I want them, and He will give them to me some other time.”

One evening, about six months later, I entered a fruit shop and bought some grapes like those I had seen, forgetting all about the promise that God would give them to me. So, God said to me: “Return those grapes.”

I turned to the storekeeper and said: “Give me a honeydew melon instead.” The man looked at me puzzled, but I went out with the honeydew melon.

When I arrived home, lo, and behold, at the door was a package—a package containing two bunches of those grapes. There was no card attached, which made me very curious to know who had given them to me. For a month I tried to find out, when one day I heard that I would be told. As I was talking to someone, my attention was suddenly attracted to another man in the room. I asked if I could see him later, then I said to him: “God tells me that you gave me some grapes.”

At first, he said: “No,” but later he confessed to the following experience.

That evening, just when I was buying those grapes for myself, he was meditating, when he suddenly saw a great light and a hand holding some grapes, and the predominant thought in his mind was that he should go and buy those grapes. So, he said he bought one bunch and then another, but he still thought that the vision was hallucination. Then he prayed to be shown that it was God’s vision. And that is why he bought those grapes and gave them to me.

Wisdom Gem

Real prosperity is attained when you realize that God is your provider and that you are absolutely dependent upon Him. When you have that consciousness, you don’t care what happens because you are in the immortal arms of God.

-Paramhansa Yogananda from Stories from the Life of Yogananda