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within himself he finds misery there. And that becomes a problem for him. He thinks the whole world is happy, that he alone is unhappy.
The same thing happened with this fakir. One night, in his prayers to God, he said, "I am not asking you not to give me unhappiness because if I deserve unhappiness then I should certainly get it -- but at least I can pray to you not to give me so much suffering. I see people laughing in the world, and I am the only one crying. Everyone seems to be happy; I am the only one who is unhappy. Everyone appears cheerful; I am the only one who is sad, lost in darkness. After all, what wrong have I done to you? Please do me a favor -- give me some other person's unhappiness in exchange for mine. Change my unhappiness for that of anyone else you like, and I will accept it."
That night, while he slept, he had a strange dream. He saw a huge mansion which had millions of hanging pegs. Millions of people were coming in and every one was carrying a bundle of unhappiness on his back. Seeing so many bundles of unhappiness, he got very scared, he grew puzzled. The bundles brought by other people were very similar to his own. The size and shape of everyone's bundle was exactly the same. He became very confused. He had always seen his neighbor smiling -- and every morning when the fakir asked him how things were, he would say, "Everything is just fine" -- and this same man was now carrying the same amount of unhappiness.
He saw politicians and their followers, gurus and their disciples -- everyone coming with the same size load. The wise and the ignorant, the rich and the poor, the healthy and the sick -- the load in everyone's bundle was the same. The fakir as dumbfounded. He was seeing the bundles for the first time; up to now he had only seen people's faces.
Suddenly a loud voice filled the room: "Hang up your bundles!" Everyone, including the fakir, did as commanded. Everyone hurried to get rid of his troubles; no one wanted to carry his miseries even a second longer and if we were to find such opportunity, we would also hang them up right away.
And then another voice sounded, saying: "Now, each of you should
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