THERE was a man who died and was being taken to heaven by angels. The angels said to him, “We are going to take you to heaven, but first we will show you hell.”
The angels then took him to a place where there was a great bowl, so great that it was as big as a lake. The bowl was filled with a nutritious stew. All the way around the sides of this bowl were people-emaciated, starving, miserable people. These people had spoons to eat the stew with, and the spoons were long enough to reach the stew (about 3 m). The trouble was, while they could scoop up the stew into the spoon, they could not get it into their mouths because the spoons were too long. So here were all these pathetic people, suffering and moaning in agony, constantly trying to eat the food that was in abundance in front of them – all in vain.
Next, the angels took the man to heaven. To his surprise, he saw the same scene! There it was, a giant lake-like bowl of the same stew, surrounded by people with 3-m long spoons. Yet something was different here – all these people were smiling, happy, and healthy looking!
“Why? What is the difference here that these people are happy and well fed?” the man said to the angels.
They relied, “Have you not eyes to see?” The man looked more carefully, and observed that one person would scoop the stew, and bring it to the mouth of another. Then someone else would scoop up stew and feed it to the other.
The angels smiled and said, “Here the people feed each other. Here are the people that learned the way of Love.”
