The Jewish Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev, Ukraine, once told a story when a man came to him with doubts about another person’s dedication to God. There was once a king whose kingdom was invaded by an enemy. The general of his army, along with the troops, went out to repel the invaders.
He failed. The king removed the general and appointed a new one in his place. The new general went out to confront the invaders.
He was able to beat them back successfully. The kingdom's people started talking about how the old general had failed, while the new general had succeeded. They also started speculating that perhaps the old general was a traitor, and that is why he had not succeeded.
After all, the new general had succeeded with the same army. The talk reached the King’s court too. The courtiers demanded that the old general be punished as a traitor.
The king thought a lot about it but was not able to make up his mind. The king summoned an old man, known for his wisdom, who lived in a hut at the edge of the city. The old man assured that he would demonstrate the old general’s dedication, or lack of it, to the king, and asked him to organise a victory parade for the new general.
When the parade was held, the people of the city enthusiastically lined up along the route and cheered for the victorious general. The old man had arranged the route of the parade in such a way that it passed the house of the old general. When the parade passed by, the old general stood at his window, cheering as loudly as the others, and throwing flowers at the new general.
The Old man and the King were in the parade in disguises, and saw the behaviour of the old general. The old man took the king aside and said that he need not harbour any doubts about the old general because he was so dedicated that he rejoiced in the King’s victory even when it was achieved by his rival. There is a story that when Mirza Ghalib, the famous Urdu poet, was getting ready to go to a poetry session, he was advised not to go as he was a new poet, and the older ones would insult him, as they had done on earlier such occasions.
He replied that he was a lover of poetry, and not a supporter of Ghalib, so he would definitely go. When our dedication to a cause is complete, we stop caring about whether we are getting the glory or not. Our quest for personal glory is subsumed by the greater quest for the cause.
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