Whatever God Does Is for the Best

Once there was a great prime minister in India who had this kind of understanding. If a parent said to him, “My son has died,” he would say, “Good. Whatever God does is for the best.” If a woman said to him, “My husband died,” he would say, “Good. Whatever God does is for the best.” People reacted violently against him. They thought he was crazy and were constantly hatching plots to remove him from power.

One day the king was being shaved by his barber and happened to doze off. While cutting the king’s nails, the barber accidentally cut off the tip of his finger. The prime minister’s enemies thought that this was a wonderful opportunity to teach him a lesson. They rushed to him and said, “Prime minister, the barber has cut off the king’s finger.” The prime minister said, “Good. Whatever God does is for the best.” The prime minister’s enemies went to the king and told him what the prime minister had said. The king called the prime minister into his presence and said, “You fool. You have been eating my food and living on my money, and now you have the nerve to say that it’s a good thing my finger was cut off?” He ordered his men to put the prime minister in jail and to give him only dry bread to eat. “Now you’ll see whether what God does is for the best,” he said.

The prime minister sat locked up in his cell and calmly remembered God’s name. He wasn’t upset, and when people would go to visit him and ask him “How are you?” he would say, “Very good. God has put me here and it is good for me.”

A few days later, the king went off to the forest to hunt. On his way he met a gang of bandits whose leader was a worshiper of the Goddess Kali. The bandit leader needed to sacrifice an important person to the Goddess, so he kidnapped the king and dragged him to the temple as a sacrificial offering. The bandits examined the king thoroughly to see if his body was whole, because only one whose body is perfect can be sacrificed to the Goddess. As they were examining him, they noticed that the tip of his finger was cut and said, “His body is impure. He is not worthy of the Goddess.” So the king was released. Immediately he realized that if his finger had not been cut he would have lost his head. He remembered that the prime minister had said, “Whatever God does is for the best,” and recognized that he had been right.

The king returned to his capital and had the prime minister released from his cell. When the prime minister came before him, he told him what had happened and then asked, “It was good for me that my finger was cut, but how was it good for you to have been locked inside this cell, living on dry crumbs?” The prime minister replied, “Your majesty, if you had not locked me in this cell, I would have gone hunting with you, and the bandits would also have grabbed me. They released you because your finger was cut, but they would have sacrificed me because my body is whole. Whatever God does is for the best.”