When Mirabai was a small child she saw a wedding procession and asked her mother - "Who will be my husband?"

Her mother pointed to the Krishna idol in their home and smiled.

"That one."

She was joking. Mirabai was not.

She grew up, was married to a Rajput prince, and when he died her in-laws expected her to observe the customs of widowhood.

Instead she kept dancing.

Kept singing.

Kept receiving common devotees in her private temple regardless of their caste.

Her brother-in-law tried to stop her.

Three times.

Each time something unexpected happened.

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Two merchants. One bowl.

One knew its value and lied.

One knew its value and told the truth.

This 2500 year old Jataka story knows exactly what each choice costs - and what it earns.

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After the war at Lanka was won and Ram was crowned king of Ayodhya, Sita gave Hanuman the finest gift she possessed — a magnificent pearl necklace from around her own neck.

Hanuman accepted it with great humility.

Then he began biting the pearls open one by one.

The court watched in horror.

Vibhishana finally stood up.

"What are you doing? Those are priceless pearls given to you by the Queen herself."

Hanuman looked up calmly.

"I am looking for Ram inside them. If Ram is not in them they are worthless to me."

The court laughed.

Someone called out — "Is Ram inside you too then?"

Hanuman stood up.

And answered.

This story is not in Valmiki's Ramayana. It grew in the devotional tradition because it contains a truth that needed to be shown.

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In 17th century Maharashtra a grain merchant lost everything.

His wife died. His child died. His business collapsed.

What remained was an overwhelming love for Vitthal - and poems that began arriving whether he sought them or not.

He wrote in Marathi. The language of ordinary people.

The Brahmin priests were furious.

They ordered him to throw every manuscript he had ever written into the Indrayani river.

Tukaram tied a heavy stone to the bundle. And threw everything in. Then he walked to his temple and sat down.

For thirteen days.

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An old heron could no longer catch fish the way he once had.

So he sat at the edge of the lake and wept.

When the creatures of the lake asked what was wrong, he told them he had heard terrible news — a drought was coming, the lake would dry up, every creature in it would die.

But there was hope.

He knew of another lake — full of water, covered in lotus flowers — and he would carry them there himself, one by one.

The fish believed him.

The crab was not so sure.

But when his turn came he asked one small thing — to ride on the heron's back rather than in his beak.

The heron agreed.

As they flew, the crab looked down.

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The man who wrote the Ramayana was once a highway robber.

His name was Ratnakar.

One day he stopped a sage on a forest road.

The sage asked him one question before submitting to being robbed.

That question changed everything.

What followed — and what Ratnakar became — is one of the most extraordinary transformation stories in all of Indian tradition.

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Two men visited a Zen master on the same afternoon.

Both were thinking of moving to his town.

Both asked the same question.

"What is it like here? Is it a good place to live?"

The Zen master asked them both the same question in return.

"What was your old town like?"

The first man said it was dreadful. The people were unfriendly. He couldn't wait to leave.

The Zen master told him this town was very much the same.

The second man said his old town was wonderful.Kind people. Good friends. He was just ready for a change.

The Zen master told him this town was very much the same too.

Same town. Two completely different answers.

This story is about why.

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Narada had been asking Krishna one question for as long as either of them could remember.

"What is maya?"

He had read everything written about it. Understood it perfectly as a concept. And never once experienced it.

One afternoon Krishna finally agreed to explain.

"Lie down in the shade of this tree and I will tell you everything.

But first — it is terribly hot. Would you get me some water from that village over there?"

Narada set off happily across the fields.

He reached the village.

He found a well.

And at the well there was a young woman.

And Narada — the immortal sage who had spent eternity chanting the name of God — completely forgot about Krishna.

What happened next took years. Half an hour passed.

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A king made a mistake.

Exhausted and thirsty after a hunt, he came upon a sage deep in meditation and asked for water.

The sage did not respond.

In a moment of frustration the king draped a dead snake around the sage's neck and left.

When the fog lifted he sat very still.

What had he done?

Before he could act, word arrived.

The sage's son had pronounced a curse — in seven days the serpent king Takshaka would come for him.

The king could have built a fortress. Surrounded himself with physicians and every snake-charmer in the land.

Instead he handed his kingdom to his son and walked to the banks of the Ganges.

And asked one question. "What is the best thing a person can do — when they know they are about to die?"

This is Episode 50 of The Long Thread.

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A sadhu was bathing in a river when he saw a scorpion drowning.

He reached in to save it.

The scorpion stung him.

He reached in again.

A hunter watching from the bank had one question.

"Why do you keep trying? You know it will sting you. That is its nature."

The sadhu's answer has been remembered for centuries.

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