A well known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20.00 bill.
In a room of 200, he asked, "Who would like this $20 bill?"
Hands started going up.
He said, "I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this."
He proceeded to crumple the dollar bill up.
He then asked, "Who still wants it?"
Still the hands were up in the air.

"Well," he replied, "What if I do this?"
He dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now crumpled and dirty.
"Now, who still wants it?"
Still the hands went into the air.

"My friends, we have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20. Many times in our lives we are dropped, crumpled and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value: dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless to those who love you. The worth of our lives comes not in what we do or whom we know, but by who we are."

Q: What are the things that you value about yourself?

Q: What are the things you value about others?

Q: What do you value about resources, like the food you eat, the water you drink, the air you breathe, the clothes you wear, the money you earn? How can you use such resources wisely?
Relate this to Maxim Eight: "Be happy to eat in constant Divine thought, whatever you get, with due regard for honest and pious earnings."

Q: This story teaches that we should value beyond external appearances, behavior and circumstances. How can you relate this principle to Maxim Six: "Know all people as thy brethren and treat them as such"? Do you value people on the basis of what they do for you, how nice they are, if they conform to your judgment of what is good? Or do you value them for something else? If so, what? Does this affect your ability to accept all people as thy brethren?

O, Master!
Thou art the real goal of human life.
We are yet but slaves of wishes
Putting bar to our advancement,
Thou art the only God and power
To bring us up to that stage.