On the road outside a certain town there stood a big handsome house.
It had a wall all the way round it and a wide doorway and a cool verandah. On one corner stood a temple and on the other corner stood a mosque, so that whoever came along the road, whatever they prayed, would see something of their own and feel welcome.
The man who owned it stood in the doorway all day being kind to travellers.
His name was Sajjan.
He had a trimmed beard and a soft voice and a string of beads always moving in his fingers, and he would say: come in, come in, you look tired, this house is not mine, it is yours. God has put me here to look after guests.
And travellers went in gratefully. And a good many of them never came out again.
One evening Guru Nanak Dev Ji came down that road with Bhai Mardana Ji, and the servants came out with their hands folded, and Guru Ji, who usually walked straight past fine houses, turned and went in.
Bhai Mardana Ji followed him, but slowly, and under his breath he said: Lord, keep us.
Come along, said Guru Ji. You are right to hesitate. Come anyway. They say the house is ours. Every house is the Lord's house. If this one is not, it will be.
They were shown into a beautiful room. Then Sajjan himself came in, all warmth, and welcomed them, and said he had no wants in this world and lived only to serve holy men.
What is your name, asked Guru Ji.
Sajjan, he said, which means a good friend, a true one.
Servants brought hot water to wash their feet. No, said Guru Ji. Food came on a tray. Take it back, said Guru Ji. Milk came. He would not have that either.
Then he said something quiet that made Sajjan sit up.
The fisherman spreads his net every evening, said Guru Ji. That is his living, and most evenings he pulls up fish. But sometimes what comes up in the net is a crocodile.
Sajjan went very still. Have you something against me, he said.
Holy men have nothing against people, said Guru Ji. Only against what people do. You have given us a roof. I am here for your good. Go and eat.
Later Sajjan came back and said the beds were made and they should sleep.
You sleep, said Guru Ji. Sleep is a good thing. It rests everybody, and while it lasts it makes the rich and the poor exactly equal. We will sit up. Let the night pass with us awake.
So Sajjan went off to his own rooms, and he was uneasy, and he could not settle, and in the middle of that night he came back to look at his guests.
And what he saw was a man sitting in the dark with light on his face.
Then Guru Ji opened his eyes and sang.
Sajjan stood there and could not walk away. Every line of that song was about him. Not about robbers in general. About him, and the road outside, and the travellers, and all the years of it. He had told himself for a long time that there were no truly good people anywhere in the world, that everybody was a cheat and he was simply the best of them. And here, in his own house, in the middle of the night, that story fell apart.
He went down on the floor at Guru Ji's feet and asked to be forgiven.
Forgiveness can come, said Guru Ji. But you must do two things. Tell the truth about what you have done, all of it. And every coin you took, give it back. Where you know the house it came from, carry it there yourself.
So Sajjan told the truth, all of it, out loud.
And in the morning he began carrying it back.
Then Guru Ji told him to pull the house down. Every brick of it had been bought with stolen money. Build something else here, he said, out of what you earn honestly. Make it a place where people sing and remember the Lord and are looked after.
And Sajjan did that too, and lived there the rest of his life, and served everyone who came along that road.
Goodnight. Even a house built for taking can be pulled down and built again for giving.