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The composer had been told during his travels that there lives a man in the king's realm that has an exceptional ear for music. He was also told that the man was poor and his musical instrument was of a poor quality. The composer suggested to the king that he should purchase a violin for that man. He described the violin as an instrument that sings the melodies of the heart. He told the king that such an instrument could be obtained in a foreign country at a price far above the means of a poor man. He also assured the kind that the poor man could perform wonders with it, while the king could afford it easily and should bestow it as a gift of love to him.
The king protested. He protested, because if he did this, so he said, the lineup of beggars at his door would be endless. He was sure of it.
The composer waved him off. He told the king that he should never present such a gift as a royal handout. If he did that, indeed, those problems would occur, but more than this, his gift would thereby become tarnished. A gift becomes tarnished if it is perceived as a means to bring the bearer of the gift calculated advantages, such as fame and honor. The composer suggested that the king should present the gift while being disguised as a traveler, as an ordinary man, and that he should bestow the gift in such a manner as would be necessary to assure the recipient that it is a gift of love and nothing else. The composer said to the king that the gift would then not be tarnished. A gift is not tarnished if it can be accepted as a gift of love. "Then it will shine."
Ushi said that the king didn't like the idea at first, but as the days passed it seemed more and more right to him that he should do what his wise visitors had recommended. So he set out one day in disguise to visit the poor man. Indeed, everything that he had been told about the man was true. Consequently, a month later the king stood before the man again, in wayfarer's clothing, and bestowed on him his gift of love. It was by then a gift of love indeed, bestowed with all his heart and soul, as he had personally traveled to the far country that his visitors had spoken of, to obtain the precious instrument.
The king was pleased with himself. In fact, he was so pleased that he repeated the process in many other ways. He also found out that other people were emulating him once the violinist began to enrich the lives of the people of the kingdom with his own gift of love, his music. It wasn't long after that, that a group of people in the kingdom banded together to construct a much needed irrigation dam at the river that had been long desired. They constructed the dam as a gift of love to themselves. In this manner, as the king's pioneering venture caught on, the entire kingdom became enriched and uplifted.
Naturally, the king was more than pleased with this development. However, soon a new problem developed.
The problem was, that the king's daughter had been inspired by her father's success and had wanted to extend it still further. Only, she had no riches to share. Still she had seen that the people had become closer to one-another by extending gifts of love to each other, although not close enough to love each other fully as human beings. She felt that unless people began to really love one-another for their humanity, they would remain forever divided, and that she herself would thereby remain forever isolated in the king's castle as an outcast from society, an icon of a royalty for which society had little true affection. Thus she sneaked out of the castle one night, secretly in disguise, to the local inn where she began to dance. She danced night after night in the nude, sharing not the king's riches, but herself, her own riches as a human being.
When the king found out about his daughter's adventures, since the people were beginning to realize who she was, he was wroth with her.
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