Vanity or Virtue?

A priest and a prostitude lived next door to each other a long time ago in a city filled with temples and ghettoes where sexual gratification is sought by visitors and residents alike. Other vices may be found in this city but all were tempered by the presence of the priests who preached proper behaviour and shunning of sin.

The priest saw every evening the prostitude going about her livelihood as man after man visited her. He thought, 'The woman does not have a clean life and thus, surely her soul must be as unclean as the sky in the darkest night.' He often used the prostitude as an example of the manifestation of all that is evil and undesirable on the earth. His heart was filled with disgust of the shameful that she was committing with her body.

The prostitude was fixated on the clean and pure life led by the priest, her neighbour. Every morning, she saw him preaching the good ways to his fellow citizens. She thought, 'If only all man were pure and lived as he live. I can only hope to strive to be like him.'

As both reached the end of their lives and passed on, they met with the Creator.

However, the priest saw that he was being judged not in the way he had imagined as the Creator told, 'All your life you have been judging and decided that your neighbour was not fit to live. Your heart was filled with bitterness and wickedness even as you knelt in your prayers and meditations.'

But the Creator told the prostitude, 'Though you may have been a whore whose body performed unworthy acts, your heart was constantly filled with love and comtemplation of the acts of purity by the priest.'

Who was vain and who was virtuous?