Namaste, Welcome to SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation), Last week I drew your attention to one of many, ‘Teaching Stories’. This week I bring to your attention yet another teaching story which is extracted from an interesting and thought provoking work, ‘The Idries Shah Anthology.’
The Lion Who Saw his Face in the Water
There was once a lion who lived in a desert which was very windy; and because of this, the water in the holes from which he usually drank was never still, for the wind riffled the surface and never reflected anything.
One day this lion wandered into a forest, where he hunted and played, until he felt rather tired and thirsty. Looking for water, he came across a pool of the coolest, most tempting, and most placid water that you could possibly imagine. Lions, like other wild animals, can smell water, and the scent of this water was like ambrosia to him.
So the lion approached the pool, and extended his neck to have a good drink. Suddenly, though, he saw his reflection – and imagined that it must be another lion.
‘Oh dear,’ he thought to himself, ‘this must be water belonging to another lion – I had better be careful.’
He retreated, but then thirst drove him back again, and again he saw the head of a fearsome lion looking back at him from the surface of the pool.
This time our lion hoped that he might be able to frighten the ‘other lion’ away; and so he opened his mouth and gave a terrible roar. But no sooner had he bared his teeth than, of course, the mouth of the ‘other’ lion opened as well, and this seemed to our lion to be an awful and dangerous sight.
The Idries Shah Anthology – Idries Shah
This anthology is intended to provide a basic sample of his (Idries Shah’s) work, an essential reader, to allow people to do exactly what he would have wished them to do: to think for themselves and to make up their own minds.
You can buy your copy from any of the bookstores near you or via any on-line portal selling books or also by clicking the following link:
As I conclude today’s episode;
I want to draw your attention to these wise words of a Storyteller which I have extracted from a monumental work ‘Kalila wa Dimna’, which has been inspired from “The Panćatantra” which in turn has inspired many story telling traditions directly or indirectly.
My stories require, at this stage, no extra commentary, imaginings, or guesswork by you, me, or anyone else. The very worst would be that of moralizing. To explain away is to forget. Thus, let the stories which you can remember do their own work by their very diversity. Familiarize yourself with them.
Excerpt from Doctor’s orders:
Kalila Wa Dimna; Vol.1 – Ramsay Wood
And also let us remember: Our life experience would ultimately amount to whatever we had paid attention to. Attention: is important and most of the times we are so indifferent to it. It is as fundamental as food; and we go blundering about, seeking ways to assuage the craving, instead of learning how to provide ourselves with what we need, sensibly and calmly. We feed the hunger blindly. Once the mechanism is brought to our attention and we begin to study it, it is as if a veil has been stripped off ordinary life, and we become freer in our action and choices.
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