Namaste, Welcome to SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation), Last week I drew your attention to one of many, \u2018Teaching Stories\u2019. This week I bring to your attention yet another teaching story which is extracted from an interesting and thought provoking work, \u2018The Idries Shah Anthology.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Lion Who Saw his Face in the Water<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So the lion approached the pool, and extended his neck to have a good drink. Suddenly, though, he saw his reflection \u2013 and imagined that it must be another lion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Oh dear,\u2019 he thought to himself, \u2018this must be water belonging to another lion \u2013 I had better be careful.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This time our lion hoped that he might be able to frighten the \u2018other lion\u2019 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 \u2018other\u2019 lion opened as well, and this seemed to our lion to be an awful and dangerous sight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Idries Shah Anthology – Idries Shah<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This anthology is intended to provide a basic sample of his (Idries Shah\u2019s) 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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: <\/p>\n\n\n\n