To Hiss Is Not To Hurt !

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There once lived a very venomous snake in a hole in a garden. Young boys who frequented the garden to play were virtually scared of the snake and were extremely cautious when playing there.

One day the boys informed a sage who passed by about the snake. The sage went to the hole were the snake lived. The snake as usual tried to harm the sage. The sage with his powers, quelled the wrath of the snake and advised the snake to take up the path of rightful living. The snake also lived by the words of the sage and gave up its anger.

The boys realised that the snake no longer was violent and recognised its calm disposition. A little boy even became bold to stone the snake, who calmly receded to its hole. Another day, one of the boys caught the snake by the tail, whirled it with his hand and dashed it to the ground. The snake was badly hurt, but quietly bore the assault and slithered into its hole. It avoided to come out of during day time. It became customary of it to hunt for its food at night. The snake hence became weak and frail.

One day the sage paid a visit to the snake. On seeing the hapless condition of the snake, he enquired about the cause for it. The snake who had become calmness personified, with great difficulty brought to its mind the harm that the boys caused to it. The sage said, “You are a fool to ignore your body, the temple of God! You do not respect yourself. You are not to ignore your body at any cost!"

The sage further advised, “I only asked you not to harm anybody. However I did not ask you to allow anybody to harm you. There is no harm to scare people who harm you. I only asked you not to bite, but did not ask you not to hiss! One is to remain cool within while on the surface it may appear that one is acting. The knowledge of one's true self brings about the aforesaid calmness within.

Further more the short story relates that the body is required for one to realise one's true self. Osho says that the ego may be put to use in different ways and one just has to be alert so as to not be used by the ego. While functioning with awareness, the body may be put to different uses and actually need not have to be dropped virtually.