XXVIII - Page 276 Home | Index | Previous | Next

Fearlessness is the very Nature of a Human Being

In truth, human beings are divine and fearlessness is their very nature. It is the deeper meaning of the word human. Human refers to your divine essence. Here is a story to illustrate how human beings are not living up to their divine nature, but in their actions have become worse than animals.

Once there was a fearsome forest, and living in this forest there were a large number of animals. In most forests where there are lions there will be no elephants, and if there are elephants roaming about then there will not be any lions. But in this forest, there were all types of animals: lions, elephants, jackals, dogs, monkeys, the whole animal kingdom was present there. One day, a clever fox thought to himself, 'Human beings boast that there is something special and unique about human nature. They say that it is extremely rare and difficult to attain life as a human being. But human beings are born the same way that we animals are born. All these beings are born from the womb of a mother. The question is: Why are we all lumped together and called animals, while human beings are singled out and called humans? In what way are we inferior to them?'

The fox weighed all the various arguments and counter-arguments to this question that was perplexing him, and he resolved to prove that there was no distinction between humans and animals. From that day onwards, he started airing this problem to all the denizens of that forest. He sought out other animals and said, "Why should we accept the present state of affairs? People are considering animal life as inferior to human life. We should take steps to reverse this erroneous belief." In this way, he began to encourage all the animals living there to think about this issue and get excited about it. He showed how these false beliefs had been taught and accepted by all the animals, even by the mighty elephant who was stronger than anyone and the dauntless lion, who was their king.

Next