About the hidden nature of Atman [Soul]:
“We are like a king, who falling victim to amnesia, wanders his kingdom in tatters, not knowing who he really is. We are like a lion cub who, having become lost from his mother at birth, grows up by accident among sheep and takes to grazing and bleating like them, assuming that he is like them.” – Themes from Hindu literature.
A LIONESS was big with young and going about in search of prey when she saw a flock of sheep. She jumped upon them and died in that effort. But her little baby lion was born, motherless. The sheep took care of it, and the sheep brought it up. It grew up with them, ate grass, and bleated like the sheep. In time it became a big, full-grown lion, and still it bleated like a sheep and thought it was a sheep.
One day another lion came in search of prey, and was astonished to find that in the middle of this flock of sheep was a lion who fled like the sheep at the approach of danger. He tried to get near the sheep-lion, to tell it that it was not a sheep but a lion, but the poor animal fled at his approach.
However, he watched his opportunity, and one day found the sheep-lion sleeping. He approached it and said, “You are a lion.”
“I am the sheep” cried and bleated the other lion, and could not believe otherwise.
The lion dragged him towards a lake and said, “Look here, there is my reflection and yours.”
Then came the comparison. The bleating lion looked at the lion and then at its own reflection, and in a moment came the idea that it was a lion. The lion roared, the bleating was gone. [Adapted from a tale by Vivekananda in the lecture “The real nature of man”, given in London, 1899 or near by]
❖ “You are lions . . . and perfect.” – Swami Vivekananda
