A Story of Compassionate Cruelty
Be kind when what seems unkind comes from a wise person.
Once, a holy man, riding his donkey, saw a poisonous snake crawling into a sleeping man's mouth! He hurried, but he couldn't prevent it. He hit the man several blows with his club.
The man woke terrified and ran beneath an apple tree with many rotten apples on the ground.
"Eat! You miserable wretch! Eat!"
"Why are you doing this to me?"
"Eat more you fool!"
"I've never seen you before! Who are you? Do you have some inner quarrel with my soul?"
The wise man kept forcing him to eat, and then he ran him for hours, he whipped the poor man and made him run. Finally at nightfall, full of rotten apples, fatigued, bleeding, he fell and vomited everything, the good and the bad, the apples and the snake.
When he saw that ugly snake come out of himself, he fell on his knees before his assailant.
"Are you Gabriel? Are you God? I bless the moment you first noticed me. I was dead and didn't know it. You've given me a new life. Everything I've said to you was stupid! I didn't know."
- Rumi
There's more to the story but I think you get the point. I start my fast tomorrow. I don't know for how long but at least 3 days. Water/Tea only. Little to no T.V., no radio. Little to no talking. Just reflection, meditation and prayer.
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