In his essay The Real Nature of Man, Swami Vivekananda tells the story of a baby lion raised by a flock of sheep. The baby grew into a big lion but bleated like sheep, ran for safety like sheep, and grazed on grass like sheep. One day a wild lion came upon the flock and was shocked to discover the sheep. He tried to approach him, but the other lion ran away. After lying in an ambush for a while, the wild lion was able to grab the sheep lion, drag him to the nearby lake, and bring his face to the water. Look, he said, you are a lion, not a sheep. Stop with this unseemly sheepish behavior and act according to your nature. A realization came upon the sheep-raised lion. He was a lion! Not a sheep! Gone was the bleating. In came the roaring.
The story doesn’t tell us what the newly-realized lion did afterward. We are left to imagine his happily ever after, where he roams in the wilderness, dominates over all creatures, and never runs away, cowering and trembling. But is this true? Or likely?
Let me give you the sequel of this story. The sheep lion remembered who he truly was for a while, but eventually, he wandered back home to the only family he knew, the sheep. He had lived with them for a long time, and he was attached to them. He could do it, he justified to himself. Besides, now as a lion, he could defend and protect them. But little by little, he forgot about his experience by the lake. His long-standing habits were strong. It didn’t help that the sheep did not understand his true nature and didn’t even want his help, encouraging him back to bleating, fleeing, and grass-grazing. They pointed out, and rightly so, that that was their way of life.
Occasionally, he would remember his true self to lapse back again into oblivion and old patterns. On the days he remembered, he berated himself for his forgetfulness and considered even running away from the family in search of the wild lion. But the habits were too old, the attachment to his old life – too strong. Many days, he called himself all sorts of foolish names for staying and forgetting.
Foolish lion! Doesn’t you know that growth is helical – it goes up and down, up and down? You don’t recover in a snap from rounds and rounds of sheepish behavior. And you certainly do not need to run away from your family! Just keep working on yourself, and the time of remembrance between lapses will grow longer and longer, while the time of oblivion will last less and less. That is true growth!
The day will come when you will be in your new awareness without falling back into the old life. And it will happen right where you are, not somewhere else, in the wild forests of the Himalayas. Be patient with yourself!
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