Vedantic Tales:
The Discipleship of Hari: The Lion

So every morning at daybreak and every evening at sunset Hari sat by the pool for meditation. At times his mind would wander on about the affairs of sheep. Snatches of conversations he had at the Rams' Club would flash through his brain, and tender memories of his mother would come to him. But gradually such thoughts grew more and more dim, and he became able to control his mind. 'I am a lion. I am a lion,' he would repeat. He tried it with emphasis on different words and tried to give it a roaring sound: 'I am a lion. I am a lion. I am a lion.' Still, nothing came through to him. He remained a sheep but a sheep who was beginning to feel at home in the vast forest, which had at first seemed so strange and fearsome. When he was not meditating, he would look into the pool and study the reflection or, better, he would sit and look deep into his master's sun like eyes and feel that he was looking into eternity itself. And he was always ready to serve the lion, anticipating his smallest needs. Sometimes Lion told him stories of the forest and of other lions. Sometimes he scolded him for his sheep like habits, his eyes flashing fire and his roar like thunder; but he never turned him away. Those were happy days.

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