Vedantic Tales:
The Discipleship of Hari: The Lion

'Oh, for heaven's sake, Hari!' she would say with exasperation. 'There is pasture after pasture to be cropped, and you ask why you were horn! I sometimes just don't know what is the matter with you.' But in her heart the mother sheep loved her strange son and defended him to the others. He is a deep one, she told them. It hurt her very much to see them glance at one another and give no answer to this.

'Why can't you be normal, dear?' she pled with him. 'I know you like to be alone, but it looks so queer. Sheep talk about you.'

Despite the fact that almost nothing Hari's mother ever said turned out to be true, he had a deep regard for her advice. Happiness and meaning lay, no doubt, in taking one's place in the community and in being normal. So he tried his best to mix with the others and not to think. At first it was hard. It was not lost upon him that a silence fell when he was close by and that one by one the sheep left and formed a group apart from him. It gave him a sense of failure.

'No one likes me,' he told his mother.

'Don't be silly, dear,' she answered him. 'You are just as good as anyone. You don't give them a chance to like you. You should merge more.'

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