Stories

Marguerite Theophil beautifully explains as to how stories can be our teachers. Authentic living is a very uncommon phenomenon in today’s world. Several traditional ‘teaching stories’ indirectly bring us to the awareness that we are not giving due attention to authentic living. Authentic living may not at all times get us what we want but it will surely benefit us in the long run. If we say to ourselves that there is no use in living an authentic life and begin to live an inauthentic life, then we will not only get an outward reputation of being unreliable but also damage our internal ways of being. 

Among different types of stories trickster stories are among the most effective devices in almost all cultures. A trickster is a person or an animal who tricks other people to get what he wants, in this process he doesn’t follow rules. The trickster can be clever or unintelligent; he often gets away being more clever than wise.

In the Mayan culture there is the rabbit who usually manages to outsmart animals larger than him. The story of the rabbit and the crab goes thus. Once a rabbit got together with a crab to grow some carrots. They worked in harmony right from selecting the seed to harvesting the crop. However there was a verbal tussle between them when it was time to divide the crop. The rabbit got a cunning idea of deceiving the crab with sweet talk. He told the crab, “We have two piles there, a big one and a little one. You can have the big one and I’ll take the small one.”

The crab saw that the big pile was only filled with the leafy tops and that the small pile that had actual carrots. The crab smartly said: “Thank you very much for that proposal my dear friend, but let’s divide the two piles in half. I’ll divide and you choose, or you divide and I’ll choose, as you prefer.” The rabbit was upset at this smart suggestion of the crab and disagreed with his proposition. The rabbit suggested a race from 20 paces afar. He said that the first one to get there would get the carrots and the other pile would be for the loser, the crab agreed to this proposal. They lined up at the starting point from where the race was to start.

No sooner did the race begin, the crab used his brain and seized the rabbits tail with his claws without the rabbit realizing it. The rabbit bolted like lightning and arrived at the carrot pile. He turned around with pride thinking that he had left the crab far behind. Meanwhile the crab opened his claws and quietly fell on top of the carrots. The rabbit was very happy at the thought that he had won. He called out, “Where are you, friend?” the crab responded from atop “I got here before you, so I get the carrots.” The rabbit was dumbstruck.

At the end of this tale, you are probably smiling understanding that the story teaches that inauthentic living brings its own impact. Stories do teach us many values but only when we turn them inward. In many traditions and cultures, humor is used while narrating stories so as to drive home a lesson. At the end of it all what matters is whether we have taken home the lesson and acted upon it or not. 

Marguerite Theophil takes this point further by illustrating it with another story from ancient China. There were two men who were in the worst moments of their life. They tried all different types of schemes but nothing seemed to work out. Finally to make it even more worse there came a time when they became homeless and hungry. They began wandering on the streets until they came across a monastery. Since it was close to lunchtime, the smell of the food lighted up their nostrils which made them feel desperate. 

They began discussing with each other as to who will ask what and what would come back as a reply. This, that and so many details; they carefully studied different situations and before the first one could tell him anything further he knocked on the door.

When a monk opened the door the one who knocked immediately said ‘My merciful Buddha bless you. I bring you greetings from the temple in my hometown, where I am a patron of the monastery belonging to your order.” On asking the second one, he replied saying that he was not a devout religious man. The monk told both of them to enter in. He took the second one and told him to join the other people in eating. Calling the first one the monk said “You can join us in the inner chamber; since you belong to our group; you know that today is a day of complete fasting. We pray and chant all day. We are so happy you chose to join us.”

This story has a lot of significance provided we do not stick to the humorous aspect of it. When we turn the story inward i.e. the story of the two men, we see that we too are always hungry. However this hunger is not always for food but also for attention, love, recognition, connectedness or wealth. At times we get so desperate that we lie or bend the truth to get what we want.

We need to identify the hunger that we have at this very moment. We need to examine all that we have done and also plan as to how we will ‘feed’ our hunger. At the same time we also need to be sensitive to the ‘hunger’ of others. There are so many in this world of ours who are craving for love, attention, peace and many other things.