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The One without a second

There was a man who wanted to do Spiritual practices and as such its an age old practice in India that one goes to the forest, finds a cave and does Spiritual practices. The forest was not far away from the village and whenever he felt hungry he would go to the village and get enough food that would last until the next day.

It was evening when he was returning back from the village after having his food, he found a crippled fox not far from his cave; both his front limbs were broken  perhaps as a result of a fall. The man reached his cave and when it was about night time he heard the roar of a lion.

He quickly climbed a nearby tree and waited for the lion to show up. He was surprised to see a fully grown up male lion. It went up to the fox and dropped a big piece of meat and went away. Surprised about the generous gesture of the lion he went to sleep. On the following day morning he observed that the fox was quite plump !! Nature is never kind to those who cannot help themselves. Unless someone is feeding the fox every day it cannot remain so plump and on the following night too to his utter surprise he saw that the lion came and dropped a big chunk of meat. Now he understood the cause behind the fox's good health while also thinking that there is a divine message for him.

He thought just like the fox he would be in the cave meditating ?‍♂️ and would expect the villagers to come with food. That's what he did. A day passed, two, three, ...a week later he was so weak and was groaning and approaching an imminent death. No one came to give him food !!

A yogi who went past, heard the groaning of the dying man went upto the man and asked him how he had got himself to such a pitiable state?!

The man told the yogi all about the fox, the lion and the meat and the divine message that he had received and the learning which he wanted to put it to practice. Upon hearing all this the yogi said that everything is fine, the divine message, the learning ✨️ etc... but not the perspective: "Why do you choose to be like a crippled fox and not like a generous lion"?

This is a typical situation in life, the choice one has to face in life. At any situation in life, are you a generous lion or a crippled fox? Are you a crippled fox always trying to get something out of something? Or are you a generous lion?

You do not become who you are because of what you eat but you become who you are because what you think, what you feel and you become the person who you want to become - just like a generous lion - a Contributor.