Letter 7:
A Vedantic tale on the illusion of bondage
27/03/07
Hello! How are you? Let me tell you a Vedantic tale on the illusion of bondage.
One day, a young muleteer was travelling through the mountains to go to a certain market. Every night he would sleep under some tree that he found by the path. After the donkeys had dined on the grasses typical of the valley that they happened to be in, the muleteer would tie them up to a tree with a rope. Normally there was never any problem, as in that season the weather was always good.
That evening, however, when they were descending from the pass into a new valley that he did not know, the muleteer saw that there were several black clouds gathering, and so he became worried. Lower down in the valley he saw that by luck there was a pretty little house. In those days, nobody lived in the mountains, but the muleteer remembered some rumours of some sage that lived alone in a little house. Perhaps it was he who lived here. The muleteer hoped that the owner would let him sleep in the house. He knocked on the door. The owner asked who he was.
“So you think you are imprisoned in that body called a young muleteer then,” answered the owner. “You are wrong. You are free, the Omnipresent Invisible, like me. However, it seems that your time has come. Let’s see how your story unfolds. Come in.” In spite of his queer conversation, the owner was very friendly and treated the young muleteer very well.
The muleteer went out, thinking that that individual was more mad than sage, but as there appeared to be no option, he pulled the donkeys to the tree and pretended to tie them up with an imaginary rope. At night, he could not sleep, as the storm was so rough and noisy. He was convinced that he would never see his donkeys again.
The owner said, “the donkeys are like us. We are free, but believe ourselves imprisoned. The donkeys have themselves built their own prison, and that prison exists only in their own minds. Have you understood?”
“How nice.”
The muleteer heard the owner laughing. The owner said, “you cannot disabuse humans and donkeys of their ignorance without doing anything. If they are under the influence of ignorance, they simply will not behave like sages! There are certain techniques for liberating them.”
“You have to find someone who knows how to untie the imaginary rope with which you believe you are bound to the wall of your imaginary prison.”
“Hahahaha! You yourself are like a donkey. Contemplate that and what I have explained to you, and you will understand it.” The owner went back into the house and shut the door.
When the muleteer arrived at the market, he sold his donkeys and returned to the valley where the sage lived. He stayed in his house, and after a short time the sage undid the imaginary rope with which the muleteer believed he was bound to the wall of the prison in his mind, and the muleteer realised that he was indeed the Omnipresent Invisible.
With lots of love,
Koji