COPY CAT

    Ronald Regan had said one time that - I am paraphrasing- Imitation is best form of flattery. But doing imitation without understanding is useless . It may work one or other time but on long term it does not. I may give explanation on  Geeta or Upanishada , but if I have no clue as to what is meditation or how to achieve the Kaivalya - release from cycles of life and death, then may explanations fall short. The story that I am going to tell is very old  and that may be known to many. But it conveys the lesion very well. 

   In India , there was this poor man who used to sell hats. He used to pack all the hats in a basket and then carry it on his head  and walk through the town and then sell them. He used to start early in the morning and then go home in the evening. At the end of the day whatever money he has collected ,he would buy the food for his family and go home. So one day he was doing his routine.. It was noon and the the temperature was reaching at it's peak. It was hot and he was tired walking for 3-4 hours. So he decided to take a break . He  had his lunch with him  and he was hungry and he wanted to take some rest. He went under a shade of big tree. He had his lunch and had dome water  and then decided to take a nap. There were monkeys sitting on the tree. They had watched him very carefully .As he was asleep, they came down and got all the hats from his basket  and went back up in tree. When the poor man woke up, he noticed that all the hats were gone . He thought that there must be a thief . But when he looked up he realized that the hats were taken not by thief, but by the monkeys. He did it know what to do. He started shouting at them and asking them to drop the hats. He was waving his hands and the monkeys were doing same If he shouts they would make sounds . 'if he waved his hands they did the same. He was frustrated . He had lost all the hats and the day would end in starvation as he had not made much money. He sat down and then it struck him The monkeys were just copying his actions. So he stood and as if in anger took his hat  and through in on ground. All the monkeys did the same thing . Quickly he gathered all the hats and started his journey to sell them. 

   Doing things without knowing why we are doing it ,is acting like the monkeys.