Once upon a time, there was merchant who used to roam from city to city for work with his three camels.
One night, when merchant was tired from all day work and wanted to rest, he thought that he might stay in a inn and tie his camels outside that inn.
He looked around and found an inn to stay for night. He started tying his camels outside inn. After tying two of his camels, he found that rope ended and there was no rope left to tie third camel for night.
He tried to make camel sit with other two tied camels but camel didn’t sit, this made merchant upset.
Just at that time, a sage was passing by. When sage looked at merchant upset, he asked, “What happened? You look upset. Tell me what’s wrong, maybe i can help you.”
Merchant replied, “Baba, I am tired of walking all day. Now i want to rest inside the inn but i am short of rope to tie this third camel. I can’t leave it outside for night without tying.”
When Sage heard his problem, he started laughing loudly and said, “Tie this third camel in same way as you have tied other two camels.”
Merchant was surprised and said, “But i just told you that i don’t have any rope left.”
Sage said, “Yes, i know but when i said that tie it with a rope, i mean you should tie this third camel with rope of imagination.”
Merchant did same. He pretended to put a noose rope around camel’s neck and tied other end to tree. As soon as he did this, third camel sat down very comfortably.
Merchant went inside inn and slept comfortably. When he got up in morning, he came outside and got ready to leave. He removed rope of camels, camels got up and were ready to walk but third camel didn’t got up.
Again merchant got angry and started to hit camel to make him stand up but still camel didn’t got up from his place.
At that time, again that Sage was passing by and saw this. He asked, “Why are you hitting this innocent animal? Yesterday you were upset because it was not sitting. Today when it is sitting comfortably, you still have problem?”
Merchant replied, “Baba, i have to go. I am getting late but this camel is not getting up.”
Sage said, “Yesterday you tied him, today it will get up when you remove that rope.”
Merchant replied, “But i never tied it, i only pretended to tie it with rope.”
Sage said, “Just like you had pretended to tie it up yesterday, do same and pretend to remove that rope.”
Merchant did same and in a moment camel stood up.
Moral:
Like that camel, many times in life we tie ourselves to old customs and traditions we don’t even know reason for. But we keep following them and sometimes hurt our near and dear ones.
Therefore, we should not blindly follow everything, we should try to understand reason for existence of those traditions and if necessary change accordingly.
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