27/09/2020
*IS THERE A COW IN YOUR LIFE THAT IS KEEPING YOU MISERABLE?*
Once upon a time, in a far away land, there lived a Chinese wise man and his disciple. One day during their travels, they saw a hut in the distance. As they approached it, they realized that it was occupied, in spite of its extremely poor appearance.
In that desolate place where there were no crops and no trees, a man lived with his wife, three young children and a thin, tired cow. Since they were hungry and thirsty, the wise man and his disciple stopped for a few hours and were well received. At one point, the wise man asked:
“This is a very poor place, far away from anything. How do you survive?”
“You see that cow? That’s what keeps us going,” said the head of the family. “She gives us milk, some of it we drink and some we turn into cheese. When there is extra, we go into the city and exchange the milk and cheese for other types of food. That’s how we survive.”
The wise man thanked them for their hospitality and left. When he reached the first bend in the road, he said to his disciple:
“Go back, get the cow, take her to the cliff in front of us, and push her off.”
The disciple could not believe what he was hearing.
“I cannot do that, master! How can you be so ungrateful? The cow is all they have. If I throw it off the cliff, they will have no way of surviving. Without the cow, they will all die!”
The wise man, an elderly Chinese man, took a deep breath and repeated the order:“Go ahead. Push the cow off the cliff.”
Though outraged at what he was being asked to do, the disciple had to obey his master. He returned to the hut and quietly led the animal to the edge of the cliff and pushed. The cow fell down the cliff and died.
As the years passed by, remorse for what he had done never left the disciple. One spring day, the guilt became too much to bear and he left the wise man and returned to that little shack.
