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THE HERMIT AND THE SERPENT

Once upon a time,  long,  long ago,  a  venomous,  vicious serpent used to live in a hole in the hill on the outskirts of a village.  A hermit of great miraculous power also made his home in this village.  Many of the villagers’  children, who ventured to play around the hill, were attacked by this vicious serpent and stung to death.  The serpent extremely resented any noise around its dwelling.  The villagers tried their utmost to kill the serpent but met with no success.  Failing in this, the villagers went in a body to their local hermit and asked him to find a remedy to prevent the death-dealing work of the serpent. Yielding to the legitimate prayers of the villagers, the hermit went near the hole in the hill, where the serpent resided, and by his spiritual powers summoned the serpent to appear in his presence.  The master hermit scolded the serpent for stinging the villagers’ children to death and instructed him never to bite again but to practice loving his enemies. The  hermit  left  the  village  for  a  year  on  a  pilgrimage,  and  as  he  was returning  to  the  village  by  way  of  the  hill,  he  thought:  “Let  me  see  how  my  friend the  serpent  is  behaving.”  As he approached the hole in the hill, he found the serpent lying in front of the hole half dead with several stitches in his back. The  hermit  said:  “Hello,  Mr.  Serpent,  what’s  all  this?”  The serpent dolefully whispered:  “Master,  this is the result of practicing your teaching. Whenever  I  came  out  of  my  hole  in  quest  of  food  and  minded  my  own  business, the  village  boys  notice  my  docility  and  refusal  to  attack  them,  and  then  they threw  small  stones  at  me,  and  when  they  found  me  running  away  from  them they  made  it  their  business  to  throw  big  stones  at  me  with  the  object  of  killing me.  Master,  I  dodged  many  times but  also  got  badly  hurt  many  times,  and  now I  am  lying  here  with  several  stitches  in  my  back  because  I  have  been  trying  to love  my  enemies.”
Then the village hermit looked at him and said rebukingly:  “Fool,  I  told you not to sting to death,  but why didn’t you hiss and scare them away?
This story illustrates that a person, although meek and spiritual,  should not be spineless or without common sense and allow himself to be made into a doormat.
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