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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