One day a
few crocodiles came together in a large pond for some serious deliberation.
They were greatly distressed by their lazy nature and their habit of sleeping excessively.
It was not acceptable to them that even the smallest of the animals standing at
the edge of the pond would taunt them as being lazy, thanks to their habit of
constantly sleeping. But they were what they were! Finding flaws in one’s
intrinsic nature is the very beginning of all kind of miseries. And at this
point of time, this is exactly what the crocodiles gathered in the pond were
doing. At that instance, a crocodile kid happened to pass by, holding a book
titled ‘HUMANS’ in his hand. Seeing everybody engrossed in deep conversation,
he stopped right there and for a while even listened intently to the
discussions.
But ultimately,
he found the discussion to be absurd; hence he asked for permission to say
something. And as soon as he was granted the permission, with immense
confidence he said – “Today, I have been taught about human beings in school and
based on that I can say for sure, that human beings are the animals who sleep
the most. It is even written in this book, that a human being not only sleeps
for eight hours at night but he sleeps with his eyes open for the remaining
sixteen hours as well. All of his thinking, his actions and the way he goes
about his work is mechanical. He is absolutely unaware of when he picks up a
book, when he eats food, when and what kind of thought he catches hold of or
for that matter, when, why and how angry he gets! Not only that, whenever an enlightened
being like Buddha or Christ tries to awaken him, he puts them off to sleep by
making them ‘Gods’. Thereafter, they find use as stone statues for adornments here
and there. Hence, we surely are not the laziest of them all. Yes, we do tend to
sleep a bit more but we never sleep with our eyes open. So, as long as human
beings exist, we need not harbour any guilt regarding our sleepiness.
- Deep
Trivedi
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