A tiger cub found itself alone in the world as soon as he was born. His mother was killed by a hunter at the exact moment she was giving birth. The hunter took his pictures, with his foot on her body, wide smile holding the phallic crutch he calls his gun. He shares the picture and tales of his conquest and fake bravery, seeking somehow to steal the fierce nobility of the tigress by imbuing her blood on his pictures, trophies, and tales.
In the meantime, the little cub was left behind to die. He survived, though, when a young shepherd girl, passing by with her flock, saw the cub, and filled with compassion for the dying child took it with her to raise.
The cub was raised among the sheep, and since sheep was all the shepherd girl new, she treated the cub as a sheep. All the cub saw around him was sheep. All he heard was bleats. He learned to walk, eat, and bleat like a sheep. He thought himself a sheep, and seeing only sheep around, he never suspected he was anything other than sheep. All the sheep, too, learned to see him as one of their own. He behaved like sheep and bleated, so they responded to him as they did to each other.
So the tiger cub grew up, obviously different from his flock in appearance, but internally he saw himself as just one of them.
One day, a wild tiger approached the camp, hunting. He was about to pounce on his target, when he spotted the young tiger running away scared like the rest of the flock. Puzzled, he let his prey aside and pursued the young tiger until he caught up with him. The young tiger bleated, scared for his life.
The old tiger grabbed the tiger-sheep by the back of the neck and dragged him away. The tiger-sheep bleated in panic and pain, scared for his life. The old tiger brought his prey to the side of a river, and forced him to look at his reflection for the first time.
“Look,” he commanded, “you are like me, not like them!”
The young tiger-sheep was in shock at the revelation, but all he could do was bleat. The old tiger forced some meat on the young tiger-sheep. It was an unpleasant and terrifying experience, and he vomited the meat in horror.
In time, however, he learned to like the smell and taste of blood, and the meat was strength and force in his body.
So it’s shown the truth of the teachings, that its strength seeks to be stolen by the hunter and never realized, thwarted and hidden by congregations and good intentions, and revealed only by the clear example of He who is a mirror of the deepest Self.
