Man and his Bull

Once a traveller was returning home carrying a gunny bag of goods on his bull. On his way he came across a jungle. The bull was crooked and ill mannered. While clearing a forest stream he stumbled upon throwing the cargo and ran away. The traveller started chasing the bull leaving behind the cargo in the forest. A passerby asked him where is he going empty handed. The traveller replied that his bull threw away his cargo and he is out to bring it back. The stranger said, you seem to be free from reasoning. You are chasing the bull leaving the cargo in the forest. What would you do if a thief steals your cargo while you are away chasing the bull? It would be better to take care of the cargo, your wealth, than be a fool to chase the bull. So the traveller gave up chasing the bull and sat beside the cargo keeping vigil. Meanwhile someone found the strayed bull and went away with it. The traveller was left alone in the forest with his cargo. Yet another person finding the traveller and his cargo asked him what is he doing in the forest? The traveller narrated his story. After listening he said, O you madman, leaving your bull you are sitting here keeping the cargo in the forest. Without the bull the cargo cannot be moved. I doubt your bull is lost if you don't find it fast. Consider this: in the evening, robbers would take away the cargo after attacking you. When night falls, the beast would devour you. So it is better if you find out your lost bull and carry the cargo back home. The traveller, on hearing this went in search of the bull leaving behind the cargo in the forest. He could not find his bull and on his return lamented on not finding his cargo as well. Both the persons were right in their counseling. Basically the traveller was stupid and dull. Had he tamed and disciplined his bull he would have reached home safely. He did not bring the bull under his control when the bull leaped on the stream. Again he did not hold on the cargo from falling.

If he has kept his bull well prepared for the journey into the forest, he would not have lost his wealth for nothing. His crude way resulted in losing the bull as well as the cargo. Now friends contemplate the wisdom of this story. The bull is your lower self whose deeds are evidently corporeal. The cargo is your soul, the essence, and the epitome of God. The traveller is your diffident nature. Keep your lower self completely adorned with good conduct. When you

become conversant with the nature of your lower self, exert yourself to carry the cargo carefully. The lower self will neither leap jump in the jungle nor will your cargo get ruined. When the nafs (lower self) leap jumps/strays do not punish it else it would devise ways to keep you fretful. If you want to discipline the nafs, the lower self, disregard its diverse ways, so that you may preserve the soul, in a noble manner. Whoever is in possession of the Essence is the king and those who are divested of it are mere beggars. Thus a man would be mischievous through the wickedness of the nafs, the lower self, again he would be virtuous through its restraint. Body is the phenomenon and the witness for manifestation of the nafs, the lower self. The attributes of phenomenal manifestations of the lower self are: greed, lust, allurement and niggardliness. Seemingly negligent is its nature. By its intrinsic nature the body is attracted towards the digression and to refute its demands is the biggest form of worship. The forest is the mundane world of the lower self. in whose fodder the lower self is ensnared. Precisely the other name of the world is remissness, negligence, in whose nature the well-wisher of the mankind has said. Tark-e-duniya raas kull-e-taayatin. Hubb-e- duniya raas kull-e-qatiyatin. Abandonment of the world is the summit of act of devotion/submission. Love of the world is the aggregate of faults/sins. Either you be tyrannous on the nafs or keep the lower self by cajoling and coaxing so that it remain pleased and delighted. Wayward and restive and foe is the nature of nafs, which conspires new hypocrisy every instant. Suffice not if we maintain friendship with the nafs. Close at hand are the calamities and disasters which the nafs designs. The root of attachment to the nafs is greed and it is the basis and do not be seized by the greed.

Cut off, strike off the foundation of greed, which the lower self nurtures and destroy and pull down the roots of revolt and hostility of the nafs. To be greedy except towards the Omnipotent is delusion. Love towards worldly affairs is nothing but delusion and cannot attain lucidity. Turning down the nafs is the perpetual act of devotion. Beholding the personality of the lord is to happen day and night. Do not consider this anecdote as prosody; keep in mind the meaning of the story Qadre alam knows this much, that nafs alone can become the mirror of God.