Be a Lion, Not a Dog

“Fear is the sure cause of degradation and sin. It is fear that breeds misery, fear that brings death, fear that breeds evil. And what causes fear? Ignorance of our own nature.”

— Swami Vivekananda

Spiritual guru Dada J P Vaswani always held that peace is our true nature, and when we drift from it, when we become self-centered, we also become disturbed. We get trapped in the fear of being harmed or losing what we have and end up doing things that degrade us.

But, Dadaji said, if you’re singing a song, painting, or exercising, you find that this stress gets replaced with peace. No amount of noise around disturbs you. Why? Because you lost your sense of self in the engaging activity.

When he was a young boy, Dadaji would sit at the feet of a holy man who visited his city. One day, he asked for a teaching. The holy man said, “Be a lion, not a dog… If you throw a ball at a dog, he runs after the ball. If you throw anything at a lion, he will ignore that object and go after you.”

The lesson is this: Rather than being held ransom by the changing vicissitudes of life thrown at you, go after God, the thrower of all this. When you align yourself with a higher power, fear will lose its power over you.

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