www.thelionking.org
Just imagine, there are plants which are vain! I am speaking of plants one grows for oneself. If one pays them compliments, by words or by feelings, if one admired them, well, they hold up their head- with vanity! It is the same with animals. I am going to tell you a short amusing story.
In Paris there is a garden called” The Garden of Plants”: there are animals there also, as well as plants. They had just received a magnificent lion. It was of course in a cage. And it was furious. There was a door in the cage behind which it could hide. And it would hide itself just when the visitors came to see it! I saw that and one day I went up to the cage and began speaking to it (animals are very sensitive to spoken language, they really listen). I began speaking softly to my lion, I said to it “Oh! How handsome you are, how much we would like to see you…” Well, it listened. Then, little by little, it looked at me askance, slowly stretched its neck to see me better; later it brought out its paw and finally, put the tip of its nose against the bars as if saying,” At last, here ‘s someone who understands me!”
(“Collected Works of the Mother”, Volume 4, Centenary Edition, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, 1972, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry)
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