An Indian Folktale
In a village, there lived a thief. He stole things from here and there, sold what he got cheaply and thus made a living.
Once someone in the village died and everyone in the house went to the cremation ground to cremate his body. The thief thought there would be nobody in his house and he would steal whatever he might lay his hands on.
When he reached the dead man’s house, he found a Pandit reading from the scriptures to some people gathered there. The thief also sat down in a corner to listen to the Pandit’s discourse. The Pandit was telling his audience what actions brought good results and what actions brought punishment to the wrongdoers with details of what punishment for what sin.
It set the thief thinking. He thought to himself that he had been committing sins only — thefts only and that he had not done any good act so far.
After the Pandit had finished his discourse and the listeners had left, the thief approached him and said, “Panditji, I have committed sins only. I have done no good act in my life. Tell me what I should do for my good.”
The Pandit said, “I am not so learned. I suggest you go to so-and-so sage, I’m sure he’ll show you the way.”
The thief went to the sage, paid obeisance to him and placed before him his problem in all humility and faith.
The sage listened to him and then gave him a black flag, saying, “Take this flag with you and go to all the sacred places, pilgrimages in the country and bathe yourself and this flag in the sacred waters there. Turn back from the pilgrimages where this flag becomes white after the bath.”
The thief bathed in all the pilgrimages but the flag didn’t become white.
Disappointed, he was returning home when night overtook him in a jungle. He was afraid and climbed a big tree and thought of spending the night there. Around midnight, he heard the wailing of a woman. He came down from the tree and walked towards the sound of weeping.
He saw that about ten dacoits had looted a marriage party and abducted the bride laden with jewellery and the bride was crying loudly. The thief joined the party stealthily and finding an opportune moment snatched a sword from one of them and killed all the dacoits.
He told the crying girl, “Don’t worry. I’ll take you to your people safely.”
The girl was relieved and blessed him saying, “You’ve saved my life, otherwise they would’ve killed me. Two of these men had served in our house and I had recognized them and they would’ve certainly finished me off lest I should name them.”
The thief reached the girl to her village. All the residents of the village were pleased to see the daughter of the village safe. They tried to reward the thief but he refused to take anything.
He then returned to the place, where he had killed the dacoits and had left his belongings.
He saw that the black flag had turned white. He was surprised that the flag had not turned white when he bathed it in so many sacred waters of so many pilgrimages but it had turned white when he killed ten people!
He went back to the sage, bowed to him and told him the whole story.
He said, “Sir, I bathed in the sacred waters of so many pilgrimages and bathed this flag there but the flag didn’t turn white. But when I killed ten people then only it became white.”
The sage heard him and smiled and said:
“Whatever thefts and sins you committed earlier, were in your self-interest. Your bathing at pilgrimages was also not disinterested but you didn’t have any self-interest in this last act of killing persons. You felt sympathy for a hapless girl and killed ten people to save her life. With this act your heart was filled with compassion and the flag turned white.”
The thief gave up stealing and theft from that moment and became a true devotee of the Divine, looking for opportunities to do selfless acts.
What we call a “selfless act”, is essentially a way to expand our limited sense of self. The will to widen our identity is inherent in all of us. We are either conscious or unconscious of it. We know that our identities are related to our conditioning since our childhood. Some of them are obvious like our names, our family, our education, our profession. Some are not so obvious like the brands we use and own, the hobbies that we have, the friends that we make.
All identities are nothing but stories. Till the time human beings have the present mental consciousness, it will be impossible to not to identify ourselves with stories. But the stories in our head create chaos as we cling to the old ones. Or maybe prefer one story over the other and suffer when our preferences are not served to us.
One way to take our mind off from this clinging tendency is by unconditionally offering ourselves. When we do that, we begin the journey of self-expansion, we widen our identity. The “other” then becomes a part of “self”.