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Anthony de Mello, clinging, Copyright, devil, Father Anthony de Mello, intellectual property right, master, Prayer of The Frog, seeker, spirituality, temptation, The Buddha
I have been reading one or the other story of Father Anthony De Mello’s books – The Prayer Of The Frog Vol. I and Prayer of The Frog Vol. II. The books have interesting stories, many a times half page. One of the story I read was on a seeker going to a master’s abode. I’m tweaking this story (I would want to claim the copyrights!), here it is –
At the master’s door
A spiritual seeker was almost at the door of one of the masters. Sensing the abode as the best place to find his prey, a devil made his permanent residence there. When the devil saw the seeker enter the house of the Master, devil determined to do everything in his power to turn him back from his quest for Truth.
The devil tried giving this seeker all the possible temptations. His list of temptations included every possible means – women, wealth, fame, power and prestige even wisdom (perhaps false sense of it). However, our protagonist was too committed a seeker. He fought all these baits and stood his ground.
The devil was almost lost, he was about to let go of the seeker. Suddenly, an idea cropped up in the mind of the devil. He tried it. The devil said – I shall give you all spiritual knowledge you seek, come with me!
This time our protagonist could not resist his temptation – he followed the devil.
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Now if you understood the story and the BOLD copyright part (of mine above), you may laugh at it! You may learn few lessons – including me claiming ownership of the story. However, I know “You only lose what you cling to“.
Even the desire to be spiritual is a temptation!
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