Alligator Allegory

[Sacred Fool]

 
I'm posting this because it so weird and unexpected, yet at the same time, germane to a conversation that is floating around about multiple internal constituent parts, let's say, of our multifarious selves.  "Once upon a time...........
  

Once upon a time, my friends, in one of your southern cities there came to be a very unusual creature. This creature had the body of an alligator but the wisdom of a man. Soon, those about him learned to treat him as a man. And he wore special shoes and special clothing and had a hat specially made for him, and learned to sit upright and eat his meals and hold his job and act in every way like a human would act.

One day as he was sitting on a bar stool of his favorite pub, watching the big game on the television set, a rather tipsy man stumbled and stepped upon his tail. Somewhat tipsy himself, the alligator was furious, and he whipped around and made to slay the poor unfortunate who had dared to step on his tail.

“I am sorry,” said the drunken man, “but I did not see your tail.”

“I do not have a tail,” said the alligator with great fury, “for I am a man!” And again he made to lunge furiously at the poor man, who grabbed what he could off the bar, that being a large stick the bartender handed him, and rammed it into the alligator’s throat, killing him.

As the alligator lay on the floor, dead, in his shoes and his clothes and his hat, the man said to him, ‘‘I may be drunk, but I know an alligator when I see one.”

We ask you at this time, my friends, to consider this story in the context of your own personality. You must realize that within your own mind there lives a population of many creatures. Some are saintly—good and pure, kindly and compassionate; others are, perhaps, boring, over-intellectual. Some of your citizens may be too emotional, and a few may actually be beasts that you may not wish to face.

There are many negative emotions, which do not seem so negative on the plane which you now enjoy: greed is explained away as a means whereby produce is generated in the market place; ambition is explained as that which one must do in order to be of service to one’s family, to one’s children, or to one’s best interest; selfishness, jealousy, and envy, all of these things, my friends, can be so easily explained away in your mind. You can clothe them in explanations—the hat, the coat, the shoes.

And so we charge you, in your meditations, first to find your alligator and to remove him, and then to meditate in quiet and humility, knowing that you are not unlike your brothers but very, very much the same. Let the citizens within you which are compassionate grow and spread their wings. This can be done, not by your efforts, my friend, but by meditation; not by conscious thought, my friend, but by intuition.

There is no time to be proud, my friend, to assert yourself as a good person or as a bad person. You are a person … you are the Creator, and you have all of the parts of the creation within you. As that is so, all men are your brothers; from the murderer to the saint, from the fool to the sage. Look past the citizenry of your emotions and find the heart of unity that lies beyond all of the paradoxes of human nature.

You are in this life. Your vision is blurred, and your steps are unsteady and this is for a reason. Come to understand the challenge of this illusion and the possibility of progress. Above all, come to understand that you will never know your progress; you can only continue meditating, seeking the Creator, and attempting to be a channel for His love and His light among men like yourself.

Although we are more advanced than you, we of Hatonn know that our thoughts are varied and are not always harmonious. The difference between us, my friend, is simply that we can see our thoughts. We have a reality in our density. Consequently, we have no chance to quarrel with our alligators. When they arise, we must deal with them without further ado.

We ask you to never fear what is inside yourself, but only to love it, for it, too, is the Creator.

  
.......and they we lived happily ever after, naturally.
  
  

[hounsic]

Thanks for sharing this.

[Dtris]

Someone should go thru the material and make a book just of the Hatonn parables. They are pretty awesome by themselves.