A Cat Quoteth Her
Bible
A sainted she-cat and a saintly mother were living
in great happiness. One day came Jnan, a son of the mother on a visit. He was a
foolish cat-hater.
When the mother took her food, the cat used to sit
near and feed off the crumbs. Sometimes the sight of well-cooked fish was too
tempting for the cat. She would venture and snatch a piece from her plate. The
mother would shoo her away but the cat knew that was just pretence. The cat did
her act once in front of Jnan. Jnan fell into a rage and the cat got a terrible
whack on her head and had to flee in hurt surprise. She stood at a corner and carefully
scanned the scenario.
The mother was crying. She said to her son, ‘Jnan,
can the cat do a job to earn its living? She will have to steal. That is her
Dharma’
Jnan was surprised but not yet convinced.
Then the saint looked up at her foolish son, ‘Jnan,
don’t hurt the cat. Even in her am I’ she declared.
The cat now looked up. ‘Here is really a wise cat,
though she looks like a human’ she thought. She wrote ‘Humans may be fools,
thinking they rule us, while we really do as we please and use them. But even
among them there are some who have the wisdom of a super-cat’ and narrated the
incident.
How come I know this? She, whom I used to think as
my pet cat, had read this in her cat Bible and deigned to quote to me when I
denied her a fish-head today.
Swami Sampurnananda,