One night a pregnant lioness came to hunt amongst some sheep. When the shepherd saw the lioness he shot at her. The shooting frightened her and she gave birth to her lion cub and ran away into the forest, leaving her cub amongst the sheep. Luckily there was a nursing sheep. She started nursing the new-born lion cub. The lion cub believed that the sheep was his mother, and started to bleat like a lamb\u2014baa baa. He drank milk and ate grass. He became a vegetarian!! He grew up amongst the sheep thinking that he was one of them.<\/p>\n
After several years, the king of the forest, a big lion, came to the sheep\u2019s valley to hunt. There he saw amongst the sheep one of his own royal family members bleating like a lamb, eating grass. What a disgrace! He came up to the sheep-lion, \u201cWhat are you doing here with the sheep? Why are you bleating like a lamb?\u201d he shouted. The sheep-lion was terrified. \u201cMama! Mama! Help me! This fellow is going to kill me!\u201d But the sheep-mother ran away and the lion caught the sheep-lion. \u201cDon\u2019t be afraid of me. You are a lion like me.\u201d \u201cNo no! I\u2019m not a lion. I\u2019m a sheep.\u201d \u201cNo, you are not a sheep. You are a lion. I\u2019m going to show you who you really are.\u201d He dragged the cub to a big lake, \u201cLook at your reflection in the lake. What do you see? Don\u2019t be afraid. Just look. See who you are. You have forgotten who you really are.\u201d The sheep-lion saw his face. He didn\u2019t look like a sheep. He saw the lion\u2019s face alongside his. \u201cHey, I am just like you. You are like me. I am you. You are me. We are both kings!\u201d The lion said, \u201cThen don\u2019t bleat like a lamb. Roar like a lion! Go to your kingdom in the forest and enjoy the rest of your life.\u201d For the first time in his life the sheep-lion roared. No more bleating like a lamb. He had realised who he was and lived happily ever after in the forest, in his kingdom.
\nWho are the sheep-lions of this story? We are. We bleat morning till night, \u201cbaa baa, I\u2019m German, baa baa, I\u2019m Russian, baa baa, American, baa baa, Protestant, baa baa, Catholic, Jew, Arab.\u201d That\u2019s all we do all day long. The lions, the great masters, like Jesus and Swami Sivananda, tell us \u201cYou bleat like a lamb. You are not German, Austrian, Russian or American. You are the immortal Self. I am in you. You are in Me. I am He. I am Brahman. You too are Brahman. You too are God. Look within and find who you are.\u201d \u201cNo, I know who I am. I have money, two million dollars in the bank, I have my wife and children.\u201d The master says, \u201cThat\u2019s not who you really are. These things just belong to you. They\u2019re all objects. Don\u2019t bleat like a lamb. You are immortal. Close your eyes. Look within. What do you see? Pizza, ice cream, bananas, heart beating, lungs breathing?!! All objects. They are not you. Just close your eyes and breathe very gently. Practise breathing gently every day. Practise. Practise. When there are no more thought waves, what do you see? I am you. You are me. There is neither disciple nor teacher, neither I nor God; we are One. I am That I am. Aham Brahmasmi. So\u2019ham. I am He. I am He. So\u2019ham.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One night a pregnant lioness came to hunt amongst some sheep. When the shepherd saw the lioness he shot at her. The shooting frightened her and she gave birth to her lion cub and ran away into the forest, leaving her cub amongst the sheep. Luckily there was a nursing sheep. She started nursing the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":607,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[11],"class_list":{"0":"post-49","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jnana-yoga","8":"tag-swami-vishnudevananda"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandesha.sivanandayoga.org\/teachings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandesha.sivanandayoga.org\/teachings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandesha.sivanandayoga.org\/teachings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandesha.sivanandayoga.org\/teachings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandesha.sivanandayoga.org\/teachings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sandesha.sivanandayoga.org\/teachings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":608,"href":"https:\/\/sandesha.sivanandayoga.org\/teachings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/608"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandesha.sivanandayoga.org\/teachings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandesha.sivanandayoga.org\/teachings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandesha.sivanandayoga.org\/teachings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandesha.sivanandayoga.org\/teachings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}