There was a monastery in which when the head monk used to sit for meditation in the morning, the resident cat would jump on his lap and disturb him. So, he told one of his students, ‘Please tie up the cat before I sit for meditation.’ Words spoken by the master were to be adhered to. The student obediently ensured that every day the cat would be tied up before the head monk’s meditation. This continued as a practice. After some years the head monk took samadhi. He moved on. His successor took over and the cat continued to be tied. After some years the cat died and they got a new cat in the monastery which continued to be tied. The second head monk had his Samadhi. He moved on. His successor, the third person took over. The cat continued to be tied. The cat died and the new cat also got tied before the morning meditation. So after three generations of monks and cats, one of the academic monks, wrote a book, the ‘Cat sutras of meditation’, highlighting the importance, the symbolic meanings, the energy benefits, of tying up a cat before meditation in their monastic order.
You may laugh at this story. It's a fictional one. In my years of dealing with hundreds of students, and over a hundred I have found such practices which were interesting and meaningful when started, outliving their use later on. Whether it is a government or corporate organisation or an NGO or even in our personal lives, some meaningless practices continue. If it is symbolic or inspirational, that serves its purpose, but if it has lost all meaning after outliving its use, then we need to junk it quietly. At first glance this seems to be a very natural, obvious thing. How much of such invisible cats live in our personal lives, belief systems and practices. A little bit of contemplation and introspection will reveal these invisible cats to us. We will know what has to be junked and what has to be retained.
The writer is the founder of Aarsha Vidya Foundation. You can write to him at aarshavidya@gmail.com
