The Racoon

[Tarrandeep Kaur]

A racoon is a very greedy but clever animal he is an opportunist. whenever he sees a chance to eat be it garbage or a fish, frog, dead animal he will eat it. he works only at night and hunts a scavenges food. he is attracted to shiny objects like coins and such.

so this is the how he is killed by hunters in olden times (in america). the hunter knows of the racoons attraction to shiny objects and so he takes such a thing and places it in a hole that he sizes himself in a tree stump along a river bank where the racoons are most likely to come at night. he secures the shiny thing by putting a nail through it and the wood. the hole in the tree is made such that when the racoon puts his open hand to grab the coin it will fit in the hole, but when he closes his fist and graps it he will not be able to pull his hand out (becasuse his fist will make his hand too big to pull out of the hole). when night falls, the racoon comes out he hunts and does his nightly business. upon seeing the shiny object in the tree stump he attepts to take it to his home and keep it. but to his suprise it will not budge from the tree and he will have to open his hand, thus letting go of his precious coin which is not what he wants to do. so he will spend his whole time trying to get the shiny object from the tree. in a while the hunter will come to check this trap (he has several of these along the riverbank) and he will see the one with the racoon trying to take the shiny object.

as the hunter apporaches the racoon it becomes impatient and tries to pull harder and faster to get the coin out. it snarls and growls at the hunder and tries to bite him but the whole time never lets go of the coin or opens his hand to make it so it will come out of the hole. so the hunter who wants to trap the racoon for its fur (this is his job) and sell it wants the fur to have as little damaage to it as possible. so instead of shooting the racoon he takes the blunt side of his axe and repeatedly hit the racoon in the head until it dies. keep in mind the racoon had a great chance to escape the whole time by letting go of the coin which would have made his hand small enough to pull out of the hole. thus the racoon is killed and stripped of its precious fur which will bring the hunter good money.

what does this have to do with sikhi ?

the racoon is man, he is greedy and jumps at all chances to pleasure himself, the racoon working at night is man trying to conceal his evil ways and habits and thinking he is free from actions if no one sees him. the shiny coin that is secured in the tree stump is maya. the tree stump is the world. maya is in the world and seems attractive to us. but like the coin it is secured to the world and will not go with us no matter how much we may pull on it. the raccoons hand is our mind when there is no maya in it the it is thin and can easily escape the world. however when we fill it with maya (the coin) it becomes fat, polluted and too big to take out of the tree hole world i.e (the racoons inability to remove his hand from the tree hole once it has made a fist). and the hunter is jamdhoot who comes with a club to strike the man and take him to hell. the man (racoon) is in so much love with the maya (coin) he is unable to part from it even when death (the hunter) is closing in on it. he will cry and make noise and do everything just like the racoon but he will not let go. the priceless fur of the racoon is mans good deeds and great opportunity to make something of this human life (meet Waheguroo).

and it is all lost for what? because he would not let maya go

nwnku AwKY rwih pY clxw mwlu Dnu ikq kU sMijAwhI ]4]27]

naanak aakhai raahi pai chalanaa maal dhhan kith koo sa(n)jiaahee ||4||27||

Says Nanak, you will have to walk on the Path of Death, so why do you bother to collect wealth and property? ||4||27||

[Azaad]

:WW:

[Mehtab Singh]

:WW:

[MasterYoda]

Lovely comparison to life... :WW:

[singhni wannabe]

[Tarrandeep Kaur]

Yeah i found this on tapoban.org.

mods can you move this to the inspirtional/article section.

thanks