The Good Snake Has to Hiss!

Spirituality in Action: I Realized That I Have to Stand up and Speak for Myself

Photo by Amir Sani on Unsplash

Contrary to popular thought, spirituality is a tool for practical life. It is not just about renouncing the world and running away to the forest; but also, about how ordinary people can live in a challenging world, where they face moral dilemmas and difficult choices. Instead of prescribing strict codes, spiritual leaders like Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, used storytelling to teach profound lessons. The stories being set in daily life seem easy to understand, but it is the underlying truth that the reader must uncover and apply in life. 

[For more on Sri Ramakrishna, please read here https://reemasen.substack.com/p/sri-ramakrishna-an-introduction]

The story that I am about to relate is interesting, because surprisingly, it doesn’t tell us to be “good”, “noble”, or look the other way.

But first let me narrate the situation that I was faced with.

A Family Wedding and I

A few months ago, I was not invited to a family wedding that was going to be held in my city, Mumbai. I had been invited to the reception that was going to be held in another city, but not to the wedding. Initially, it did not matter. I surmised that there could be a limit on the guest count, and hence only the immediate family had been invited. 

Trouble started when my husband and daughter visited my extended family in Kolkata, and he called to tell me that my extended family had been personally invited for the wedding, but not I. I kept checking my WhatsApp messages to see if I had made a mistake and had received the invite (I did not get any call, as the rest of my family had). No, there had been no mistake. The invitation was only for the reception. 

As luck would have it, around this time we met another cousin at an event. They were excited about the wedding and asked about my plans. I hemmed and hawed and blabbered something about my husband travelling.  

Later, I kicked myself. Why didn’t I just tell them that I had not been invited to the wedding? It did not make sense to me as to why I felt embarrassed or uncomfortable in stating a fact. Was I quiet because I did not want an invite as an apologetic (“Oh! We just forgot!) afterthought? Or was it because of my inherent reluctance to draw attention to an embarrassing situation that involved me? Or my habitual discomfort in expressing my displeasure, even when it is warranted. Or a combination of all three.  

I gave little regard to that incident and did not raise it with my cousins. It was after all their prerogative as to who was on their invite list. Life moved on and I was unwilling to expend energy on trivial matters. I knew that my future interaction with my cousins would be awkward, but that was in the future, and I believed in living in the present moment. 

The matter would have rested there, but life has this funny habit of throwing you back into situations that you are not comfortable with. 

Yesterday, I called my uncle in Kolkata. The conversation steered around to my cousins, and the parked memory came alive. Yes, he had been in touch with them. No, he hadn’t spoken to them about my issue. And then he said, “Why don’t you call them and tell them about your grievance?” I stammered, “I …I can’t do all that”. Then he sarcastically remarked, “Then that is where you will be. If you just keep doing, I…I”.

As is my tendency, I wanted to let it pass. But his remarks irritated me. One, because of all my relatives, I was closest to him. I had lost both my parents quite early on, and I expected him to fight for me. At that moment I felt alone. Second, I was irritated with myself that I hadn’t retorted back. I just kept quiet even though I felt hurt that he seemed reluctant to get involved. Third, my earlier irritation about the missing invitation came back. 

On the spiritual path, you are told that the world is transient. Feelings of hurt, disappointment, resentment etc. are psychological barriers that need to be transcended to attain a higher state of consciousness. The choice that you make is whether you invest your energy in your “higher” nature or remain stuck in the lower instinctual tendencies. 

I had thought that by not reacting to the missing invite, I was responding in a mature manner. Yes, what they had done was not on. Yes, at that time, I had felt insulted, a little foolish, and hurt, that to them I did not matter. And this was not the first time it had happened. But I also hated having uncomfortable conversations, especially on such petty matters. I preferred to treat them as pinpricks, to be endured and ignored. 

Frankly, I just didn’t care.

Was I right in my approach? 

Revisiting the parable below gave me another perspective. 

The Story of the Holy Snake 

[This story has been taken from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. A collection of such stories has been published as “Tales and Parables of Sri Ramakrishna”. I have made minor changes for ease of reading].

Some cowherd boys used to tend their cows in a meadow where a terrible poisonous snake lived. Everyone was afraid of it. One day a sage was going along the meadow. The boys ran to him and said, ‘Revered sir, please don’t go that way. There is a venomous snake over there.’ ‘What of it, my good children?’ said the sage. ‘I am not afraid of the snake. I know some mantras.’ Unperturbed, he continued his way. The cowherd boys, being afraid, did not accompany him. In the meantime, the snake moved swiftly toward him with an upraised hood.

As soon as it came near, the sage recited a mantra, and the snake lay at his feet like an earthworm. The sage addressed the snake: ‘Look here. Why do you go about doing harm? Come, I will give you a holy word. By repeating it you will learn to love God. One day, you will realize Him and get rid of your violent nature.’ Saying this, he taught the snake a holy word and initiated him into spiritual life. The snake bowed before the teacher and said, ‘Revered sir, how shall I practice spiritual discipline?’ ‘Repeat that sacred word’, said the teacher, ‘and do no harm to anybody.’ As he was about to depart, the sage said, ‘I shall see you again.’

Some days passed, and the cowherd boys noticed that the snake would not bite. They threw stones at it. Still, it showed no anger. One day one of the boys came close to it, caught it by the tail, and, whirling it round and round, dashed it repeatedly on the ground and threw it away. The snake vomited blood and became unconscious. It was stunned. It could not move. So, thinking it dead, the boys went their way.

Late at night the snake regained consciousness. Slowly and with great difficulty it dragged itself into its hole; its bones were broken, and it could scarcely move. Many days passed. The snake became a mere skeleton covered with a skin. Now and then, at night, it would come out in search of food. For fear of the boys, it would not leave its hole during the daytime. Since receiving the sacred word from the teacher, it had given up doing harm to others. It maintained its life on dirt, leaves, or the fruit that dropped from the trees.

About a year later the sage came that way again and asked after the snake. The cowherd boys told him that it was dead. The sage did not believe them. He knew that the snake would not die before attaining the fruit of the holy word with which it had been initiated. He found his way to the place and, searching here and there, called it by the name he had given it. Hearing the teacher’s voice, it came out of its hole and bowed before him with great reverence. ‘How are you?’ asked the sage. The snake replied, ‘I am well, sir’ ‘But’, the teacher asked, ‘why are you so thin?’ The snake replied, ‘Revered sir, you ordered me not to harm anybody. So, I have been living only on leaves and fruit. Perhaps that has made me thinner.’

The snake had advanced so much spiritually that it could not be angry with anyone. It had totally forgotten that the cowherd boys had almost killed it.

The sage said, ‘It can’t be mere want of food that has reduced you to this state. There must be some other reason. Think a little.’ Then the snake remembered that the boys had dashed it against the ground. It said, ‘Yes, revered sir, now I remember. The boys one day dashed me violently against the ground. They are ignorant, after all. They didn’t realize what a great change had come over my mind. How could they know I wouldn’t bite or harm anyone?’

The sage exclaimed: ‘What a shame! You are such a fool! You don’t know how to protect yourself. I asked you not to bite, but I didn’t forbid you to hiss. Why didn’t you scare them by hissing?’

The Master said,

A man living in society should make a show of tamas (man’s lower nature ruled by ignorance, inertia and compulsive tendencies) to protect himself. 

We should not inject venom into anyone or harm anyone, but frighten them, so that they do not harm us. 

What Lessons Did I Learn?

I realized that my thought process was expedient. 

Spirituality is not about running away from unpleasant situations or burying them deep inside your mind. 

• Shrugging off the incident as somebody else’s ignorance, insensitivity, or pettiness, allowed me to remain in my comfort zone of not airing issues that mattered to me. I could pretend that I was taking the spiritual higher ground when in reality, I was avoiding an uncomfortable situation. 

• I was running from was the fact that I hate being in conflict situations, and I consider even the slightest friction to be conflict.

• I was deluding myself by thinking that I was responding calmly by not standing up for myself. In fact, I was reacting, and my instinctual reaction was to freeze and let it go.

• Just as snakes hiss to mark their boundaries, I must draw the lines that people cannot cross. 

• Finally, I had to fight my own battles. 

 Spirituality teaches that:

• You cannot shy away from conflict. The Bhagavad Gita, the Song of God, was composed on the battlefield, when Arjuna, the warrior Prince refuses to fight his cousins, though they had repeatedly cheated him and his brothers of what was rightfully theirs. It was Lord Krishna who explained to Arjuna that his “dharma” (the right course of action to take) was to take up arms and fight. 

• You respond to the situation appropriately. Any injury needs to be addressed. The extent of injury determines the appropriate treatment. A neglected pinprick can also cause death.

• Spirituality means living with complete involvement along with total detachment. Pretending that the injury or hurt does not exist is not detachment. It is indifference. And that is an obstacle not just in spirituality, but in life

I have now decided to have that difficult conversation, however awkward it may be.

What are your thoughts? As always, I would love to hear from you.