Once upon a time, two hermits, moved by the desire of sanctifying themselves, lived in a hostile, rocky desert. Their caves faced each other.
After years of intense prayer and terrible mortifications, one hermit was convinced that he had arrived at the summit of perfection.
The other was equally pious, but also good and kind. He would stop to talk with the pilgrims who visited them once in a long while. He would take care and give hospitality to any one who had lost his way, or even to fugitives – time stolen from meditation and prayer, thought the first hermit, who disapproved even the least shortcomings of the other.
To make the other understand in a very visible way, how far he was from sanctity, he decided to place a stone in front of his own cave, every time the other made a mistake – a stone, of course, proportionate to the gravity of the mistake was added.
In time, there rose in front of his cave a solid wall closing him in. With all his preoccupation with the other man’s failures, you better imagine what happened to his own spiritual pursuit.
Indian Thoughts Archives
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