The merchant and the Demon story.
Once upon a time there lived a talented merchant. He was literally a jack of all the trades. He knew everything about everything and had travelled from east to west as far as the land extends. And you can consider him the Indiana John of his era. And he knew ancient Mantras to mathematics, and how to combine everything for his advantage. And luck always followed him. He had a beautiful young wife and two kids.
Once he was on a far away land on a mission. He was asked by the local villagers to catch a demon who was troubling them for a long time. He took the challenge as he knew he was the only one who could do it. The demon was a real trickstar. Just like the demon in the Puss in boots he could change its appearance. And the demon disguised itself as a woman. Yet it could not fight with the wise merchant. The merchant knew immediately that this is the demon and with his powerful mantras, made it unconscious. Then he put a chanted nail on the head of the demon trapping it in this female form. Without its powers, the demon became a slave to the merchant. As it was now trapped in the human body, it was harmless like a rabbit. And without any fear the merchant took her to his house.
The demon and Merchant's kind wife
Since that day the demon did all the housework. Everything the merchant and his lovely wife asks. Without any delay. And we will skip a few happy years down the line as we are in a hurry to end the story. Even the merchant forgot that it was the scary demon. The killer of a thousand men at his house working day and night. Working like a slave. And one day as he went for a ride to another town for a fortnight, for a business matter.
And the demon women took the opportunity. As she was unable to remove the enchanted nail by itself, she took a bath and told the wife of the merchant that she has a headache. And there was a lump on her vertex. And the kind innocent beautiful wife checked her head, and she could feel a lump." Ow. That must be painful. It looks like a nail." And she fell for the trap. The moment she pulled out the nail, the demon sprang into its demonistic form and killed and ate her heart.(I am not sure why demons are fond of eating hearts) He killed two children and ran away.
When the merchant came back, his heart sank to the depth of his sea of thoughts. He could not believe what happened. It was his mistake. He shouldn't have trusted the demon. Not for a one minute. He had no choice. He could not bring back the lives of his wife or children. So he started a long journey of hunting down demons, and became a daredevil.
Moral of the story
That is the end of the demon story. A folk tale I read a long time ago, from a big book. I could not make anything out of it. It seemed people really read it only for entertainment. But these ancient stories generally give a moral. Maybe it just said "never trust a demon". Or they were meaning bad people when they say demon.
But I can give another meaning as this blog is about mindfulness. How about I give my own moral of the story and you give yours? A little bit of lateral thinking will not hurt anyone.
I assume the demon to be a human consciousness. With the ability to change the form from a Saint to demon. A powerful energy, with the ability to do harm and good equally. And the merchant can be the wisdom. And the nail can be mindfulness, while merchant's wife represent desire. With powerful wisdom, and mindfulness nail, we can trap a demon of mind and make use of it for the greater good of humans. But we have to be very very careful as at any moment if we let desire to be alone with demon and let our mindfulness guard down, demons can spring back to life and do harm.
So what do you make out of this story?
The moral here may be, beware a wolf in sheep’s clothes, especially when you know it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothes.