A good human being

April 01, 2016 12:04 am | Updated 12:04 am IST

In the time of Vallalar there lived a sanyasi, who, when people passed by him on the street, would observe: “There goes a snake!” Or he would say: “There goes a rat!” He could discern that those people had characteristics of the said animals. One day, he saw Vallalar, who was on his way to the Tiruvottriyur temple in Chennai, and the ascetic said: “Here goes a man!” What he meant was that among those he happened to meet, none except Vallalar qualified to be called a man. Although we are born as human beings, most of us have not shed many traits that animals possess. We are aggressive; we are competitive; we do not think before we act. But Vallalar was an evolved soul, who was beyond undesirable qualities like selfishness, said Sarala Rajagopalan, in a discourse.

And that is why the sanyasi referred to him as a human being, a description that he did not use for anyone else. Tamil poet Bharati describes all the hidden qualities that we have, that make us seem more like animals than humans.

There are those who are cunning like a fox. There are those who are slothful like a slender loris. There are those who remain in hiding and then launch a surprise attack on others, like a snake that comes out from its hiding place and bites its prey.

There are those who are content to accept and consume what others give them, and remain grateful for this. Such people are like loyal dogs.

There are those whose anger makes them resemble ferocious hunting dogs. There are those who keep saying the same things over and over again, like a parrot. Thus there remain in us many qualities that are typical of animals, and it is only a few like Vallalar who are free of such qualities.

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