You are Lions!

Come up, O lions, and shake off the delusion that you are sheep; you are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal; ye are not matter, ye are not bodies; matter is your servant, not you the servant of matter.--Swami Vivekananda

There is an old Indian proverb about a baby lion who believed he was a sheep. When the young lion cub was born, his mother died soon after. Seeing the poor lion wandering alone and having no mother to help him understand the world, a loving and kind herd of sheep raised him among their own. He grew into a beautiful and fine lion, but he thought he was a sheep. So, all day, he ate grass and went 'bahhhhhhhhhh.' Finally, after many years, an older lion was watching from above the flock upon a high cliff and saw the poor little lion among the sheep eating grass and behaving just like them. He was shocked by this sight, so, later that day, the lion went down to fetch the lion and took him to a stream of water.

"Look," the lion told him, "You are not a sheep. You are a lion!"

The younger lion saw himself and he let out a loud roar! He understood in an instant that like the lion who showed him who he truly was, he embodied all that was strong and courageous. He knew he was the king of beasts. And so he left the sheep and embraced his own strength as a lion.

Like the little lion who thought he was a sheep, we sometimes tend to see ourselves as weak and powerless creatures. Life can be harder than we ever anticipated. And we find at every turn people who wish to harm us, people who treat us like helpless sheep. But we are NOT sheep, as Swami Vivekananda tells us so brilliantly in his writings. We are LIONS!

Anything in this life that adds to our strength is good! We must be strong always, strong enough to defeat any and all obstacles, strong enough to let go of bad habits and people, strong enough to fight if necessary for what we believe in.

And, as Vivekananda tells us frequently in his work, anything in this life that weakens us must be cut away from our lives. Whether it be a person, a drug addiction, a bad relationship, a terrible boss, a horrid job, a cruel spouse, or anything else. In short, you must cut these things from your life with a long, sharp sword and never again allow them to interfere in your world again.

We are strong! We are lions! We must love one another and we must be strong enough to fight against anyone who threatens to take away our love, our strength, and our goodness.

As Hemingway wrote, "Courage is grace under fire." Be bold and never back down.

Namaste.