Tasting your own Blood

The world is a place of entertainment,  experience and enjoyment. Myriad things form part of the place we call earth. Shopping malls, fast cars, Theater, Sports Arena, Sky scrapers, Cruise ships, ski resorts, Temples, Hospitals, Hospices and so many many other things. News keeps us entertained, new ideas keep us excited. Gadgets bring you delight. In this seemingly never ending sequence of events, there seems to be many sources for happiness.

A tiny little tale from the ancient lore, talks about a dog chewing on a dry bone, and as it keeps chewing, its gums begin to bleed, mistaking the blood to be coming from the bone, the dog chews even more enthusiastically, and tasting its own blood and feeling happy.

The happiness we derive out of objects and events and people and places, are compared to the happiness derived from the bone. The world in itself is like the dry bone and cannot provide happiness, it is the inherent happiness in our own self that gets expressed by engaging with the world. The wise understand this fallacy and give little importance to the events of the world.

There are two parts to this story, the first lets us know that the world is not the source of happiness, and hence we can care less about it and be blissful ourselves. This tells us that a fancy car, or a luxurious house is not essential for us to be happy. Though they provide us with comforts we need not crave for it mistaking for the source of happiness. 

The second part tells us that though the bone is not the source for the blood, and similarly the world is not the source for happiness, the bone does enable the dog to taste its own blood. Similarly the world enables us to reflect our own happiness on it and express itself. Similar to the Sun unable to see itself, can only see its very own light by being reflected by objects outside, the world and its events provides us with materials to reflect our own happiness.

Knowing this, and putting the world in its right place, liberates us from the cravings of specific events and possession of objects, titles and stuff and enables us lead a joyful life.