The Priest Who Jumped into the Well

Once upon a time there was a bigoted Hindu priest who lorded over the prosperous temple of Sabarmati. He was violently dogmatic, having been trained thus by his hidebound teacher, to whose grace he ascribed all his fortune. He had vowed to train his own disciples as he had been trained, with sour, severe discipline.

Every day he harangued the members of his temple with loud commands to be implicitly obedient to him. With flagrant imagination he pictured for them the fires Hades that would consume all dissenters and spiritual rebels. Being an ignorant man, he did not like to be questioned about his beliefs and his statements, particularly by men of intelligence, because he then felt his dogmatic assertions melting like butter before the flame of their bright minds.

Nevertheless he somehow managed to get a crowd of followers, chiefly by the lavish distribution of sweetmeats which helped some of the more intelligent members of his congregation to stomach his oratory. For the most part the group consisted of illiterates with dogma hardened mentalities. They always agreed with the priest and were ever ready to pelt stones of dogma at anyone who questioned the wisdom of their priest, so that he was really the proud leader of a band of idiots who did nothing but agree with him.

One day his students asked: “Honored priest, will please show us the true way to pray and the absolutely certain method of contacting God?” The priest, sure of no intelligent scrutiny from his blind, unquestioning followers, replied: “My most loyal heaven-loved children, that is easy. I can teach you how to pray and how to contact God provided you do exactly as I do after I start the lesson.

“Heaven bless our great teacher priest!” shouted his followers. “We solemnly swear to do exactly as you do until doomsday if you will only teach us.” So the priest beckoned and said: “All right, my children follow me to the temple and sit around me and after that do exactly as I do.” The priest sat on a cushion in the middle of the temple, which was half-lighted by the morning sun. The students, drenched with devotion, sat around him, all ready to follow whatever the master priest would do. 

The priest braced up and said: “Sit upright.” Two hundred devout followers immediately chorused:  “Sit upright.” The priest looked around at this unexpected answer, and the disciples, seeing the master look around, also looked around. In disgust the priest closed his eyes and prayed: “O Spirit, benign Lord.” The disciples all sat upright and prayed: “O Spirit, benign Lord.”

The priest continued: “Benign Lord of the Universe, bless us with the knowledge that will make us obey our master implicitly.” The students devoutly repeated these words in unison. Just then the priest noticed a little draft coning through a temple window and began to feel an uncontrollable tickling sensation in his throat. Before he could utter more words of prayer he coughed. The disciples coughed too. The master was aghast at the absurd antics of disciples, resulting of course from his own training of them, but alas, as he coughed and sneezed again, all his disciples coughed and sneezed too. Now the pries was angry. “Quiet, you idiots!” he shouted. “Don’t cough and don’t imitate me!” But his well-trained disciples happily shouted back: “Quiet, you idiots! Don’t cough, and don’t imitate me.”

This was too much. The priest stood up and commanded: “This outrageous idiocy must stop.” And the matchless two hundred, the best products of his training, stood up and demanded: “This outrageous idiocy must stop.”

The priest forgot the dignity of his position and resounding slap to the cheek of one of his thoughtless group. Two hundred disciples at once followed suit, slapping one another, and their master, until their cheeks got hot and fiery red. His face burning with countless slaps, the priest rushed out of the temple crying, “Water! Water!” and slapping one another all the while.

The priest, being able to think of no other way of escape, jumped into a well to cool is burning cheeks. You can guess what happened then! The two hundred dogma-drugged disciples jumped into the well on top of him. The priest had truly kept his promise, for they all “went to heaven” together.

The foregoing story shows that theology-stuffed dogmatists who follow untested beliefs will ultimately, like the blind following the blind, be drowned in the same pit of ignorance. Ignorant students should not cling to ignorant spiritual teachers, for they drag each other down, to sink in ignorance.

(From Yogada Satsanga, with Thanks)