A Mongoose, A Mother and the Reality

 “Perception is reality”, my friend said it again. She says it a lot. She is not the only one endorsed to that thought. When leaders with strong following accept this statement, then majority starts to see perception as reality. The problem I see with this thinking is simple. Perception is Not Reality. Perception is deceptive. One key job of leaders in any organization is to ensure that perceptions are not accepted as reality. Otherwise, it can be damaging for the teams.

We all have heard about the elephant and blind men story and know how accepting perception as reality is akin to being blind.

Today I am here to share another folk tale from India on the subject.

There once was a village woman longing to become a mother. One day she met a saint who could read her mind. The saint told her that she needs to start caring for someone unconditionally to be blessed with motherhood. Look for opportunities to provide unconditional caring.

Few days she stayed lost in that thought but could not see any signs. Then one night it rained a lot, next morning she stepped towards her wheat fields and found a tiny baby mongoose, drenched in mud and struggling. His family must have been washed in the flash floods of last night. She felt immense sorrow for the helpless creature and caringly picked it from mud. She cleaned it and fed it. She brought it home to care for, till it develops strength enough. But soon the mongoose started following her as her own child and became a part of the family.

Mongoose is a dangerous animal, her friend said, but she loved the thing so much that she will not accept any of such fears.

With time as her motherly love for the mongoose grew, as the saint has prophesied, she was blessed with a child. She gave birth to a beautiful and healthy boy. Her house was filled with joy. She did see the mongoose as the angel, who was given to her to exercise unconditional care to be blessed as a mom. The joy in the house was through the roof. She will play with the mongoose running around, while the baby will giggle seeing them play.

Her friend was even more skeptical now, and continuously asking her to abandon the mongoose, before the wild animal harms the little baby. But she loved the mongoose so much that she will never listen.

One day when the baby was lying down in the back courtyard, and the mongoose playing around him, she heard a knock on the main door. She ran to answer, it was the same friend who has warned about the mongoose so many times. She had come asking for some herbs to make an organic concoction to soothe her itchy throat. The mother went to kitchen to fetch the herbs. While she returned at the main door with the herbs, they both heard loud grunt of mongoose and a sharp cry of the baby. She got worried as the friend screamed, “seems your mongoose has attacked your child” They both ran to the courtyard, and right before the threshold there was the mongoose smeared in blood, seemed that he has just hunted. “Oh God, he killed your child” the neighbor cried. The mom had heard this so

many times and understood that against all her feelings for the mongoose, this wretched beast has killed her son, like her neighbor had prophesized a hundred times. She grabbed a bamboo and hit the mongoose hard on his head, the mongoose was dead in just one blow. She felt that she had avenged her child’s murder, but still feeling guilty of not listening to her neighbor sooner, she fell on floor and started to cry. And then she heard the baby croon.

She ran into the courtyard and saw that her baby was alive and well and giggling, while there was a venomous cobra lying dead a few feet away, killed by sharp teeth and paws of the mongoose. So, the blood on the mongoose was not her child’s, it was the cobra’s. The mongoose did not kill her son but saved her son from being killed. She had lost her angel, her blessing that had given her so much joy for many months. The one who taught her to care unconditionally. The one whom she had saved and loved like a mother. She had killed him because of the perception, the perception that was built based on the constant suggestion from her neighbor that the mongoose will harm her son.

It was too late; the dead mongoose cannot be brought back to life. The reality was very different from the perception. Perception was never reality.

 

Epilogue Mongoose Story: The child was still small and mother still busy. The neighbor never showed her face. Monsoon season was approaching and that is when, in village like this, the snakes can come to courtyards. The risk was real. The one who could stand between the snake and the child, that mongoose was dead. That was reality.

Epilogue Blog: My friend now knows that when you are in a significant position in any team or organization, you always have a responsibility to intentionally disperse the cloud of perception so that reality is visible to all. Afterall, however real it may appear, still perception is not reality. 

 

Note: And my twist to Elephant and blind men story below -

https://nuancesofbeing.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-elephant-and-blind-men-fable-retold.html

https://nuancesofbeing.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-elephant-and-blind-men-fable-retold_15.html

https://nuancesofbeing.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-elephant-and-blind-men-fable-retold_18.html