A Tale

A young man turned his back on his mother's wishes, and her aching heart burned like fire. When she was helpless before him, she brought out his cradle: 'You cold, faithless one who has forgotten your promise, weren't you once weeping, helpless, and small, the one whose crying kept sleep from my eyes for whole nights? In that cradle, didn't you lack all strength? You couldn't even wave a fly away from yourself. You are the same one troubled by a single fly, though today you are a chief with a strong grip.' You will return again, deep in the grave, to a state where you cannot even keep an ant off yourself. How will your eye ever light its lamp again once the worm of the tomb has eaten the marrow of your mind? When you see someone with veiled eyes who cannot tell a road from a pit as he walks, if you gave thanks that you can see, good; if not, then you too are one with covered eyes. No teacher taught you understanding and judgment; God planted this quality in your nature. If your truth-hearing heart forbade you something, then truth itself would not sound like falsehood to your ears.