The Roar of the Awakening

There was once a village built on the outskirts of the jungle.

The villagers like other villagers herded goats.

One year because of a drought, a tigress who was about to give birth was forced to come out of the deep jungle to hunt for food.

And so she came upon the villages goats.

She gave chase and, even in her condition, managed to kill one of them.

But in retaliation the villagers attacked her.

And though she managed to evade them, the chase and fending off the villagers forced her into labour, and she died as she gave birth to a male cub.

Now the goats who had run away, returned when they sensed that the danger was over.

Approaching the dead tigress, they discovered her newborn cub and adopted him into their herd.

The tiger cub grew up among the goats believing he, too, was a goat.

He bleated as well as he could,
he smelled like a goat,
and ate only vegetation;
in every respect he behaved like a goat.

Yet within him, as we are well aware, beat the heart of a tiger.

All went well until the day that an older tiger approached the goat herd and attacked and killed one of the goats.

The rest of the goats ran away as soon as they saw the old tiger,
but our tiger/goat saw no reason to run away, of course, for he sensed no danger.

Although the old tiger was a veteran of many hunts, he had never in his life been as shocked as he was when he confronted the young tiger.

He did not know what to make of this full-grown tiger who smelled like a goat,
bleated like a goat,
and in every other way acted like a goat.

Being a rather gruff old duffer,
and not particularly sympathetic,
the old tiger grabbed the young one by the scruff of the neck, dragged him to a nearby creek,
and showed him his reflection in the water.

But the young tiger was unimpressed with his own reflection;
it meant nothing to him and he failed to see his similarity to the old tiger.

Frustrated by this lack of comprehension, the old tiger dragged the young one back to the place where he had made his kill.

There he ripped a piece of meat from the dead goat and shoved it into the mouth of our young friend.

We can well imagine the young tiger’s shock and consternation.

At first he gagged and tried spitting out the raw flesh,
but the old tiger was determined to show the young one who he really was,
so he made sure the cub swallowed this new food.

When he was sure the cub had swallowed it all,
the old tiger shoved another piece of meat into him,
and this time there was a change.

Our young tiger now allowed himself to taste the raw flesh and the warm blood,
and he ate this piece with gusto.

When he finished chewing,
the young tiger stretched,
and then, for the first time in his young life,
he let out a powerful roar—the roar of the jungle cat.

Then the two tigers disappeared together into the forest.

I call the young tiger’s roar the **“roar of awakening.”

**What is this “roar of awakening?”

It is the discovery that as men we are more than we think we are.

It is the discovery that we have taken on identities that incorrectly or inadequately express our essential being.

It is as though we have been dreaming and suddenly we awaken from the dream,
look around,
and become aware of a totally different reality.

Let us reconsider the story of the tiger/goat:

Until he meets the old tiger,
he believes he is a goat and he experiences the world as a goat would experience it.

The young tiger’s reality is that of a goat,
but we can see that his goat-like perception of reality allows him to experience only a fraction of his total being.

We know he is capable of many other perceptions, emotions,
and activities.

We might paraphrase the story and say that he only manifested his goat “self” until the old tiger awakened him to his essential being—the tiger he really was.

**Symbolically, we are all raised as goats;
**we are all raised in cultures and families where we are trained to think,
feel,
and see in specific,
predetermined ways.

Because our learned perceptions are all that we know, we naturally assume that the world around us actually exists as we perceive it,
and the self we know is the only one there is.

This is our reality.

Consider a man who is raised in a family that worships the mind:

If this man believes his mind is his primary source of information regarding the world,
then he is in the same situation as our tiger/goat.

This man will know nothing of his “other” nature.

He will know nothing of his imagination,
his deeper intuitions,
the reality and validity of his feelings.

He will not have access to the information available from these other sources.

Furthermore,
he will be denied the richness and pleasure that this “other” nature could bring to him.

It is this “other” nature—these “lost” parts of ourselves—we will seek to restore on our heroic journey as Awakened Man.

Why?

Because it is only in awakening that we may give voice to our own deep “roar of awakening” and that we can discover the wealth of our unexplored selves.