Starve the Serpent and Feed the Lion in You
View(s):Each and every one of us possess the nature of two animals within ourselves. If you are eager to overcome the challenges in life, you ought to understand that both a Serpent and a Lion resides within yourself.
None of us, including me, are perfect or good at all times.Thus, it is of utmost importance to be highly cautious whilst deciding which animal you must starve and which one you must feed.
In the ancient times venomous people were labelled as snakes, and it was advised that those people are never to be fed with milk. I am not referring to the external people who behave like serpents. I am referring to the serpent that resides within you.
There lies a serpent within us who acts as the master of your flesh who can also be referred to as the five senses and a lion which is your spirit. Your mind is in between your flesh and your spirit and your mind will act based on how it is trained, informed, formed and fed throughout your life by your flesh and your spirit.
If you have been predominantly carnal, and you have been feeding your fleshly desires most of the time, then your mind will become a servant to your flesh.
If you substitute it with your good spirit by focusing on being good and doing good, then your mind will become the servant of your spirit, who will then become your master. The biggest issue we are facing in today’s world is that most of the minds are flesh led, they constantly crave for fleshly desire.
In case you don’t agree that there are both a serpent and a lion within you, please allow me to take you through a few examples which will enable you to enlighten your mind.
With the same eyes we sympathise when we see a poor child begging in the street, so do we get jealous when we witness someone moving higher than us.
With the very same eyes a person notices the beauty of his mother, he tends to watch videos of filthy pornography. We attentively listen to religious preachings from the same ears that we listen to mouthwatering gossips and personality discriminations. With the same ears we listen to a paternal song, we listen to filthy stories about actors and actresses.
Using the same tongue that we bless our children, we curse the politicians. Similarly, we appreciate people who are good to us and we tarnish their character the moment they are not in good terms with us. The same tongue that enjoyed the herbal soup would demand for an unhealthy fried rice on the same day. The same eyes that look at your partner and comment “You look beautiful darling” tend to gaze upon other women who pass by. The same flesh that once was happy and satisfied making love to your wife craves for another body to satisfy the same fleshly desires.
How can you crave for destructive yet pleasurable temporary desires if you possess only good within you?
As a teenager, I sinned inside the same church that I taught little kids as a Sunday school teacher. I have yelled at my elders in filth from the same mouth that I prayed to God. The same feet that walked me to church have stepped into brothels seeking prostitution.
A lot of people are reluctant to share their bitter past assuming that people will reject them. My intention is to save the younger generation from all these disasters, which I committed without much knowledge, as it led me to beg in the streets of Dehiwala.
If someone does not come forward and shout to the passengers in a bus that is driving towards a pit, the driver and the passengers would not know it, their lives would be destroyed. Therefore, I shout out my experience at every opportunity that I get, so that I can save people by saying, “Please don’t go on that road, it’s leading to a fire”.
I do not hesitate to do so because I have been there. This is why I am saying that it is important to understand that there is a serpent and a lion within you and that you must handle both of them very carefully.
The formula towards victory is to starve the serpent and feed the lion. A junk eater cannot give up the habit overnight and live a healthy life and eat healthy meals. Nevertheless, you can never become a healthy eater unless you improve your habit of starving junk food. What generally happens is that people tend to give up on their very first attempt of eating a healthy meal.
They easily bounce back towards their old lifestyle of eating junk, which their taste buds cannot resist. A serpent can be tamed if it is starved to death, you might even be able to wisely grab it from its neck and remove its venomous teeth. Then you will be left at ease to feed the lion cub within you until it grows into a roaring lion who would behave as a king and not a thief.
The question that is laid before you today are, which animal are you going to starve? And which animal are you going to feed? Do not become just a reader. I receive comments from across the world, stating that my articles are awesome and inspiring. But, unless you put them into practice, you are not different from a person who intends to learn swimming through zoom. You could learn to swim only at the pool, so is life.
Just because you read my articles and find them “wow” would not transform you overnight unless you progress in them. Remember the word “progress” as you cannottransform overnight. Those who have mastered a certain skill are the ones who have not given up on it during the first few days; rather they have continued progressing the skill till they mastered it.
When I was a teenager people used to laugh at me when I spoke in English, as I made rash statements such as “Will you came tomorrow?”. Yet, I never gave up my dream of speaking English fluently. When I was in the USA, Michael Schneider, the head of the university, invited me to join their staff after hearing a few of my presentations. On another occasion after a product presentation I did, Dr. Lester Massingham, a world famous author who was once the Chairman of CIM-UK, said that this country is blessed with many resources and what we have witnessed now was one of them.
When my friends laughed at me for making rash mistakes, If I had starved the cub who intended to become a lion, I would never have progressed towards victory. On the flip side, the moment I was saved from using drugs, there were situations from time to time that my flesh tempted me to crave for one more shot, with the thought that it is only a one time craving. I knew if I fed heroin to myself once, then I am going too very again give life to the serpent who was almost dead within me.
Sometimes to starve what you have been so addicted to is a challenge. Hence you need to get yourself out of the environment so that you become less tempted. Last year I stopped the use of Facebook, after I found out that my screen time was very high, I could invest that time on something better.
I rejoined after a while once I had perfect control over myself. Therefore, take a strong decision to starve the serpent within you and feed the lion in order to become a victorious personality. Every time I went to a party, people offered alcohol and drugs to me.
I vehemently rejected them knowing that it is an act of starving the serpent. It was not a smooth sail, but a journey towards progression from one level to another.
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