Aptavani-2
23
whiff of it and comes to eat it. She tips the pot over and eats
the yogurt. There is still some yogurt left in the pot, so her greed
drives her to push her whole face inside the pot, and she
becomes trapped in it. There is nothing but total darkness inside
and so she runs around trying to get free. Now how can she
escape such a trap? In the same way, the entire world is caught
in such a trap. How can a person escape from his own trap?
The cat can only become free if someone frees her. In the same
way, only a Gnani can free you from the trap of this world, no
one else can. A person can never become free on his own; on
the contrary, he will sink deeper.
I had studied and analyzed this scenario about the cat
when I was young. I used to put a pot of yogurt as bait and
watch it quietly. I did not care whether the yogurt would be
wasted but at least I would be able to see and learn from it. If
one gets a direct experience of this trap, then why would he be
foolish enough to fall in it again? Despite getting her head stuck
in the pot once, if a cat were to see a pot of milk again, she will
forget her previous predicament and do the same thing over
again. Then she will regret it but what can anyone do after the
fact? Even if she has been trapped once, does she remember
she should not repeat the mistake? No, she forgets even when
she is punished. What hope is there for animals when even
human beings forget? This body will never become yours.
Despite this pe