A spiritual seeker should always try and maintain that peace, instead of choosing to do something that might disrupt his peace. (Representational image)

Once upon a time there lived a shepherd boy, with his herd of sheep in a small village in the mountains. Every day, he would go up a hill to graze his sheep. One day, he was bored and he wanted to have some fun. Struck by an idea, he started shouting aloud, “Wolf! Wolf! Help, help! There’s a wolf here, please help!”

The farmers working in the neighbouring fields heard the boy’s cries for help. They ran up the hill to save the boy. But when they reached the hilltop, to their disbelief there was no wolf there. They asked in surprise, “Where is the wolf?” They kept looking around, but couldn’t find the wolf anywhere. Then they found the boy, trying to hide his smirk. They all realised that they had been played by the boy. Annoyed, the farmers warned the boy against playing such tricks and went back to their work.

But the boy seemed to be unaffected. He played the same trick again. This time, when the farmers reached the hilltop, they got very upset. They said, “If you ever do this again, we will not come for your rescue!” and walked away.

The next day, what the boy said for fun, really happened. A wolf indeed came to the grazing spot. The boy hurried and climbed a tree. He started calling out for help, “There’s a wolf! There’s a wolf! Please someone help me! Please!”

Alas! No one came. The wolf killed all the sheep one by one and feasted on them. The boy couldn’t do anything but watched helplessly.

Moral of the story: Never lie. Once you are known as a liar, you will not be taken seriously.

Spiritual gyana from the story:
1. Like the boy kept joking about the wolf to get people’s attention, we often use anger as a tool to get our work done in our day-to-day lives. We get angry on our kids, our subordinates, young ones in the family, colleagues or employed servants.

When someone gets angry, he does so, as by using anger he had witnessed in his past, that people had taken him seriously. So, to be taken seriously by them, one kept using anger. But unfortunately, this becomes a habit that repels people. Eventually, people start ignoring the angry guy as they do not feel comfortable with that person.

Hence, never get angry. Once you are known as an angry person, you will eventually not be taken seriously and will be disliked and ignored, attracting more negatives in your life.
2. The boy kept saying negative things for fun and that landed him in a negative situation. We do the same at times. We think of the worst outcomes, mostly when some loved one doesn’t reach home on time. When we think in a negative direction, we attract and welcome vibes of that thinking process into our lives. We never realise that everything that goes wrong in our life, is because we had welcomed such thoughts to enter and stay in our mind.

Hence, to attract positivity in our lives, one should cultivate the habit of thinking positively. Even when a negative thought arises, one should immediately replace it with a more impactful positive thought and remain positive.
3.The boy made his happiness his cause for sorrow. The boy was happy in his life, instead of feeling grateful for the peace in his life, he tried to get some fun, which only brought him grief. In our lives, when we will count our blessings and be grateful to the Almighty for it, we would be blessed even more.

A spiritual seeker should always try and maintain that peace, instead of choosing to do something that might disrupt his peace. Since, peace and happiness are all we want.
4. While the boy played a trick to hurt others, it all ended in grief for him. The same goes for us. When we try to hurt someone or belittle someone or make fun of someone, we will only end up in sorrow. One can never be happy, at the cost of hurting anyone.

So, to be happy, keep everyone happy.