Once upon a time there was a tigress who was about to give birth.
One day when she was out hunting she came across a herd of goats. She gave
chase and, even in her condition, managed to kill one of them. But the stress
of the chase forced her into labour, and she died as she gave birth to a male
cub. The goats, who had run away, returned when they sensed that the danger was
over. Approaching the dead tigress, they discovered the newborn cub and adopted
him into their herd.
The tiger cub grew up among the goats, believing that 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 old 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 the veteran of many hunts, he never in
his life had been as shocked as 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 rather a 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. But the young tiger was unimpressed with his own reflection; it
meant nothing to him and he failed to see the 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 that 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 in to the forest.

Heinrich Zimmer tells this story in the opening of his book. The
Philosophy of India, and calls the young tiger’s roar the “roar of
awaking.” What is this “roar of awakening?” It is the discovery
that 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 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 that 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 self there is. This is our reality,

Consider a man who is raised in a family that worships the mind:
If this man believes that 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. This man 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.

Excerpted from Embracing Ourselves,
The Voice Dialogue Manual, New World Library, Novato, CA
1989. With permission of the authors, Hal Stone, PH.D & Sidra Stone, PH.D www.delos-inc.com