The parable of the wizard and the sheep is a favorite parable of George Gurdjieff, who often told it to his students.
In a clearing, among a huge forest, there lived a wizard who had a large flock of sheep. Every day he ate one sheep from the herd. The sheep caused the wizard a lot of trouble - they scattered throughout the forest, and he had to spend a lot of time catching one sheep and gathering the others back into the herd. Of course, the sheep he was about to kill sensed this and began to desperately resist, and its cries frightened the others. And then the wizard decided to come up with such a trick - he talked to each sheep alone, and suggested something to each one.
He said to one: “You are not a sheep, you are a person like me. You have nothing to fear, because I only kill and eat sheep, but you are the only person in this herd and that means you are my best friend.”
The second he said: “Why are you running away from me like other sheep. You are a lioness and you have nothing to be afraid of. I only kill sheep, and you are my friend.”
He inspired the third: “Listen, you are not a sheep, you are a she-wolf. A she-wolf whom I respect. I, as before, will continue to kill one sheep from the herd every day, but the she-wolf, the wizard’s best friend, has nothing to fear.”
Thus, he talked to each of the sheep and convinced each of them that she was not a sheep, but a completely different animal, which was different from all the other sheep in the herd. After this conversation, the behavior of the sheep completely changed - they grazed completely calmly and never ran into the forest again. And when the wizard killed another sheep, they thought: “Well, they killed another sheep, and I, the lion, the wolf, the man, the wizard’s best friend, have nothing to fear.”
And even the sheep he killed stopped resisting. He simply approached one of them and said: “Oh, my best friend, we haven’t talked for a long time. Let’s go to my yard. I need to consult with you about the flock of sheep.” And the sheep proudly followed the wizard into the yard. And there he actually asked his best friend how things were going in the herd. The victim happily told him everything, and then the wizard killed her. Since death occurred instantly, the sheep did not have time to understand anything.
The wizard was very pleased - he highly raised the self-esteem of each of the sheep, as a result they stopped bothering themselves with thoughts of inevitable death, became less neurotic, enjoyed life and calmly nibbled grass, as a result of which their meat became much tastier. For many years, the wizard easily managed a huge herd, and the most interesting thing is that the rest of the sheep began to help him - if some too smart sheep began to guess about the true state of things, then the rest of the sheep... well, that is, lions, people, wolves - the wizard's best friends, informed him about the strange behavior of this sheep, and the next day the wizard ate it with pleasure.
By the way, who do you think you are?
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru