Once in one village a man went crazy. The day was hot, and he walked alone along a deserted road. He walked quite quickly, trying not to be scared: you can be scared if someone is nearby, but why be afraid if there is no one around? However, we are scared when there is no one around. In fact, we are afraid of ourselves, and when we are alone, this fear is even stronger. We fear no one more than ourselves. We are less afraid when someone accompanies us, and more if we are left to our own devices.
This man was alone. He got scared and ran. Everything was quiet and calm - it was a hot afternoon, there was no one around. As he ran faster, he felt the sound of running feet behind him. He was afraid: maybe someone was chasing him. Then, in fear, he glanced quickly out of the corner of his eye. His own shadow was chasing him. It was his own shadow, but when he saw that some long shadow was chasing him, he ran even faster. This man was never able to stop, because the faster he ran, the faster the shadow ran after him. In the end, he went crazy. But there are people who even worship crazy people.
When people saw him rushing like an arrow through their villages, they thought that he must be engaged in some great ascetic practice. Only at night, when the shadow disappeared and he thought that no one was chasing him anymore, did he allow himself to stop. With the first glimmers of day, he began to run again. Then he stopped stopping even at night, realizing that no matter how much he ran during the day, the shadow caught up with him and followed him again in the morning. Therefore, even at night he continued to run.
He was completely mad; he did not eat or drink. Thousands of people saw him running; he was showered with flowers, someone gave him some bread and water. People began to worship him more and more; thousands of people paid tribute to him. But the man became more and more mad, and finally one day he fell to the ground and died.
The people of the village where he died buried him in the shade of a tree and asked the old village fakir what to engrave on his tombstone. The fakir wrote several lines on it. Somewhere, in some village, there is still this grave. Read these lines. The fakir wrote on the tombstone:
“Here lies a man who spent his entire life running from his own shadow and wasted his entire life running from his shadow. But this man did not know even as much as the tombstone knows: because the tombstone is in the shadow, but does not run and therefore does not create a shadow.”
Death is our own shadow. Continuing to run from it, we will never be able to stop and find out what it is. If this man had stopped and seen what was chasing him, perhaps he would have laughed and said, “What kind of man am I that I run from a shadow?” No one can ever escape the shadow; no one can even win the fight against the shadow. This does not mean, however, that the shadow is stronger and we will never achieve victory; it simply means that there is no shadow, which means there is no question of victory. You can't defeat something that doesn't exist. This is why people continue to be overcome by death: because death is just a shadow of life.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru