ADVICE TO A FRIEND ----TEMPTATION

There are certainunruly feelings in of which temptation is the strongest one. It always tries to lead a man towards selfishness. When grown unmanageable it drags one’s mind from the original seat of virtue and leads one to move in wilderness ----- in the region of false, illegal or uncertain hopes. Temptation in a mind acts like a piece of iron near some powerful magnet. It aims and jumps on an object from which it cannot free itself.
Temptation alone is sufficient to destroy the moral excellence of man. It misleads an individual or a nation by making the individual or the nation mad to process the belongings of others. It is also responsible for many a catastrophe, devastation, blood-shed, disaster, humiliation and danger which at times claim a heavy tool of human life and property. It also threatens the very existence of many other species --- essential for maintaining nature’s balance.
In this world of good and evil, virtue and vice, greed and avarice there must be temptation; but one should not yield to it. Moreover, how can a man develop the strength of his character if he is not confronted with temptation? Man is composed of animality and rationality but he cannot root out the one for the improvement of the other. In his physical side he is equipped with hard, soft and delicate organs while the varieties of feelings such as the fierceness of a tiger, meekness of a lamb, neatness of cat, dirtiness of a pig, cleverness of a fox, foolishness of a turtle etc., wonderfully associate in him. The passions, impulses and emotions are given to him definitely for fulfilling some useful purpose provided those are allowed to work within a desirable limit. But the total killing of passions would seriously affect his growth and progress. For instance, we cannot improve our mental faculty by denying our physical side. And how can there be rationality in absence of animality? We know that fruit is the final outcome of a seed; but the fruit cannot grow without the flower and flower cannot come without the leaves and so on. Similarly, the growth of spirituality is based on morality and morality arises from passion. Do we not find that vanity gives rise to humility, hatred to love, jealousy to sympathy and enmity to friendship only when those are kept under proper control? Therefore, a man should keep a balance of his passions in order to get a good result.
The controlling of a passion increases the strength of mind. As soon as temptation vibrates the mind, it should be arrested and sent back to its prison hole so that the mind is not tossed with the waves of uneasiness. This power can be acquired by gradual steps. As for example, if you find some valuables lying on the road, never be tempted to have them. Because, those are decidedly the product of some body’s tear and toil. You will do well if you can put them under the care of some competent authority for their proper disposal. But you need not keep them and run after the owner by wasting a sufficient length of time.
On the other hand, if this feeling is allowed to play without any restriction and thus secures for itself an upper hand, it will make one not only low in the estimation of others but will lead one to misery and destruction. This fact may be well understood from the following instances mentioned below.
1. A man withtemptation was once travelling in a railway train. He was sitting in a compartment amidst the uncompromising passengers; --- some of whom were enjoying a reward of lying at full length while others were paying a heavy penalty by keeping themselves standing. This particular man was rather neutral, sitting between the two extreme situations. During its journey, the train was stopping at some station to pick up new passengers and also for dropping the intending ones. This man noticed that a passenger boarded their compartment, at some intermediate station, with a new steel trunk of remarkable size, but left the train in the next station without taking back his trunk which was kept on the bunk of the carriage. The train was running on and on. People opened their trunks and suitcases to have their useful things, but this man was occupied with the thought of taking possession of the deserted trunk. He was tempted to make a good fortune out of the contents of the trunk.
At last, the trainreached a border station where some police-men boarded the compartments for checking the suspected packages. During their checking period, the man was fully absorbed in himself with deep thought, and the subject matter of his thought was, when he would find himself as the owner of the trunk --- without the possession of which there would come no rest nor respite to his heart. The police-men after censoring some packages , touched the steel trunk and said in a strong voice, “Whom does this belong?” This question startled the man as he was not ready for the answer. Still; his voice automatically came out to meet the question, “Yes, that’s mine.”
Police-men, “Please open it and show us its contents.” The man replied in a feeble voice, “Sorry, the key has been lost a short time ago.”
Such unexpected reply aroused suspicion in their mind and they compelled him to follow them along with the trunk to their H.QS. When the trunk was opened in presence of some high ranking personnel’s, a horrible sight presented itself, --- the dead-body of a man sliced into several pieces were kept in it. This unexpected and awful sight attacked the man with violent fear, and he rained abundant tears which could not save him from tasting the bitter fruit of punishment, as prescribe by law.
2. One there was an animal with half a dozen mouths, each for securing food from different directions, but the stomach was only one at the centre. One pleasant afternoon, when he was wondering in quest of food, a particular mouth---the first one chanced upon a sweet fruit. “Oh, how fine and delicious it is!” said he to the remaining ones while chewing it and continued, “Never was my tongue contacted with such a sweet thing which beggars all description.”
On his such utterance, the other four mouths congratulated him for his gain; as member of the same family ought to do. But the last one, out of the sway of strong temptation, begged hard for a share of it from the first one thus, “Give me a little bit of it to taste;-- my friend.” The first one smiled and said, “We are too many to share this little thing. Though we look different but are we not all same? What will be our special gain if we taste it separately when the stomach is common? He again repeated his request but when he could not prevail upon the first mouth to comply with his request, he considered himself neglected as well as insulted and said, “Alright, I will teach you a good lesson in time.”
One day, accidentally, the last mouth came across a deadly poisonous fruit, took it close to his mouth and declared his intention of swallowing it, in order to gratify his vengeance against the first mouth. On the strength of this powerful thing, he straightway threatened this rival thus, “Now suffer for your refusal, idiot; I wish I had pull your tongue out which had alone enjoyed that sweet fruit. I must kill you at, “Once by having this fruit.”

His such terrible utterance greatly alarmed the remaining mouths who persuaded him to excuse his rival for the safety of them all. But their joint appeal produced no effect; because his sense of revenge was more than his sense of forgiveness and he wanted to recover his lost prestige by the most vigorous measure of revenge. Thus he turned a deaf ear to their entreaties and put the fruit down to his throat. As a result, instantaneous death put an end to their unhappy career and the animal became a tale of old.