Put It Together Piece By Piece

You must have played with jigsaw puzzles--

You do know what a jigsaw is ?

Putting it together, piece by piece,

Making a picture, matching piece to piece.

I once heard a story like a jigsaw puzzle--

This is how it went :

There were four friends, four very close friends,

Who once went travelling together.

And on their way through a deep, dark forest

A skeleton they found.

Three friends were learned and wise,

The fourth was simple, a fool.

Three of them knew all there was to be known,

The fourth knew very little.

He was a friend- so they'd brought him along

Else why would they have bothered ?

The three wise friends studied the skeleton,

Examined each bone, each joint with care

They reached the same conclusion--

'It is a lion,' said the first.

'No is, it was a lion,' said the second.

'Why was ? It will be a lion,' said the third.

The fourth listened quietly, uttering not a word.

Said the first,

'What if I repair this frame

Bone by bone

And put together the lion?'

Said the second

'Do bones alone make a creature?

If you put together this skeleton

I can add to it flesh and hide and hair.'

Said the third,

'Even that would not make the animal whole

But if you can put together the bones and flesh

I can ,if you want , life into the lion.'

The fourth still said not a word

But stared at them in silence.

Bone by bone, the first friend

Put together the lion.

The second read some mantras

And the lion's true form could be seen.

The fourth seeing the lion in all it's glory

Terrified, climbed up high into a tree.

The other three laughed at him, and joked,

'He's a bit of blockhead, isn't he?

He's a coward,let him be!'

It was now the third friend's turn--

He too read some mantras and blew a great breath

The lion blinked

Growled loudly,drew a breath

Turned his head this way and that,looked around

Saw three men standing there!

The man-eating lion drooled at the sight

Open his jaws and roared

And promptly gobbled them up!

The fourth friend was found the next day

Lying unconscious in the forest

He was taken back to his village where

A friend woke him up

And asked him what had happened

He answered,

'Great strength which has no match,

Or power which is more than ones's own--

Whether it be an atom bomb or a lion--

Whenever such power is released,

It will destroy.

I accept the power of knowledge

What we need is the knowledge of power!'