Monkey’s Tail

Totally Totem Earth tone colors are used in this Native American graphic design - 6x6 Iron On Heat Transfer For White Material

The flow of thoughts depends surprisingly little on what goes on outside is; And the implication is marvelous; we do not need to change our environment to solve personal problems; all we have to do is master our thinking process and change our response to the environment.

Children in India play a game called Monkey’s Tail. Each child is a monkey. One little monkey catches another monkey’s tail, a third catches the tail of the second and soon, until you have ten to twelve monkeys all hanging on to the leader and running all over the place. That is thinking does not even have a tail.

Fear is like this too, as I remember from an incident of my childhood. I had cut my leg when I was swimming. So my granny took me to the doctor in the neighboring town. He was a good friend of hers, so she managed to convey to him tactfully that I had a real aversion to pain. “Of course,” he promised kindly. “I’ll be as careful as I can. I just need to clean this up a bit and then apply some iodine.”

Now, iodine is applied in India on the slightest provocation and its acute burning sensation was all too familiar to us boys. So the moment I heard the word “iodine” my mind began to race and my heart fell into my sandals. I closed my eyes and when I felt the liquid flow over the open cut, the burning was so terrible that I lifted the roof off.

After a few minutes, everything subsided. I opened my eyes. “Was it dreadfully painful?” the doctor asked.

“Oh yes.”

“I haven’t applied the iodine yet.”

That is what conditioned thinking can do. It shows the remarkable power of the mind; one little suggestion and it creates a whole experience.

Meher Baba, an Indian mystic, said that a mind that is fast is sick; a mind that is slow is sound. The fast mind misunderstands, exaggerates, overlooks and vacillates, rushing to judgment.

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