Srila Gurudeva: You know the history of the blind well? A person was walking in the jungle and when he got very deep into the forest, a roaring tiger began to attack him. He ran away but he could not find any way to escape that tiger. At last he reached a dead end and he thought, “This tiger will certainly jump on me and eat me.”

He saw that there was well, a blind well, an old well with some grass and the branches of a pippala tree covering it. He thought, “There may be so many serpents inside,” so he took two branches in his hand and tried to climb down into the well. The tiger was roaring at the top of the well and was peeping inside. That man was so afraid and when he peeped inside the well he saw that very dangerous serpents were there hissing and raising their hoods. He was so afraid. At once he saw that two rats, one black and one white rat, came out of the well and began to chew on the two branches that he was holding onto.

He saw that in only a few minutes they were going to fully chew through those branches which would cause him to fall into the well, which was full of serpents and scorpions. Everywhere there was danger of death and there was no remedy. In the meantime he saw so many bees humming and some very sweet, golden honey drops were coming—one, two, three. He saw this and at once was charmed. He stuck out his tongue and one drop of honey came in his mouth. Then he forgot about all these tigers, ferocious serpents, rats, and bees.

If the bees were to be disturbed, they would come and bite him everywhere and he would die. If the rats are chewing the branches, he will automatically fall down. There was no remedy but he forgot everything and only thought, “Oh, how sweet, how sweet this honey is.” What is this? This world is like a blind well and we are that person going down in the well. The tiger is death. We don’t know when we will die. The rats, which represent day and night, are cutting one day from our life. They are very slowly, slowly cutting and our age will be finished and then we will die.

But we are thinking, “Oh, how sweet. These worldly relations are so sweet. My wife is so beautiful and so sweet.” But when she will divorce you then you will see how sweet this is. When your children will kick you, then you will see. There is no remedy at all. This is family life in this world.

[Spoken by Srila Gurudeva on April 28th, 1998, France, published as part of the Bhakta Bandhav Anthology, Volume 27]