The Shadow and the Fawn: Sustainable Nature and Collapsing Ecologies

Abstract

In a brief parable, Aesop tells the story of a fawn who asks his mother: ‘You are taller and swifter than a dog; why then are you so fearful?’ The mother answers: ‘Yes, it is true, but I can’t explain—when I hear the howl of the hounds, I feel faint and have to run away.’ An explanation for the mother’s insecurity appears in another of Aesop’s fables. In this story a dog is carrying a piece of flesh across a bridge. The dog glances into the water and sees the reflection of another dog carrying meat that is twice the size of his own. The dog snarls and tries to attack the reflection, dropping his meat into the river. Now the dog and his shadow are left with nothing, as the flesh is swept away by the rolling eddies.

The Supreme Truth exists outside and inside of all living beings, the moving and the nonmoving. Because He is subtle, He is beyond the power of the material senses to see or to know. Although far, far away, He is also near to all.

The Bhagavad Gita, 13: 16

Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor.

Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854