A sadhu bid his guru goodbye and retreated into the forest to live as a spiritual hermit; a loincloth was his only possession.
Rats, however, gnawed the loincloth, so he got a cat.
The cat needed milk, so he got a cow.
The cow needed hay, so he began farming.
Then he hired laborers. He built a barn. He took a wife.
Some years later, the sadhu's guru came to see him. "What happened to the sadhu who went off into the forest?" he asked.
"As you can see," the sadhu said in reply, "it's all because of that loincloth."
Inspired by: Tales and Parables of Sri Ramakrishna
Notes: This is story 15 in the book. A sadhu is a religious ascetic, and his teacher is a guru. Compare the same story as told by Ramaswami Raju: The Hermit in the Forest.
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