The Camel Who Would Not Move

The sages told the Pandavas of the camel that won a boon and was undone by its own laziness - a short tale, but a sharp one, of how sloth and the love of ease bring ruin even upon those who have gained great gifts.

There was once a camel that lived in the wild, and it took into its head to perform austerities, hard penance, in the hope of winning a boon from the gods. So the camel gave itself up to fierce penance for a long time, enduring the discipline of the austere life, until at last the Creator, pleased or wearied by its persistence, appeared to grant it the reward it sought. 'What boon do you desire?' the god asked the camel. And the camel, when it considered what it most wanted, asked for a thing that revealed the bent of its nature: it asked that its neck might be made very long, so that it could reach far-off grass and leaves without troubling to walk to them.

The god granted the camel its wish, and the camel's neck was made very long indeed - so long that it could stretch out for a great distance, reaching grass and leaves many miles off without the camel having to stir from where it lay. The camel was delighted with its boon, for now it could feed itself in the laziest possible way: it had only to lie still and stretch out its long neck this way and that, cropping the grass and the foliage all around for a great distance, without the trouble of getting up and walking to its food as other creatures must.

But the boon, which seemed so convenient, was in truth a temptation to the very sloth that had inspired it; for the camel, having now no need to move in order to eat, gave itself up entirely to laziness. Where before it had at least to walk about to find its food, now it need not move at all; and so it lay still day after day, growing ever lazier, stretching its long neck to feed and otherwise never stirring, sunk in the ease that its boon had made possible. The gift it had won served only to feed its sloth, until laziness became its whole way of life, and it lay about idle and unmoving, reaching out its long neck for its food and doing nothing else at all.

Now it happened one day that a great storm arose - wind and rain came sweeping over the land, a fierce tempest that drove all creatures to seek shelter. The lazy camel, true to its nature, did not trouble to get up and find proper shelter from the storm; instead, in its idleness, it simply lay where it was and stretched out its long neck, reaching into the mouth of a nearby cave or hollow to keep its head out of the wind and rain, while the rest of its body lay outside, too lazy to move under cover. So the camel rested its long neck inside the shelter and lay idle through the storm, pleased with its easy solution, never bothering to rise and take proper cover.

But the camel did not know what awaited within. For in that very cave or hollow into which it had thrust its long neck to escape the storm, there sheltered another creature - a jackal, some say, or another hungry beast - that had taken cover there from the same tempest. And as the camel lazily stretched its head and neck into the shelter where the hungry beast lay, it delivered itself, all unawares, into the very jaws of its destruction; for the beast within, finding food come to it of its own accord, was not slow to take advantage of the lazy camel's folly.

The hungry beast sheltering in the cave, when it saw the camel's head and neck thrust in within easy reach, seized upon this unlooked-for meal that the lazy camel had so obligingly delivered into its lair. The very long neck that the camel had won as a boon, and used to feed its sloth, now served only to stretch its head into the jaws of the beast; and the camel, too lazy to have sought proper shelter, was set upon and devoured by the creature it had blundered upon.

So the camel met its end through its own laziness, slain by the very ease it had so prized. The boon of the long neck, which it had sought to spare itself the trouble of moving, had led it at last into the mouth of the beast; the sloth that the boon had fed had made it careless of the storm and careless of its safety, until it laid its own head, all unknowing, within reach of a hungry foe. The gift had become the instrument of its ruin, and its love of ease its undoing. The lazy camel that would not stir even in a storm was eaten because it would not stir, destroyed by the very laziness that its convenient boon had nourished.

The tale, short and sharp, drove home its point: that sloth and the love of ease lead to ruin, and that even great gifts and advantages are turned to destruction in the hands of the lazy. The camel had won, by hard penance, a remarkable boon; but because it used that boon only to feed its laziness, the very gift became the cause of its death. Had it not been so lazy - had it troubled to rise and seek proper shelter from the storm, as any prudent creature would - it would have lived; but its sloth made it careless, and its carelessness destroyed it.

So the tale teaches that laziness is not a harmless fault but a dangerous one, that brings real ruin; that the love of ease makes us careless of our safety and our duties, until we blunder into harm; and that even the gifts and advantages we possess are worthless, or worse than worthless, if we use them only to indulge our sloth. The diligent and the watchful survive and prosper; the lazy, who will not stir even when they should, deliver themselves into the jaws of ruin, as the camel thrust its own neck into the mouth of the beast. The fault that seems so small and so comfortable - the love of doing nothing - is shown to be deadly.

There was in the tale a further point: that it is not the gift but the use of it that matters, and that even good fortune is ruinous when it serves only our weaknesses. The long neck was a fine boon in itself; in the service of diligence it might have been a great advantage. But the camel used it only to feed its sloth, to spare itself all effort, and so the gift drew out and magnified its worst fault until that fault destroyed it. The boon did not make the camel lazy; the camel was lazy already, and the boon merely gave its laziness free rein, and so led it to ruin.

So the tale warns that the gifts and advantages we are given - wealth, power, ease, ability - are not good or bad in themselves, but become good or bad according to whether we use them for diligence and right living or for the indulgence of our weaknesses. The same gift that would aid a diligent person may destroy a lazy one, by removing the very necessity that kept their fault in check. Beware, then, of advantages that make it easy to indulge your weaknesses; for ease that feeds sloth, or wealth that feeds greed, or power that feeds pride, is no blessing but a snare. It is not what we are given, but what we make of it, that saves or ruins us.

The tale held up, against the lazy camel, the opposite virtues of diligence and watchfulness, by which creatures preserve themselves and prosper. For the camel's ruin was the fruit of sloth and carelessness; and the remedy the tale points to is their opposite: the diligence that troubles to do what should be done, that rises and acts and does not lie idle; and the watchfulness that is careful of danger, that seeks proper shelter from the storm, that does not thrust its head heedlessly into the dark. The diligent and the watchful would not have died as the camel died; they would have stirred themselves, taken proper care, and lived.

So the tale bids us be diligent and watchful in our lives: not to give ourselves up to ease and idleness, however pleasant; not to let the love of comfort make us careless of our duties and our dangers; but to rouse ourselves to do what should be done, and to keep a wary eye on the perils around us. The world is full of storms and full of hungry beasts in dark places; and it is the diligent and the watchful who come safely through, while the lazy and the heedless deliver themselves to ruin. Cultivate, then, the diligence that acts and the watchfulness that takes care; for these are the guardians of life, and sloth is the road to the beast's jaws.

The sages drew the lessons of the tale for the Pandavas.

'See, first, how sloth and the love of ease lead to ruin. The camel won a fine boon by hard penance, but used it only to feed its laziness, until it would not stir even in a storm, and so thrust its own neck into the jaws of a hungry beast and was devoured. The tale teaches that laziness is no harmless fault but a deadly one; that the love of ease makes us careless of our safety and our duties until we blunder into harm; and that the lazy, who will not rouse themselves even when they should, deliver themselves to destruction. Beware, then, the comfortable fault of sloth, which seems so small and is so ruinous.

'And see that it is not the gift but the use of it that saves or ruins us. The long neck might have been a great advantage in diligent hands; but in the camel's, it served only its sloth and so destroyed it. The tale teaches that the advantages we are given become good or bad according to our use of them; that ease which feeds laziness, like wealth that feeds greed or power that feeds pride, is a snare and not a blessing; and that we should beware of whatever makes it easy to indulge our weaknesses. Be diligent, then, and watchful; rouse yourself to do what should be done; take care against the dangers of the world; and use whatever you are given in the service of right living and not of your weaknesses. For diligence and watchfulness are the guardians of life, and sloth is the road to the beast's jaws.'

And the Pandavas, who knew that a kingdom and a life are kept by vigilance and lost by negligence, took to heart the sharp little tale of the lazy camel.