A Question of Valuation

A Question of Valuation

“A dog, while carrying a piece of meat across a river, caught sight of his own image floating in the mirror of the waters and, thinking that it was another prize carried by another dog, decided to snatch it. But his greed was disappointed: he let go the meal that he held in his mouth, and failed besides to grasp the meal for which he strove.” ─ Phaedrus Fable

The common interpretation of this fable relates to greed and the dog’s lack of valuation for what he already had. Still other sources offer interpretations such as “changing the sure for the uncertain,” or “not being taken in by appearances,” or abandoning the real for the illusory. All of these interpretations take the act of dropping the meal as an undesirable outcome.

“I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood.”─ The Book of Mark

In this parable, the widow gave all she owned and the same is true of the dog in the fable. It occurred to me that we could reinterpret the dog fable using psychological thinking and, instead, switch the dog’s outcome into something desirable. In other words, the payment of losing his meal – the lower self – was exchanged for something more valuable, without physical substance and above the material world. In this interpretation, the dog’s reflection could be understood as revealing himself in the water of truth and seeing his true nature in his reflection. He was crossing over the river to the other side, the Higher Self, and was willing to give all he had.

Understanding the idea of payment is a bit like the reinterpretation of this story. When we see the truth in our reflection, we would pay dearly for Higher Centers by relinquishing the lower self. With greater understanding, we begin to drop our identification with our lower selves in favor of Higher Centers. In the Fourth Way, we pay to gain access to higher states, which are without physical substance and “the pearl of great price,” more valuable than the material world in which we live.

“It is in the very nature of things that consciousness and will cannot be given … one must buy everything, nothing is given free. The most difficult thing is to learn how to pay. One has to pay not only for consciousness but for everything. Not the smallest idea can become one’s own until one has paid for it.”─ P.D. Ouspensky

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Dog and Reflection, Aberdeen Bestiary, circa 1200