The Disciple and the Caterpillars
So it was he passed his days working in the Garden of the Beloved and listening to the instruction of the Lover.
Now the Garden was full of birds with beautiful plumage which sang continually the praise of the Beloved, and of brightly colored butterflies which played about the flowers so that the bushes seemed to blaze with a splendor not their own.
One day as the Disciple was passing through the Garden, he noticed that the leaves of certain plants were ragged and full of holes. Then looking more closely he saw there were on them many small caterpillars, dung-colored and covered with hideous hairs, which even as he looked were eating the leaves of the plants.
When he saw this it seemed to him that they were doing great harm to the Garden of the Beloved, so he plucked them one by one from the plants and crushed them beneath his heel.
At that moment the Lover came through the Garden and when he saw what the Disciple was doing, he wept, yet he spoke gently to the Disciple and said, “I know that you have acted through ignorance and with a good heart in doing this, yet in doing it you have greatly hurt the beauty of the Garden of the Beloved.”
The Disciple when he heard this was amazed and very sorrowful.
The Lover then showed the Disciple another plant where he saw caterpillars enveloping themselves in cocoons of silk. There were many cocoons on the stems of the leaves and even as he watched, one split and from it came a butterfly with wings like the rainbow. Then he perceived how in his ignorance he had hurt the Garden of the Beloved.
