The Hermit's Mountain

The Hermit's Mountain

A hermit is challenged by a corporation to leave his mountain to make room for development. But the hermit has other ideas.

An elderly hermit lived on a mountain only a few miles from a great city. He had lived there all his life, spending his days in a cave where he kept enough to eat and a place to sleep. When the weather was warm, he would sit outside his cave and say hello to the hikers who climbed the difficult paths to the top. He was well-known in the area, and many people gave him food and stopped to talk. They always came away feeling differently about themselves; his mild eyes and his piercing stare were a combination that led many people to change their way of life. They became more generous and more compassionate, more thoughtful and more aware of how quickly things change.

At the same time, a huge company in a nearby city had plans to expand. One thing stood in the way “ the mountain. One thing stood in the way of clearing away the land on the mountain ” the hermit. At a board meeting, attended by all the important executives, it was decided that someone had to visit the hermit and convince him that it was a good idea to move. They would offer him any amount of money; they would find him another place to live; they would do whatever he wanted. But the executives knew that the hermit was a popular and stubborn man, and that it would not be easy.

“I volunteer!” said Eric Wellington. Eric was the Vice President of Finance; he was only in his late thirties, but he was already at the top of the corporate world. He had been born into privilege, moving from prep school to Harvard, and then on to Harvard Business School. He had joined the company immediately, and had moved up through the ranks to the top at a rapid pace. Now he was successful, respected and wealthy. It was true that his wife had left him, complaining of his lack of concern for anything but his job, and it was true that he did not have friends “ only business acquaintances ” but for a man in his position, such things mattered little. He looked upon the visit to the hermit as a challenge; he volunteered happily, unaware that many of the more seasoned executives looked at him with surprise and hesitation.

So it was decided that Eric would make the trip. The following day, he left his BMW at home and took the company limousine the thirty miles to the mountain. The driver found the one road leading up to the one path that approached the top, and drove the car as far as he could. Finally, realizing that he would have to walk, Eric told the driver to park and stepped out.

Anyone passing Eric that cool windy day on the mountain would have been impressed by him: Tall, dignified, distinguished, he looked the part of the very successful businessman, as he straightened the jacket of his custom tailored $2,000 navy blue pinstriped suit, smoothed out his burgundy silk tie and starched white dress shirt, checked his gold cufflinks to make sure they fell below his cuffs, brushed off his $1500 briefcase and ran his manicured hand over his neatly combed hair. He spent $100 every two weeks to have his hair cut, and felt it was worth it to maintain his image. He glanced at his black captoe shoes, polished like mirrors by the old shoeshine man in his office building, and leaned over to flick a speck off them; he also pulled up his black dress socks and checked to see if his cuffs broke evenly over his shoes.

He knew, however, that this was not the clothing for mountain climbing, and anxiously checked his gleaming shoes as he walked. After questioning a passing runner, who looked at him in surprise, he was relieved to discover that the hermit’s cave was a very short distance. After a twenty minute walk, he found himself at the cave, and stepped into the opening. He looked inside.

A small fire was burning in a sort of stone fireplace, and Eric noticed that a hole in the rock above allowed the smoke to escape. A simple bed of straw was on the left, and a simple table was on the right. The hermit sat in the middle of the cave, in front of the fire. He was a man in his seventies, with deeply wrinkled and tanned skin. His grey hair hung about his face in a tangled mass, and joined a scanty beard. He wore only a robe, which looked more like rags. It was old and tattered, and fell to his knees. His legs and feet were bare and as leathery and tanned as his face. He looked up, and showed no surprise at his visitor.

“Yes?” he said, and his eyes swept over Eric. He took in the expensive suit, the carefully knotted tie, the impeccable hair, and, especially, the shiny black shoes. Eric was anxiously removing the dust of the road from them with a piece of Kleenex, when he met the hermit’s eyes.

For a moment, he didn’t know where he was. The hermit seemed to look right through him, opening up his mind with eyes that were disarmingly mild, yet like a laser. He quickly came to himself, however, and introduced himself and explained his reason for coming so far. After giving the hermit his sales pitch, with the confidence and arrogance that had always served him well in the past, he stopped and looked at his listener. He had finished with the offer of a fine job for him at company headquarters, provided of course that he chose to “improve his appearance”“

The hermit did not change his expression. In a quiet, steady voice, he said: ”I will not wear your pinstriped suit and polished shoes. No, you will wear a robe and learn to walk in your bare feet.’

Eric looked at him in bewilderment. Anyone looking into the cave at that moment would have thought the two men were as different as it was possible to be: the old, quiet, bedraggled hermit in his rags facing the sleek, shining and pompous corporate executive. It was clear that one of them would have to win. Eric had entered the cave, assuming that he would easily convince the old beggar of his idea, but now the whole situation wan’t working out that way. Eric dismissed the hermit’s words, and began again to speak, but stopped as he looked at the hermit’s eyes.

“You are an unhappy man, and you are driven to live a life you do not enjoy. You do not care for anyone, and no one cares for you. However, I can make you happy. I can tell you a way to be content.” The hermit stopped speaking and stared at Eric, whose throat had gone dry. In the silence of the cave, surrounded by the greater silence of the mountain, the truth of the words pierced Eric’s mind and settled into his being, where they seemed to magnify. Suddenly, his whole life seemed to unreel before his eyes.

His actions and his thoughts seemed to parade before him, and all he saw was a man consumed by greed and conceit. He thought of all the people he had known who had reached out to him in friendship, and his condescension towards them. He thought of all his material success, and also of the feelings of emptiness that he tried to hide. All of the happened in a moment, but Eric felt breathless. He was stunned.He looked again at the hermit’s eyes and suddenly the only thing he cared about was receiving an answer from the hermit as to how to find peace.

“Tell”tell me how’’ said Eric in a quiet voice, utterly different than the clear, confident voice of the successful executive.

The hermit smiled, but then, as he looked at Eric’s briefcase and his suit, he shook his head and spoke in a clear and ringing voice that was at odds with his calm stare.

“How dare you come here wearing those clothes!? Did you think you would impress me with your appearance? Did you think I would feel inferior to you because of your expensive suit or your polished shoes? You are a man who thinks only of surface things. I cannot help you!“

Eric felt a sense of alarm and urgency that he had never felt before.

”Please!“ he begged. ”Don’t give up on me!“

The hermit thought for a moment, and then smiled again. ”There IS one way, but it will not be easy’“

Eric looked at him with anticipation, as if everything depended upon it.

The hermit asked Eric if he had his cell phone with him. A surprised Eric nodded, and then the hermit told him: ”You are a successful executive, with all the possessions you might want. You must start again, as if you had never become a successful executive. You must tumble off the ladder. First, and please understand the symbolic importance of this, you must take off your shoes and socks.“

Eric felt himself turn red and then white. ”What?! I don’t understand?!“

”It is clear that your shoes are symbols of prestige and success; they separate you from the common man, and you value them too highly. From now on, you will never again wear shoes and learn to live your life as a barefoot man.“

For several minutes, a battle took place in Eric’s mind as he considered the weight of the demand. Eric’s look of shock gave way to compliance as he looked into the hermit’s face.

”You must understand that as you step out of those polished shoes and those expensive socks you will leave behind your old life of privelege and step into the new life that will set you free.“ With a sigh, he untied and pulled off his gleaming black shoes; his dress socks followed.

”I will take those” said the hermit quietly, and folded the socks and placed them in the shoes. Eric stared in bewilderment at his bare feet. Why was he doing this? He was a successful executive! Yet, he knew that his old life was falling away like melting snow.

The hermit then gave him a cardboard box. “Here, you will place your cufflinks, tiepin, necktie, Rolex, wallet and suspenders.” Eric nodded, and removed all the items. He dropped them all in the box.

“Do you see?” said the hermit. “All of these items are symbols of your success. They have kept you in prison. They have made you think you are better, special. You have taken refuge in being a well-dressed executive. Not anymore”“ and the hermit pulled out a tattered robe. Now, you must remove your pinstriped suit and your starched shirt and everything else, and put on this robe. You may step outside for privacy”’

Eric nodded and stepped outside the cave. In a few moments, he entered again, wearing only the robe, and carrying his tailored suit, starched shirt and silk underwear in his hands. The hermit nodded approval and took Eric’s clothes.

He held up Eric’s shoes, glistening in the firelight. “These shoes will no longer tell you who you are.” The hermit than held up the suit, and told Eric: “You must now say goodbye to each item in turn, and understand you will never again wear a suit or a necktie.”

Eric responded by saying goodbye to each item of clothing and each item of jewelry. The hermit smiled approvingly.

Eric thought of all the meetings where he had worn those shoes and that suit with pride and confidence, and even swagger. Never again would he wear them.

“Now”You must quit your job.“

In the silence that followed, Eric felt stunned. Quit his job? Everything inside him began to protest, but when he looked up at the hermit, his thoughts melted into a ”Yes, of course!“ Within minutes, he had told the stunned CEO that he was, indeed, quitting.

The hermit smiled with approval. ”Now you must call your stockbroker and sell all your stocks and donate the money to a charity, and call the owner of your condo and sell your condo, and arrange for all your furniture and clothing to be donated to Goodwill. Then you must sell your car.“

Eric felt each command like a blow. Yet nothing seemed to matter except pleasing the hermit. Within thirty minutes, all the arrangements had been made. Eric was now unemployed, broke and homeless.

”In the morning, you will beg for money with me’said the hermit, and the next day Eric sat outside with the hermit and began his new life. The winter came within a few days, and snow made he mountain impassable. As the days and then the weeks went by, his neatly combed hair grew long and tangled, and a beard replaced the carefully shaven face he had always worn. His manicured nails grew long and dirty, and he lost weight through the regimen of eating only scraps.

But it was true that he was happy.

The other executives, however, were stunned and bewildered. They assumed that Eric had simply left the country. Then the limousine driver informed them that he had not returned. As soon as the weather allowed, the CEO of the company took the journey to the hermit’s cave, and there found two hermits. It took him several minutes to realize that this was Eric Wellington.

The CEO strutted up to Eric and stared. Eric looked with mild eyes at his pompous, meticulously dressed boss and listened to his words as if through a filter. The CEO exploded with anger and shock, asking Eric where his clothes had gone and why he had quit his job and sold everything. The hermit looked at Eric and Eric looked at the hermit, and both looked at the CEO’s navy blue Armani suit, the gold silk tie and matching pocket handkerchief, and the polished black Gucci loafers. The hermit noticed that the CEO continually smoothed his thick, carefully combed prematurely grey hair.

Then the hermit asked Eric waited outside the cave. As Eric watched the impeccably groomed CEO enter the cave, he wondered how long it would take. In an hour, Eric was told to enter and observed the CEO’s polished black Gucci loafers sitting by the fire, with the dress socks stuffed inside. The CEO stood before the hermit tieless and barefoot, and the jacket of his Armai suit was open. He stood holding a dirty and tattered robe. A small cardboard box sat on the flor of the cave; Eric noticed the gold silk tie and the matching pocket square, the gold and paisley suspenders, and the monogrammed cufflinks and tiepin. His eyes no longer held the gleam of a predatory businessman, but a mild, stunned look. He left the cave and returned wearing the robe, carrying the Armani suit.

The company executives were now alarmed. One more try, they decided, and the man who was next in line to the CEO made the same visit.

He arrived at the cave and was shocked to see three beggars sitting in front of the cave, and was equally shocked when they made jokes regarding his clothes, for he was the only one of the four wearing shoes. The hermit invited him in for a talk, and this time, a pair of polished black wingtips and a grey double-breasted Brooks Brothers suit and a green silk tie joined the discarded business attire.

The executives decided this was too much. The ones who were left sold the company, while the hermits, four of them, remained on the mountain. Eventually, they found their own caves. The mountain was never sold to anyone.

But the first hermit, the old man, kept souvenirs. In the back of the cave, three very expensive tailored suits could be found on hangers, along with matching shirts, ties, cufflinks, suspenders, shoes, socks, and briefcases.