On a bare hill outside a busy town there once lived a hermit named Ugratapa, whose name meant "fierce discipline," and he had earned it the wrong way.

He stood on one leg for days. He fasted until his ribs showed like the bars of a cage. In the cold season he sat in icy water; in the hot season he lit four fires around himself and a fifth blazed overhead in the sun. He pierced himself with thorns and slept on a bed of sharp stones. No holy book had ever asked anyone to do such things. He had invented every one of them.

Travellers would stop on the road below and point. "Look! Look at his powers! Look how much he can bear!" And that — exactly that — was why he did it. He waited all day for the pointing and the gasping. When a crowd gathered, he made his face very calm and noble, as if he barely noticed them, while inside his heart leapt with pride.

One evening a quiet old pilgrim climbed the hill and sat near him.

"Why do you do all this?" the pilgrim asked.

"To become great," said Ugratapa, lifting his chin. "To have power. To be spoken of in every town."

The pilgrim nodded slowly. "I see. And tell me — when no one is watching, do you still feel peaceful inside? Is your heart gentler than it was a year ago? Are you kinder to the ants on the path?"

Ugratapa opened his mouth to answer, and found he had nothing to say. The truth was that all his fierce hardship had made him harder, not softer. He was prouder than ever, hungrier than ever for the next crowd. He had wounded his body terribly and changed his heart not at all.

"Real discipline," the old pilgrim said, rising to go, "is a fire that warms you and cooks your food. The kind you are doing is a fire that only burns the house down — slowly — while the neighbours stand and watch the flames."

Ugratapa sat very still on his bed of stones long after the pilgrim had gone, and for the first time in many years he did not once think about who might be looking.