"The Parable of Sadhu"

Partake in a once in a lifetime journey or help a man in need and forgo the opportunity? What would you do? This is the moral dilemma that the author Bowen H. McCoy is faced with in The Parable of Sadhu, when he takes a trip to the Himalayas.

On their journey through the Himalayas a group of people from all over the world come across a mostly naked man; A Sadhu, a religious or holy man, who "probably visited the shrines at Muklinath and was on his way home" 
and is now suffering from hypothermia. Ethical issues arise when various people try and help the Sadhu but they only help him as much as it is convenient for them. 

"No one person was willing to assume ultimate responsibility for the Sadhu. Each was willing to do his bit just so long as it was not too inconvenient. When it got to be a bother, everyone just passed the buck to someone else and took off."

They don't go out of their way to help him down the mountain because their journey is more important to them. As is the money they probably invested in this trip, basically they act out of their own self interest. So these people may try and help the Sadhu as little as they can to come off as humane but they don't do enough to ensure his safety. It is shocking to see that all these people from different countries, cultures, and walks of life, none of them goes out of their way and helps this man get home. And at the end of the story the well being of the Sadhu and whether he got home safely or even if he is alive is still in question.


"How do you feel about contributing to the death of a fellow man?"


Don't we as humans have an implied obligation to help out our "fellow man" when in need. Don't we like to think that if we were in the shoes of the Sadhu that someone would go out of their way to ensure our safety to possibly get us home to our families. Would we still have that obligation if it were a dead person. Would you continue on your once on a lifetime journey through the Himalayas and just walk pass a dead body without a second thought. The author's friend Stephen seems to be the only one who cares about the Sadhu, but in the end he doesn't help the Sadhu either.

"Where is the limit of our responsibility in a situation like this?"

There are unanswered questions that remain unanswered in the story like "Why (the Sadhu) had chosen this desperately high route instead of the safe, heavily traveled caravan route through the Kali Gandaki gorge. Or why he was shoe less and almost naked, or how long he had been lying in the pass" and what happened to the Sadhu? But the author clearly still has guilt over what he did or rather what he didn't do to help the Sadhu? Which means he knows he did the wrong thing. However if faced with the situation again he would probably do the right thing but it's probably a little to late.


The Parable of Sadhu by Bowen H. McCoy