“Can you please ask my son to stop having sweets?” said a concerned mother to a saint, whose kid used to consume sweets incessantly.
“Sure, could you bring the child back a week later?” the saint replied, to which the mother agreed.
After a week when the mother brought her child back, the saint told the child, “Son, eating sweets is not the right thing, and I want you to never have them again.”
Perplexed, the mother asked the saint, “You could have told the same thing last week as well?”
“No,” replied the saint, “I couldn’t. I first had to stop consuming sweets myself.”
To teach the path, we first have to walk the path.