Once there was guru, a spiritual teacher, who was conducting a retreat at his ashram. One of the students, an eager young woman, experienced a dramatic spiritual breakthrough in her growth and development, and soon found an opportunity to share her experience with her guru. The exchange went something like this:
Woman: Oh, Guruji, I feel so happy, so completely blessed and fulfilled. There’s nothing in the world that I desire, that I could wish for.
Guru: So, you believe that you are completely fulfilled, and there’s nothing in the world that you desire, that could make you any happier than you are at this moment?
Woman: Yes, Guruji, that is what I am saying.
Guru: Suppose I were to offer you a room, and in that room was a special chair. And all you had to do was to sit in that chair and wish for something, anything at all, and instantly, the thing you were wishing for would materialize and be yours. Would such a wish-fulfilling room be of any interest to you?
Woman: Well, of course, Guruji. Who wouldn’t want a wish-fulfilling room like that? I certainly would.
Guru: So, what you are really telling me is that at this moment you feel completely fulfilled and without any desires, because you already possess everything in your world that you have desired... you have no desires left to fulfill. But you also know that tomorrow’s world will bring more new things and more new experiences. And when you find out about them, you might well desire some of them, which is why the wish-fulfilling room is of interest to you. What you are experiencing is not real fulfillment, but only a faint shadow of real fulfillment.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
The Teacher and the Existentialist
A teacher and an existentialist met, and the teacher, noticing that the existentialist seemed rather sad, asked him how he felt.
The existentialist replied that he felt very sad and depressed. And when the teacher asked him to explain why, he said that, as he observed the physical world and everything in it, all the life forms and all the inanimate objects, he couldn’t help but notice that everything was changing. As soon as a plant or animal was born it began to change; to decay and die. And even the objects that weren't alive were changing and dying... they were rusting, corroding, crumbling, deteriorating, and falling apart. In fact, everywhere the existentialist looked, everything was changing, changing... dying, dying. Even the seasons of the year expressed it. Spring gave way to summer which changed into autumn which finally turned into winter. It made him so depressed that nowhere in the world could he find something that was constant and unchanging, something that was not forever changing and dying.
The teacher thought quietly for a few moments, and then spoke softly to the existentialist. She pointed out that the existentialist's observation, that everything in the physical universe was always and forever changing and dying, was correct.
Everything in the physical universe, the relative world, is forever changing.
And then she observed that it was this element of forever that was, itself, constant and unchanging. This element of forever is a quality of the constant, eternally unchanging Absolute, the foundation of Is-ness upon which the entire physical relative universe that Is, exists and thrives. For if the physical relative universe is to continue to be changing forever and ever, it must do it on the foundation of the forever constant, unchanging Absolute.
The existentialist was an intelligent man and he quickly grasped the significance of the teacher's words. Now that he had the intellectual understanding about the Absolute, he wanted to experience it for himself, since knowledge consists of both intellectual understanding and direct experience. So he asked the teacher how he could experience the Absolute.
The teacher suggested that turning inward in meditation, experiencing thought becoming fainter and fainter, and finally transcending the finest thought and directly contacting the Inner Silence, would give him the direct experience of the Absolute on an individual, personal level. And so she sent him on to a course in meditation.
Meditation Instructions
The existentialist replied that he felt very sad and depressed. And when the teacher asked him to explain why, he said that, as he observed the physical world and everything in it, all the life forms and all the inanimate objects, he couldn’t help but notice that everything was changing. As soon as a plant or animal was born it began to change; to decay and die. And even the objects that weren't alive were changing and dying... they were rusting, corroding, crumbling, deteriorating, and falling apart. In fact, everywhere the existentialist looked, everything was changing, changing... dying, dying. Even the seasons of the year expressed it. Spring gave way to summer which changed into autumn which finally turned into winter. It made him so depressed that nowhere in the world could he find something that was constant and unchanging, something that was not forever changing and dying.
The teacher thought quietly for a few moments, and then spoke softly to the existentialist. She pointed out that the existentialist's observation, that everything in the physical universe was always and forever changing and dying, was correct.
Everything in the physical universe, the relative world, is forever changing.
And then she observed that it was this element of forever that was, itself, constant and unchanging. This element of forever is a quality of the constant, eternally unchanging Absolute, the foundation of Is-ness upon which the entire physical relative universe that Is, exists and thrives. For if the physical relative universe is to continue to be changing forever and ever, it must do it on the foundation of the forever constant, unchanging Absolute.
The existentialist was an intelligent man and he quickly grasped the significance of the teacher's words. Now that he had the intellectual understanding about the Absolute, he wanted to experience it for himself, since knowledge consists of both intellectual understanding and direct experience. So he asked the teacher how he could experience the Absolute.
The teacher suggested that turning inward in meditation, experiencing thought becoming fainter and fainter, and finally transcending the finest thought and directly contacting the Inner Silence, would give him the direct experience of the Absolute on an individual, personal level. And so she sent him on to a course in meditation.
Meditation Instructions
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