Finding Abiding Abundance
After years of searching, the seeker was told to go to a cave, where he would find a well. “Ask the well, ‘What is truth?' And the well will reveal it to you,” Thus was he advised by a wizened old lady who, he surmised, was a seer. Struck by this tantalizing remark and full of curiosity, he looked for the cave and found it amidst a dark forested valley hidden by creepers. Water dripped from its walls and ran down to a hole which formed the well. Gathering up courage, though feeling a little silly at the same time, he asked the well the fundamental question.
Instantly came the answer from the depths, “Go to the village crossroads: there you shall find what you are seeking.” The seeker was astonished at the stentorian reply and questioned the voice’s origin. “Who are you?” he called out. But no reply came and none, even after several minutes elapsed. Realizing that the taciturn oracle did not waste words, the seeker proceeded to his next destination.
Full of hope and anticipation, he ran to the nearby crossroads only to find three rather uninteresting shops. One shop was selling pieces of metal, another sold wood, and thin wires were for sale in the third shop. Nothing and no one there seemed to have anything to do with the revelation of truth. He even spoke to the shopkeepers in a vain attempt to glean some clue to the oracle’s meaning. But illumination lay beyond his reach. Stroking his chin in perplexity, he wondered – was he missing the point or had the oracle taken him for a ride?
Disappointed, the seeker returned to the well to demand an explanation. 'You will understand in the future,' came the terse reply. When the man protested against this clearly unhelpful response, all he obtained in return were the echoes of his own plaintive questions.
Indignant at having been made a fool of, the seeker left the cave in a huff, and continued his wanderings in search of truth. As years went by, the memory of his baffling experience at the well gradually faded away…
…Until one night. A luscious moonlit night, when a gentle breeze wafted the soothing sounds of a sitar in the dark and brought the footsteps of the wayfarer to a halt. Somebody was playing a soulful composition with brilliance and inspiration.
Profoundly moved, the seeker felt drawn towards the sitar player. He beheld the fingers dancing nimbly over the strings. He then became aware of the sitar itself. And then, suddenly, he exploded in a cry of joyous recognition: the sitar was made of wires and pieces of metal and wood just like those he had once seen in the three shops years ago, thinking them to be of no significance.
At last, the message of the well dawned unto him, loud and clear:
God has already provided us with everything we need. But we ignorantly perceive lack and disunity when God has created abundance and unity. In fact, His creation is Divine, Perfect and Blissful. If only we had the eyes to see it, and perceive it in the right manner. Bhagavan Baba always says that most often the mistake lies with our drusthi (vision) and not srushti (creation). Creation is a sublime symphony of unity, purity and divinity, and when we have the right vision we can live in a state of perennial serenity and peace.
Nothing is meaningful so long as we perceive only separate fragments. But as soon as the fragments come together into a synthesis, a new entity emerges, whose nature we could not have foreseen by considering the fragments alone. We have already been given everything we need. Our task is to assemble and use it in the appropriate way….
On one occasion, Baba said, "Liberation comes through the intellectual awareness of the Unity that underlies diversity. The One is known by many names, and is pictured in many forms, but there is only one Truth. People discern one fact at a time. Their vision is too limited to see the whole."
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