For you to see Life’s beauty, for you to experience the
miracle of Life, you must be both ready and willing!
There is a famous Sufi story I remember reading.
A young man went in search of a Master. He was
ready to go around the world, for he was determined to find the Master, the
true Master, the Perfect Master.
Just outside his village he met an old man, a
nice fellow, sitting under a tree. He asked the old man, “You look like a
wanderer…”
The old man said, “Yes, I am a wanderer. I have
wandered all over the earth.”
The man said, “That is the kind of person I was
hoping to meet who can guide me. Can you suggest to me where and to whom I
should go? I want to be the disciple of a Perfect Master.”
The old man suggested a few addresses to him,
and the young man thanked him and went on.
After thirty years of wandering around the
earth and finding nobody who was exactly fulfilling his expectations, he came
back to his village, dejected and depressed. When he was entering his village
he saw the old man again, who had become very old now, sitting under the tree.
And suddenly he realized that this old man was the Master he had all along been
searching for! He fell at his feet and he said, “Why didn’t you say it to me,
that you are the Master?”
The old man said, “But that was not the time
for you. You could not recognize me. You needed some experience. Wandering
around the earth has given you a certain maturity, a certain understanding. Now
you can see. Last time you had met me, but you had not seen me. You had missed.
You were asking me about some Master. That was enough proof that you could not
see me, you could not feel my presence. You were utterly blind; hence I gave
you some bogus addresses so you could go. But even to be with wrong people is
good, because that is how one learns. For thirty years I have been waiting for
you here, I have not left this tree.”
In fact the man, who was not young anymore,
looked at the tree and was even more surprised. Because in his dreams, in his
visions, he was always seeing that tree and there was always a feeling that he
would find the Perfect Master sitting under this tree. Last time he had not
seen the tree at all. The tree was there, the Master was there, everything was ready for him, but he was not willing, even if he was ready.
This is why we don’t often find what we are
seeking. Inner peace and happiness. Because even if we are ready to seek it, we
are not willing to let it enter our lives. Only when we are
ready and willing, both, can we experience Life’s beauty and magic!
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