A man who was once travelling, accidently entered paradise. The indian concept of paradise says that there are wish fulfilling trees, kalpatarus here. Anyone who sits underneath them and desires anything has his wish immediately fulfilled. There is no gap between desire and its fulfillment. One thinks, and immediately the thought realizes itself as if to happen automatically. These kalpatarus are nothing but symbols for the mind. The mind is creative with its thoughts.
The man was tired. He fell asleep a wish fulfilling tree. When he woke up he felt very hungry. He looked around and said, "I wish I could get some food from somewhere." Immediately food appeared out of nowhere. Floating in the air, the delicious food came up to him. He immediately started eating it. When his hunger was satisfied, he thought "If only I could get something to drink..." There is no prohibition in paradise! Immediately, precious wine appeared. Drinking the wine and relaxing in the cool breeze of paradise under the shade of the tree, he started wondering. "What is this happening? Have I fallen into a dream? Or are there some ghosts around here playing tricks on me?" And ghosts appeared! They were ferocious, horrible, nauseating. The man started trembling, and thought, "Now, I am sure to be killed. These ghosts are going to kill me." And he was killed.
This is an ancient parable of immense significance. Your mind is the wish-fulfilling tree. Whatever you think is sooner or later fulfilled. Most of the times the gap between your thinking and the fulfilling of the wish is such, that you have completely forgotten that you had destined it in the first place. Sometimes the gap is of years and sometimes of lives. So you can't connect the source. But, if you watch yourself deeply you will find it is your thoughts that are creating you and your life. They create your hell and your heaven. They create your misery and your joy. They create the negative things that happen to you, they create the positive. Everybody is a magician, spinning and weaving a magic world around him, initiated and built with his thoughts. And then he is caught! The spider is caught in its own web.
Once one understands this, things start changing. Then you can play around your thoughts and change your hell into heaven - it is just a question of painting it with a different vision. Or if you are quite in love with misery you can create as much of it as you want, to your heart's content. But then you never complain, because you know that it is your own creation, your own painting. You cannot hold anybody responsible for it. Now the entire responsibility is yours.
Then a new possibility arises. You can drop the thought of creating the world, you can stop creating it. There is no need to create a heaven or hell. There is, in fact no need to create at all. The creator can relax, retire.
That retirement of the mind is meditation. All things are created twice, once in our mind an then, later in the physical world.
source: Stories from Here and There, Ekalavya Education Foundation - By: Sunil Handa - http://www.eklavya.org/storyhere.html
The man was tired. He fell asleep a wish fulfilling tree. When he woke up he felt very hungry. He looked around and said, "I wish I could get some food from somewhere." Immediately food appeared out of nowhere. Floating in the air, the delicious food came up to him. He immediately started eating it. When his hunger was satisfied, he thought "If only I could get something to drink..." There is no prohibition in paradise! Immediately, precious wine appeared. Drinking the wine and relaxing in the cool breeze of paradise under the shade of the tree, he started wondering. "What is this happening? Have I fallen into a dream? Or are there some ghosts around here playing tricks on me?" And ghosts appeared! They were ferocious, horrible, nauseating. The man started trembling, and thought, "Now, I am sure to be killed. These ghosts are going to kill me." And he was killed.
Once one understands this, things start changing. Then you can play around your thoughts and change your hell into heaven - it is just a question of painting it with a different vision. Or if you are quite in love with misery you can create as much of it as you want, to your heart's content. But then you never complain, because you know that it is your own creation, your own painting. You cannot hold anybody responsible for it. Now the entire responsibility is yours.
Then a new possibility arises. You can drop the thought of creating the world, you can stop creating it. There is no need to create a heaven or hell. There is, in fact no need to create at all. The creator can relax, retire.
That retirement of the mind is meditation. All things are created twice, once in our mind an then, later in the physical world.
source: Stories from Here and There, Ekalavya Education Foundation - By: Sunil Handa - http://www.eklavya.org/storyhere.html
No comments:
Post a Comment