Your body is here, but your soul
wanders in time
You set off to the store to buy flour. Two hours later you drag your full
shopping cart to your car and at home it hits you how many things you bought,
except for that one item you went shopping for. You went to the store for that only one thing and you bought a ton
of other stuff, but only the important one is missing.
You are
walking on a road across a field. You are lost in your thoughts: “Well, how
could I solve this difficult situation?” And while you are trying to figure
this out in yourself, all of a sudden you hear a loud bang followed immediately
by an even more shocking, striking pain. You wake up after a little while, you
look around and realize that you stepped on a hoe left on the ground and this
hit you in the head with such an enormous force. You were walking with your
eyes open, but did not see the hoe lying ahead of you.
We could
say: there was no one in your body. Your mind was somewhere in a misty, distant
dimension, trying to solve a really “important problem”, and thus it was blind
to the reality around you, to the only existing reality.
There is a
beautiful, yet surprising story for this:
Only a cup of water…
One day God had
enough of listening from dawn to dusk to the prayers of his eager believer,
each prayer ending in a personal wish, a favor, and he said to his believer in
a voice like rumbling thunder:
“I am here.
Your prayers are heard. But before I make your wishes come true, please, you make my wish come true!”
“Oh, my
Lord!” the believer bowed “What would it be? Command me, anything your wish may
be. I bring down the stars from the sky, walk to the end of the world for you,
torture my mortal body… wish anything, even the most difficult task, I am going
to do it for you!”
“Oh, no, no!
I will not ask that much from You” said the heavenly voice “I only want a small
favor. I want a cup of water!”
The
believer made his way to the nearby well to get cool, fresh water for the Lord.
But as soon as he got to the well, he spotted a breathtakingly beautiful girl,
filling her jug with water. She was wearing an expensive, gold-laced dress over
her slim body, her full breasts teasing the eye, the gentle warmth of the sun
caressing her silky skin, the wind playing with her long curly hair, exposing
her sparkly blue eyes filled with warm love.
“What an extraordinary beauty! Just like a
fairy! I wish she could be mine!” the unrelenting desire woke in the believer. And to get the girl’s
attention he offered to help her fill her jug. He leaned over the water of the
well and gazed at the beautiful reflection of the girl.
They took a
long walk together until they reached the girl’s house. It was not just a
simple house; it was a real palace out of a fairytale. A castle with many
towers and rooms, with all the furniture made out of mahogany wood and cheerful
flowers in each of the hundred windows. It soon became clear: her family was
unmatched when it came to their wealth and the marriage of the young lady would
come with a great dowry.
And from
this day on, they met more and more. They spent evenings lingering hand-in-hand
in the silvery moonlight and then the first shy, timid kiss happened. Not much
later the father agreed to the engagement and announced the marriage. They had
a magnificent celebration, wine flowing on the streets and in the veins; the
young couple married.
The dowry
was a great farm in a fertile valley next to a river; a charming little house,
many farm animals – a prodigious wealth. Soon came the first blessing; the
couple had their first child, followed by the second sparkly eyed child. The
family’s wealth grew steadily, the cattle, the geese and the chicken lived well
– every creature thrived on the farm. Everyone in the house lived in harmony
and abundance.
Time passed
harmony, prosperity, abundance and love remained, until the believer took a
long business trip, leaving his family and wealth behind – trusting the
servants with the duties.
As he saw
the valley on his return, he stopped dead, fell on the ground with tears
streaming from his eyes.
What his eyes saw was horror itself.
The place,
where his prospering farm once had been, was now covered in mud. The house was
in ruins and the lifeless bodies of his favorite animals were scattered in the
garden. He ran crying to the ruins of his farm. As he got there, his sorrowful neighbors
greeted him. They told him that soon after his departure, a dreadful storm hit
the farm, the buildings crumbled; the river overflowed and covered the ruins
with mud. The remnants of his beloved wife and children were dragged away with
the flood.
Everything
that was once good and beautiful vanished in seconds.
Our hero was wordless,
then he could not hold his tears back; he stood there petrified, and cried. “Oh
Lord, why? Why have you done this to me?” as his burning tears were streaming
down his face and fell into the water of the jug, he heard a soft voice: “Well, can I have a cup of water?”
He raised
his head, woke up from the dream of thoughts and desires and looked at the God
standing next to the well, manifested as a beautiful girl.
There is only one perfect moment, and it is the
present moment. The moment of endless, infinite now – because there has never
been a moment that not now was.
God –
Universe, Life, Consciousness, whatever we call it – only asks us one favor: a
cup of water, right now! Not to daydream, not to dive into our fears and
desires, but only to exist in the present moment. You get an invitation from God in the moment
of infinity – this also means right now: “Come and join me in the timeless
Paradise of presence!” but you choose to daydream instead.
This is
how the mind works: it pictures a better future or its fears in the present
moment. It forgets about the only important thing: Now, which includes
everything around us. Living in the present moment gives you no worries, no
unnecessary mind activity, only a deep, inner peace and tranquility, an
all-accepting love: heaven on Earth is now. Heaven on Earth is in You – as one
of the old spiritual teachings say.
Our minds wander, take us to distant places, into the future or back to
the past. We are present somewhere else, from where we really are: we dive into
the films of the past or the future. Our bodies are empty; the souls are not
present.
(Excerpt from the book "Mindfulness Meditation - Journey into Consciousness" by Ervin K. Kery)
