“A flash of lightning does not light your path, it does not serve you like a lamp in your hand; it only gives you a flash, a glimpse of the road ahead. But this single glimpse is very precious; now your feet are firm, now your will is strong, now your resolve to reach your destination is strengthened. You have seen the road and you know it is there and that you are not wandering aimlessly. One flash of lightning and you get a glimpse of the road you have to travel, and of the temple that is your journey’s destination.

I have heard about two men who were lost in a forest on a very dark night. It was a very dangerous forest, full of wild animals, very dense, with darkness all around. One man was a philosopher and the other was a mystic. Suddenly, there was a storm, a crashing of the clouds, and great lightning. The philosopher looked at the sky, the mystic looked at the path. In that moment of lightning, the path was before him, illuminated. The philosopher looked at the lightning, and started wondering, “What is happening?” and missed the path.

You are lost in a forest denser than that of the story. The night is darker. Sometimes a flash of lightning comes–look at the path. A Chuang Tzu is lightning, a Buddha is lightning, I am lightning. Don’t look at me, look at the path. If you look at me, you have already missed, because lightning will not continue. It lasts only for a moment–and the moment is rare when eternity penetrates time; it is just like lightning.  If you look at the lightning, if you look at a Buddha–and a Buddha is beautiful, the face fascinates, the eyes are magnetic–if you look at the Buddha, you have missed the path. Look at the path, forget the Buddha.

Look at the path and do something–follow the path, act. Thinking will not lead you, only action, because thinking goes on in the head. It can never become total; only when you act, it is total. Become interested in life!–living is the real thing. Don’t go on collecting information about what meditation is–meditate! Don’t go on collecting information about what dancing is–there are encyclopedias on dance, but the whole thing is utterly meaningless if you don’t dance yourself. Throw all those encyclopedias! Unburden yourself from knowledge and start living.

And when you start living, then ordinary things are transformed into extraordinary beauty. Just small things–life consists of small things–but when you bring the quality of intense, passionate love they are transformed, they become luminous.” ~ unknown

Filed under: simple Answers to tough Questions by Scaughdt