THE SEEKER OF TRUTH

FROM HERE AND THERE

Recently while conducting a Self Development Training Program in a company, I was discussing ideas about the  practice in our lives, of absolute integrity, authenticity, honesty and thinking bigger than ourselves. As is my way I was narrating some beautiful stories to embed these thoughts among the participants. One participant said "sir your stories won’t work, we don’t do things this way out here". I was quite appalled to say the least. Here was a person, so tight in his comfort zones, that he refused to even think about what was being said. So I narrated Pavlov’s story about the 5 monkeys. Still there was no change in his response. I realized that this gentleman was not able to piece together the real essence or the deep truth which was being narrated and discussed. Well I will handle that on another day, but I thought I would share with you my thoughts on stories.

So here is a story for all of us.

The seeker of truth

After years of searching, the seeker was told to go to a cave, in which he would find a well. 'Ask the well what is truth', he was advised, 'and the well will reveal it to you'. Having found the well, the seeker asked that most fundamental question. And from the depths came the answer, 'Go to the village crossroad: there you shall find what you are seeking'.

Full of hope and anticipation the man ran to the crossroad to find only three rather uninteresting shops. One shop was selling pieces of metal, another sold wood, and  the third had thin wires were for sale. Nothing and no one there seemed to have much to do with the revelation of truth.

Disappointed, the seeker returned to the well to demand an explanation, but he was told, 'You will understand in the future.' When the man protested, all he got in return were the echoes of his own shouts. Indignant for having been made a fool of - or so he thought at the time - the seeker continued his wanderings in search of truth. As years went by, the memory of his experience at the well gradually faded until one night, while he was walking in the moonlight, the sound of sitar music caught his attention. It was wonderful music and it was played with great mastery and inspiration.

Profoundly moved, the truth seeker felt drawn towards the player. He looked at the fingers dancing over the strings. He became aware of the sitar itself. And then suddenly he exploded in a cry of joyous recognition: the sitar was made out of wires and pieces of metal and wood just like those he had once seen in the three stores and had thought it to be without any particular significance.

At last he understood the message of the well: we have already been given everything we need: our task is to assemble and use it in the appropriate way. Nothing is meaningful so long as we perceive only separate fragments and that too through our comfort zones or the lenses of our mind. 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.

Therefore my friends always be the seekers of truth. If we do that, we will succeed in life and will ultimately find joyfulness in our being.

Have a wonderful week ahead !!!!

Ajay

"Human beings are meaning-seeking creatures; we crave narratives that have a beginning and an end - something that we rarely encounter in everyday life. Stories give coherence to the confusion of our experience."

Author: Karen Armstrong