Our Practice Is To Close The Gap

This reading reminds me of one of the folk sufi stories Ammamma (mother's mother) used to tell me. Later I came to know of this as "Street Light Effect" or "The Drunkard's Search". For those who are not familiar, the story goes like this, - A saint finds a man searching for a his gold coin under the street light, he thinks to help him and asks him, 'Do you know where you might have dropped it?' The man points to dark corner a few yards away and says, 'somewhere over there, I think'. The saint chuckles, 'I think I'll be on my way'. Our true nature as the author beautifully explains is boundless. In our birth, engulfed by the convenience of the skin, the dreaminess of the mind and the quirkiness of the intellect, we forget our boundless nature. Just like when a fish is pulled out of the water, it wiggles the best it can not knowing what or how to find peace, we wiggle too. We often do not quite know what we are wiggling towards. We just know something is not right, I'll wiggle to find something. That something I do not yet have. From Grace through the Logic of Spirituality, I know now in my mind that I need not wiggle about looking out and around. I only need to slip within. My source is within, I am no fish looking for water. I am the ocean. But but..all this is only words (Paroksha Jnanam - intellectual assent) until I drop my act of 'The Drunkard Search' and muster up the courage to walk to that deep dark corner where I lost me, and have faith that i will find I (Aparoksha jnanam - actualization). i have a way to go.

Dear Nithya, Thanks for joining our circle. Your words bring much wisdom and clarity. I appreciate your comment here and thoughts in the circle.

Beautifully said Nithya . It is an illusion that i have lost me - I am always there…never lost.. to be found. It is just that i get so distracted by everything that is outside, that i don’t realize the brilliant illuminator’s ( of everything ) ever presence within. Looking outside is easier as all our senses are outer directed.. looking within.. initially, is an effort, though we recognize, in time, it is effortless… for IT is our natural state. IT always is… i just need to part the curtains….. shine the light ( attention) within, as i begin to train the mind to turn away from the ephemeral.