While Buddha was teaching one of his students about enlightenment, a simple boat passed them on the river.
Everything was quiet.
Buddha stopped his talk to concentrate on this simplicity. He was silent.
At first he heard sublime music.
Then, exercising his keen vision, he saw two men in the frail boat that followed the current. One was holding an instrument and playing it. The other was playing music with one of his fingers.
The picture was pure transparency to the ears, to the eyes and to the heart.
Buddha, who loved to demonstrate the metaphysical laws at the center of Nature itself whispered to his disciple:
- Awakening occurs when everything is attuned to the universal Presence and Beauty of the World!
Then joy and ecstasy, then fullness and openness, then understanding and full comprehension of the unique being of consciousness and its right place in the World. This is the Awakening.
The Enlightenment is a word that is both magical and terrible!
Magical because Enlightenment represents a quest for wisdom. When the lightning of awakening pierces, like a sun, the grey cloud of dual thoughts, then it is a world of beauty that is suddenly discovered to us. A world in which the enlightened person no longer sees the differences between more and less, nor between high and low. A wonderful world, desired by the Presence of Love and its immense desire for its bride: the earth and its promise of a humanity of unequalled consciousness and goodness.
Terrific because The Enlightenment is, in its first fruits, a simple state of being. Like most states of being, it is often deceptive. As true as a lightning bolt never proclaims the end of the storm, the enlightenment does not say that the quest is over. Moreover, for this form of wisdom, nothing ever ends. In the state of awakening, the conscious man suddenly measures all his human responsibility.
If he is really conscious, it is only for a while. To remain so, he must dare to die to the old man and be reborn as a young man. This is not done without going through all the accumulated fears and here, even the most insignificant ones can become very painful.
For everything to be granted, the initiate of the Enlightenment will have to return to ordinary life. Just as the gardener returns to his garden and works patiently to improve his harvest, so the water carrier returns to the well and carries the heavy buckets on his tired shoulder to give the children a drink.
Then, in his human task of daily service, if he can remain humble and seek only the gift of himself, then, the Enlightenment could settle in his home like a wife ceaselessly reweaving the silver cords keeping him in the necessary state of Presence.
On the river, a simple boat, a master violin maker and his student playing the music of perfect chords!