Stories of the Masters: The Price of Love
Wisdom tales for enlightenment
I love spiritual stories, especially from Zen and Taoism. These stories can typically be recited or read in a single sitting. They contain and focus on self-contained incidents and occasionally a series of linked incidents. The intention of these stories is to offer a message or lesson or evoke introspection or mood. These stories may be told in the form of folk tales, legends, mythic tales, fables, and or anecdotes often told by respected teachers, masters, sages, or gurus.
I heard this one from my spiritual teacher Nabir: He said “My teacher’, teacher’s, teacher who lived in Portuguese Goa, had a student, (they called them devotees back then), who was devoted to, you might say was obsessed with the ideas of devotion, reverence, and also beauty in nature. This beauty in nature is now called Biophilia biologists, naturalists, and ecologists. This student really loved looking at lotus flowers. They were awed and almost numbed by the beauty of this flower. Trying to wrap their mind around this level of beauty they thought, as if solving a mystery. “God must really love this flower”.
So, this devotee asked the gardener, “what is the value of this flower?” The gardener said, “five rupees”.
Another person was standing nearby. He also came to get flowers, not for God, but for his beloved, that person immediately said, “I want this flower, I will pay 10 rupees.”
The first devotee was upset, he also wanted to take the same flower! This devotee said, “I will give twenty rupees for this.” Give me this flower, I have an alter, at home and I to present to my lord, in a special ceremony”.
The other person said, “I will give twenty-five rupees, I really want this flower. If I give it to my beloved she will love me as much as I love her, maybe even more?”
The first devotee was very surprised to see this. The intensity of the other person made him stop and think further. He contemplated. “I need to take this flower for my God, I am offering a fair price, but this man is raising the value of this flower as he has to take it for his beloved. So he can feel love.”
Now both start raising the value of the lotus flower.
In the end, the man was ready to pay 10,000 rupees, all he had for that lotus flower. The first devotee, seeing how needy, and in how much emotional pain this other person was in, offered 10,001 rupees to the gardener. After receiving the lotus flower he handed it to the desperate man, and give him a bright smile. At that moment the devotee was Awakened, and the other man began to cry. For at that moment this man realized that he deserved love for love itself, and had no need to give a beloved a flower. His want to be loved was not as powerful as love itself. Instead he gave the money to charity, and treated his beloved as if she was the lotus flower itself.
If you are filled with love, there is no way to ever know what you will do, to express that love. It’s completely unknown and unimaginable for the world because love matters for you, it doesn’t matter what you will have to pay, but you will do anything to please your beloved, even give up an attachment that you think is love
A Takeaway Thought
Confucius said, “By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.” There are other ways to gain wisdom, but I think these three are a good start.
Here is a great story @daretobeaverage
Part of Apiritual Wisdom is humor…
Here is a story from the archives @LewisCoaches
Author: Lewis Harrison is a best-selling author and a student of Essential Zen and Mystic Taoism.
For a decade, Lewis was the host of a humor-based Q & A talk show on NPR (National Public Radio) affiliated with WIOX FM in NY.
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