You are walking along a heavily path toward a city. Sadly, the path petered out into a multitude tracks. He noticed a white beaded man in deep reflection sitting under a tree.
“Hello, old man .... Which way to the city?”
“There’s two ways,“ he replies “the long short way and the short long way.”
“Ok the short long way?”
“That’s easy,” replies the old man “Walk down that gully and climb that hill and once your over the hill and your there...”
Nodding in gratitude you ask casually “ .. and the long short way?” to which the old sage knowingly points.
So down the gully over the hill and there is the huge city wall – and no gate. Trees and undergrowth block any progress along the city wall.
Disheartened you return, glare at the meditating old man and struggle down the second road. You have to make your way around obstacles, the path is confusing, but you can work it out. Around you go winding a distance yet soon the path widens joins a road and enters straight into the cities heart.
So it is in life that we can be caught up in the periphery of the spirit. We can take someone else’s directions – its easy to do. However, that takes us only to the periphery of the soul. To find our true soul we must do our own work – true we can be given the direction, but we must find our own way and search our own heart.
The disturbances of life throw us like the spinning platform at a playground. Round and round we go, speeding at the circles circumference, forces trying to pull us away from our balance. As we approach the centre, the distance travelled in each revolution is less, the centrifugal force is reduced, it becomes easier to hold on.
There is a point, infinitely small where the distance travelled is zero, where there is perfect calm. That point of the soul is a point in life where we are at peace. To a Jew it may be in the Sabbath service, to another a service in church or mosque. Nevertheless, the service is not a goal that stands alone.
These are tools designed to help us reconnect with God, to search our soul and find that infinitely minute spark of divinity that resides within awaiting the stillness within to flourish and re-ignite our passion for union with Him. Religion may take us to the periphery of divinity but we must take a hold of that mode of service to find our own way in through the door and into our heart.
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