If you can keep your consciousness open and flowing and aware of all possibilities and potentials, if you can prevent yourself from falling into the trap of thinking that your way is the only way, you will certainly be further ahead.
– John-Roger (From: The Way Out Book, p. 56-57)
Suppose in his search to find security, the caveman finds a fifty-gallon bucket of water, and he knows by rationing the water he can exist for four or five months. He feels very secure and safe. But four or five months go by quickly, and the water supply is seen as a very temporary situation. He had the most security when the bucket was full, and then he started falling from that point. What does he do when the water becomes low? He probably starts seeking for more water, for another water supply. It is that repeated seeking which can become a frustration.
At some point, we all recognize that there is water in the kitchen tap and that we simply have to turn it on; we realize that water is entirely present, at any moment, and that we do not have to go out looking for it. Some people will fill up the fifty-gallon bucket, anyway, and carry it around with them, just because that is a familiar, secure way to do it. After many years of watching other people get water out of the tap, they may get the idea that this other way seems to be working pretty well for a lot of people, so they put down their burden and go get water out of the tap, also, and discover that it does work pretty well. And then they feel a great pressure lift from them, and they feel a great sense of freedom.
There is a story of a man in the desert who had gone for many days without water and was becoming desperate for it when he saw an oasis in the distance. He walked toward it for many hours. When he was getting close, some other men came from another direction toward him. He was afraid that they were coming to steal “his” water, and he turned to fight them. As they came closer, they offered him water from the containers they carried. He accused them of being false and deceivers and of trying to beat him to the oasis to take “his” water. They tried again, explaining that they were only offering him water, but as they came up to him, he began to attack them. They finally persuaded him to turn toward “his” oasis and then asked, “Tell us, what are you defending?” When he looked again, the oasis was gone; it had been a mirage, a false image that he had been defending with his life. We often do these things. We fight and defend that which is false, that
which is unreal, that which is not ours and never can be.
If you can keep your consciousness If you can keep your consciousness
