Category: Stories to ponder.

One day a Russian traveler came to see an Indian mystic, and he said “I have come from very far to talk to you; may I enter and see you now.”

The mystic replied wisely, “Be at home, my friend; leave your shoes and come see me.”

The traveler entered, shut the door behind him quickly and unkindly, threw out his shoes with excitement, and neared the wise man.  Seeing this, the mystic said, “Stop, my friend.  You have to show love before you talk to me.  Go back and apologize to the door and the shoes for the treatment.”
“Apologize to the door and the shoes…??  Are they alive like you and me..??” said the traveler.  …But the wise man said nothing…  The man felt silly but he had come a long way to talk to the mystic, so he went back.  To the shoes he said, “I sincerely apologize for having thrown you so carelessly.”  And to the door he said, “I am sorry for my rude and violent behavior.”

… Having heard this, the wise man smiled with kindness, and said, “Now I feel you are full with pure love, and because of it this place is full of pure love.  We can talk lovingly now, my friend.”

You can pick up a brick and treat it full of kindness and love as if you were picking up a friend.  You can hold a loved one and do it with disgust and feelings of contempt.  Everything is alive, moving or not to your eyes; everything must be appreciated for its existence, because love is the essence of the rock and of the loved one.  A loving person is not the person who loves animals and humans, and then eats with greediness, behaves with things around him violently, and acts in his alone time with anger.  A loving person appreciates all the things, sentient beings and not; for this person loves because this person has become the power of love itself.  This person truly knows and understands, as a personal experience, the mystical essence of love, of himself…  Can you be this person in your life…??
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“On the path of the Master Love, we are neither Masters nor the owners of our lives.  We are only a brush in the divine hand of the Master Painter.”  ~ Rumi.