The Perplexed Spiritual Seeker
A Short Story
Michael was a spiritual seeker. He spent his days and evenings in pursuit of spiritual truth wherever it was to be found. He paid exorbitant prices for seminars, lectures, workshops, retreats, ritual gatherings of all descriptions, and ayahuasca ceremonies. He visited churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, and whatever else he could find. He spent decades as a “spiritual window shopper,” trying every belief system and process he could find in order to become “enlightened.”
However, Michael was becoming despondent. Try as he may, his goal remained ever elusive. Despite his efforts, he felt he was no wiser than before.
One day, he heard that there was a Wise Guru who lived on a mountain in a remote part of the world who was spiritually wise almost beyond understanding. Michael decided to travel to find him. He would beg to have the knowledge he craved revealed to him!
This was not as easy as he thought. The Wise Guru lived at the top of a mountain in a very remote part of the world. Commercial travel did not go there. The journey would be long, hard, and very expensive.
However, Michael was not deterred. He sold all his possessions, and started on the journey. He traveled for months, enduring all kinds of hardships.
Finally, he reached the mountain. It was beautiful, but clearly climbing to the top was dangerous, and he was not an experienced mountaineer. To complicate matters, he realized the Wise Guru might not speak English. He stayed in the local village, earning his living by feeding livestock, and learned the local language. This took him another nine months.
One morning, Michael woke up early, grabbed his mountain climbing gear, and began to climb. The people of the village stood and watched him. They thought he was a crazy white man and were convinced he was going to die.
It was a long and dangerous climb. Twice he’d lost his footing and almost fell to his death. But he persevered, and after a long time and much discomfort, he made it to the top of the mountain.
For a long while, he sat and tried to regain his strength. He also began to wonder if he’d wasted his time. He was chasing a rumor! There was no proof that what he was looking for was at the top of this mountain. It might not even exist at all. He began to question everything he did with his life.
He stood up and cursed himself for being a fool. But while he wrestled with the idea of abandoning his quest and climbing back down the mountain, he saw the smoke from a fire off in the distance. Hope grew in his heart. He picked up his gear and walked toward the fire.
As he got closer, he saw what looked like a hut built in front of a small cave. Sitting in front of the hut tending the fire was an old man.
Michael walked toward the man. Looking at him, one would think nothing of him. His appearance was unremarkable at best. He was, in fact, shabby and worn out (but surprisingly clean). But Michael felt an indomitable and overwhelming power in the man’s presence. This power was unlike anything he’d ever experienced from any other spiritual teacher he’d encountered. The old man hadn’t spoken a single word, yet it was obvious he was more authentic than any other spiritual teacher he’d ever encountered.
Michael was convinced he’d found what he was looking for.
He stood in front of the old man and asked if he could sit down. The old man gestured for him to sit.
For a long time, neither man spoke. The old man tended the fire, and cooked some kind of vegetable soup, offering a cup to Michael.
Finally, Michael broke the silence. “It is said you are a wise and enlightened man.”
“Am I?” the old man said, in English, with an accent Michael couldn’t identify.
Michael didn’t know how to respond. He was accustomed to “gurus” giving him all kinds of flowery verbosity.
“I’m a spiritual seeker, and I want you to teach me.”
“Teach you what?” the old man said.
Michael said, “Teach me the ultimate truth, the meaning of the universe, the secret of life.”
“Oh,,, that.” the old man said, being as unhelpful as possible.
Michael was becoming more and more frustrated. But he remained patient. “Yes.” I came a long way to be with you. I need help.”
“I can see that.” The old man stood and looked off into the distance. “It will be dark soon. You can stay here for the night. In the morning, we will see where this takes us.” Then he stood up and walked to a large rock some distance away and walked around to its other side. Michael couldn’t see him.
Did the old man want him to follow him? Michael stood and tentatively walked toward the rock. Then he heard something, and realized the old man was defecating. Embarrassed, he quickly walked back to the hut and sat by the fire.
The old man returned and sat down. “I have a hearth in my home,” he said, gesturing toward the hut. “But sitting in front of a fire under an open sky is truly wonderful.”
The sun was setting. It became very dark very quickly. Michael had experienced this in his travels in this part of the world. But there was a new quality to the dark night in this place. The stars were very bright. The intense darkness of the land and the limited walking space at this mountain top created the feeling of being in the sky, or in space. The lack of connection to the earth was almost frightening. He found solace in the fire.
The old man had said nothing since sunset. After a few (or many) hours, he gestured to Michael to follow him inside the hut.
The hut led into the cave, and it was not as large inside as he’d originally assumed. There was nothing remarkable about it, and no decorations or ornaments of any description. The only thing of interest beyond the necessities of life was a small shelf with a few books on it. The old man lit a fire in the hearth, and gestured to a place near the hearth where blankets were on the floor. The old man took up a similar place on the floor on the opposite side of the hearth, lay down, and went to sleep.
The next morning, Michael woke to find the old man making coffee. How he procured coffee in such a remote area was beyond him, but he was grateful when the old man offered him a cup. He also gave him a piece of homemade bread, and some soup from the pot by the fire.
“So, you see yourself as a seeker of enlightenment?” The old man said.
“Yes,” Michael said. “I’m trying to become wise and enlightened.”
“And you have tried many ways of achieving your goal.”
“Yes. I’ve been through many courses, seminars, and ceremonies. Nothing worked. I’m still lost.”
“Abandon your goals. You will never achieve them.”
Michael looked at the old man. Something cold and constricting grew in his belly as the full impact of the old man’s words hit him. On one level he wasn’t used to a spiritual teacher being anything but “nurturing, and “supportive” - even flattering. The old man’s bluntness was unnerving. Beyond this, the idea of actually abandoning his pursuit because he couldn’t ever become the thing he desired horrified him.
The old man sensed this. Indeed, he expected it.
“You didn’t choose to walk this path; it chose you. And it will never abandon you. But you’re chasing an illusion, and you’re deceiving yourself that there is an end to the path - at least in this world.”
“But,” Michael tried “I’m trying to,,,”
“I know exactly what you’re trying to do.” The old man interrupted him. “Your wishes and pursuits are as mysterious to me as a flat tire is to a car mechanic. You want to become enlightened? Stop trying to become enlightened.”
Michael was terribly confused.
“Do you want to conquer death?” The old man said. Michael nodded. “Yes, how do I do that?”
“Die.”
“You want me to die?”
“Not before your time, of course. But everyone dies.”
“I know that, but,,,”
“I don’t think you do. You understand death as an abstract concept. But you haven’t accepted it. You are too busy wandering through pretty gardens that don’t exist and marketplaces selling idyllic fever dreams looking for something you don’t understand and will never find.”
“So, you’re saying I will never find what I’m looking for?” Michael asked, with more vehemence than he intended.
“Did you hear a word I said?” The old man replied, matching Michael’s vehemence. “I’m telling you to stop looking!
“This enlightenment you seek, you probably could have found it talking to a homeless man in a large city. You went to this teacher and that class. And the answers you looked for always stayed one step ahead of you.
“But the most bitter pill you must swallow is that there is no end to the search while you are in this world. Even that bitterness is an illusion. I’m sure you heard the saying ‘it’s not the destination, it’s the journey,’ or something along those lines. You never truly understood it. That’s why you formulated a fantasy of what you think you should be and spent your life chasing it while it fades like incense smoke in the wind.”
Michael was dumbfounded. This was not what he’d hoped for. He was overcome with depression and was more lost than he’d ever imagined possible.
“Is there a God?” Michael asked, not knowing why he asked this.
“Yes. God is real. God is the only reality. It is we who are only partly real. Never forget that.”
“I’m not real?”
“Not completely real. But don’t feel bad; neither am I, or anyone else.”
“I think I’m real. I’m not a dream or an illusion.”
“Everything that exists in creation is a contingency. It is part of a symbiotic relationship with everything else in the universe. You cannot survive or exist without your environment, the air you breathe, etc. You can’t even exist unless there is an opposite to you and that you are part of a category of similar or identical things.
“God is One. God is not part of a category of anything, and is dependent upon nothing to exist, while all else is dependent upon God to exist. You are not completely real.”
This was a painful realization. Michael’s ego was terribly hurt. There was some part of his seeking that wanted to confirm his own wish to be a godlike creature. And in this moment, it was all shattered.
The old man knew this. He took no pleasure from destroying everything Michael held dear, but there was no choice. He hoped that Michael would take this as not an end, but a new beginning. This was the only thing that would save him.
“What can I do now? Where do I go from here?” Michael asked, close to sobbing.
The old man looked at him. “Look inside my mouth.” He opened his mouth, and Michael looked in it.
“I’m an old man. My teeth are falling out. Tell me, which is harder and less flexible; the teeth or the tongue?”
“The teeth.”
“That’s correct.”
Michael looked at the old man, completely confused. The old man sighed.
“Still wandering in perplexity. Okay, I’ll try something else and tell you a story.
“A man and a woman get married and go on their honeymoon. They stay in a big hotel, eat, drink, and have sex until they’re both raw and limp.
“One day the man is sitting alone by the pool of the hotel. He looks over to the side and he sees an amazingly beautiful woman. But he only sees her for the briefest moment as she passes by his peripheral vision. And she was gone. He did not move from his chair, but at that moment he fell madly in love.
“For the next 20 years of his life, he is haunted by the image of this woman. This mysterious, briefly glimpsed beauty becomes his secret obsession. He could have a happy marriage; his wife was a truly beautiful woman who was devoted to him. But the image he had of the woman by the pool was always standing between him and his wife. And because of this, he could never really love his wife.
“On their 20th anniversary, they decided to celebrate by going back to the same hotel where they had spent their honeymoon.
“One evening, he sat by the pool, lost in his thoughts. Then he looked up,,, and he saw her. The woman that haunted his dreams and his imagination for 20 years is finally there. But this time, he doesn’t let her go. He gets up, runs over to her, and grabs her. He’s ready to leave his wife and abandon everything in his life to be with his dream woman.
“He turns her around and looks in her eyes, and it’s his wife. The mysterious woman who had captured his heart, haunted his dreams, and who he madly desired for 20 long years, was always there.
“Do you understand? There is a universe within you that you do not see. You are sick, and you are your own medicine. Everything you always sought outside you is within you. It always has been and always will be. It’s waiting for you, like a new bride wondering when you will take her to bed.”
Michael listened; his self-created world of illusions dissolving before him. Tears fell from his eyes.
“That was my final lesson. You may leave” he said, with finality. “I have nothing more to teach you.”