The young man dozed off. A whole day of tir­ing travel lay behind them, a strange land­scape, a strange coun­try, everything unusu­al and unfa­mil­i­ar, so they had to attend far more closely even to the simplest things. No won­der the young man was exhausted and all but col­lapsed with fatigue. He fell asleep the moment he closed his eye­lids, and already a tremor, fine as a breath, ran across them, as if the dream-but­ter­flies had fluttered their wings. He slept. And a happy peace spread over his face – not the fur­rows of fatigue but the waves of glad­ness played upon his untroubled coun­ten­ance.

‘Homer says that among the sweetest things in life are sleep, and song, and dance, and love… What a selec­tion! Yes, life is not meant for struggle, not for suf­fer­ing! Well, I know, a little for struggle, a little for suf­fer­ing too. But the call­ing of life, after all, is to know our soul, and to find the way home, isn’t it? We were not born to be lost, but to find the way home!’ – mused the older trav­el­ling com­pan­ion, the young man’s teach­er. As your faith is – so are you.

I bow to the God who gives light to the Sun and beauty to the Moon!

I bow to the God who instils joy in the heart of man!

I bow to the God who gives life and thought to all!

This serene, sleep­ing face warmed his heart. He watched the young body lying stretched out, and it was as if the whole day’s ten­sion were eas­ing out of his frame in tiny tremors. Now and then a leg twitches, a shoulder flinches… His chest rises and falls in a reg­u­lar, calm rhythm as he breathes. This slow, meas­ured pulsing is roun­ded out by the quick­er, vis­ible beat­ing of his heart. He is at rest and, at the same time, a thou­sand move­ments stir with­in him, upon him and around him.

‘He must be dream­ing some­thing beau­ti­ful.’ – thought the teach­er, a little envi­ous of his dis­ciple. The dis­ciple slept, and his teach­er med­it­ated. – ‘What does the heart give off? The wise phys­i­cian listens to the sounds of the heart and under­stands so much from them. The pres­sure wave runs through the whole body, car­ried by the pulsing of the blood­stream. It can­not be seen, but heat, the warmth of life, comes from here too. What is dead – cold, and what lives gives off heat. And this heart-heat is not merely a bod­ily warmth. The true warmth of the heart is good­ness of heart, and this is light, bright­ness. And then the strength, the strength that dwells in the heart, which does not fright­en you but makes your heart leap…’

Slowly his face grew more ser­i­ous as he watched the serene young man. The joy­ful and heart-rend­ing moments of his dis­ciple’s ser­vice came back to him. When he had man­aged to pass on what he wished to, and when he had not. Slowly some­thing took shape with­in him.

‘Let me count into my palm all the know­ledge, insight, wis­dom, dis­cern­ment, hap­pi­ness and love, every good thing that has des­cen­ded upon me, so that it may then shine across to you… May provid­ence guard and pro­tect you from every ill and harm, so that you may reach your goal on the wan­der­ing road of life. When you are awake, a keen reas­on shines in your gaze, and I wish that deep, warm­ing feel­ings and love, too, may radi­ate from your eyes upon the world… Per­haps our paths will part, fate will tear us from each other, but some­thing will always go with you, for a life­time, or even for an etern­ity, and that is the good­will which will always smooth your way. Do not for­get that you are here on earth for your­self, for oth­ers and, in the end, for Him. May suc­cess attend your steps, may the divine bless­ing be with you to the end. Accept my gift.’ – he said, and he spread his palms, as though he had gathered golden light into them, above the young man’s brow. After all, love forms our exist­ence and our exist­ence forms love…