Not long ago I overheard a conversation. A yoga-monk was talking with a young man, disadvantaged many times over and living in an orphanage, who was telling him about his childhood. The very first question went to the heart of things, and then, as they talked, the atmosphere suddenly changed. It was as if we had stepped into another dimension, and the chance conversation had widened into something universal. By now the archetypes were in dialogue, the Disciple and the Master were speaking, eternal questions and universal answers nestling against one another.
– Which do you hold the greater treasure, what lies hidden in our hearts, or the money we hold in our grasp?
– The heart is more important. Money is something one only ever loses.
– But nowadays we buy even our food with money!
– Yes, monk though I am, I work too: I teach, I tend the garden, I chop wood…
– Yes, of course, monasteries always have a garden!
– The treasures of the heart are very precious. The outer world revolves around money and love, but the heart is more precious than that. For what a man gathers in his heart he can never lose. But what he merely holds in his grasp he will lose in any case. A coffin has no pockets.
– My mother left me when I was six months old, I am her second child.
– The Lord never leaves you.
– Yes, I know that! When I go to bed I always pray, because I often have nightmares. And I only fall asleep later.
– Because of the praying?
– No, because of the nightmares.
– And are you good?
– Only if people are good to me too.
– Be selfless!
– What does it mean, to be selfless?
– Be good even when others are not good to you.
– Sometimes I am violent, but then I feel ashamed, and I can do nothing else but say I am sorry.
– Yoga helps you control your feelings and your energies.
– Yoga? Meditating? When they sit down cross-legged and close their eyes?
– Try it at home sometime!
– I have no home, it is just a house where we live.
– I see, forgive me.
– How could I forget all the bad that has happened to me? The tears? The darkness? I feel that from my earliest years my life was all black, they beat me… When I was little I was never happy, and I never smiled. Only when I got into the fifth grade and talked with good people. But the older ones always took away whatever I was given as a present. How could all this bad ever be forgotten?
– If you learn to forgive. Only the body suffers, and the mind, but the eternal soul never does!
– It has always been very hard for me, I can’t help it. It was long ago, but I still remember the darkness!
– I will teach you a prayer that will help you forget. ‘Lead me from the unreal to the real! Lead me from darkness to light! Lead me from transience to eternity!’ – if you pray like this, your life will change.
– Will I live long?
– Eternity lies before you!
– How long is eternity?
– Infinitely long… Only the body passes away.
– And here on earth? I would rather live in heaven!
– That is possible too, but then something must be done for it.
– What must be done?
– To pray, to be in connection with God…
– When I talk with you, it feels like being in that kind of divine connection!
– You see, now you are smiling! It is as simple as that.
– And I would so like to see people not by their beauty but with my heart.
– You are rich in your heart! And because your heart is rich, your prayers shall be heard.
– I have learnt that good is stronger than evil.
– That is so, just like light and darkness. If there is a big room, full to the brim with darkness, but you light a candle…
– …the room grows bright.
– Yes. However vast the darkness, the light dispels it.
– This room is like my heart.
– And don’t forget, take as much darkness as you like, and try to cover up the light – you will not succeed.
– Does it depend only on me?
– On someone else too, as you well know. Always stay in the light, never in the darkness!