Like the Flowing River

Her husband asked anxiously: 'What's happened? I thought you looked distressed. Tell me everything that is on your mind, and I'm sure that, with God's help, we can solve any problem together.'

'While you were away, a friend of ours visited us and left two jewels of incalculable value here for me to look after. They're really lovely jewels! I've never seen anything so beautiful before. He has since come to claim them back, and I don't want to return them. I've grown too fond of them. What should I do?'

'I can't understand your behaviour at all! You've never been a woman given to vanity!'

'It's just that I've never seen such jewels before! I can't bear the idea of losing them forever.'

And the rabbi said firmly: 'No one can lose something he or she has not possessed. Keeping those jewels would be tantamount to stealing them. We will give them back, and I will help you make up for their loss. We will do this together today.'

'As you wish, my love. The treasures will be returned. In fact, they already have been. The two precious jewels were our sons. God entrusted them to our care, and while you were away, he came to fetch them back. They have gone.'

The rabbi understood. He embraced his wife, and together they wept many tears; but he had understood the message and, from that day on, they struggled to bear their loss together.

Self-Deception

It is part of human nature always to judge others very severely and, when the wind turns against us, always to find an excuse for our own misdeeds, or to blame someone else for our mistakes. The story that follows illustrates what I mean.

A messenger was sent on an urgent mission to a distant city. He saddled up his horse and set off at a gallop. After passing several inns where animals like him were normally fed, the horse thought: 'We're not stopping to eat at any stables, which means that I'm being treated, not like a horse, but like a human being. Like all other men, I will eat in the next big city we reach.'

But the big cities all passed by, one after the other, and his rider continued on his way. The horse began to think: 'Perhaps I haven't been changed into a human being after all, but into an angel, because angels have no need to eat.'

Finally, they reached their destination and the animal was led to the stable, where he greedily devoured the hay he found there.

'Why believe that things have changed simply because they do not happen quite as expected?' he said to himself. 'I'm not a man or an angel. I'm simply a hungry horse.'

The Art of Trying

Pablo Picasso said: 'God is, above all, an artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant, and the ant. He never tried to follow one particular style. He simply kept on doing whatever he felt like doing.'

It is the desire to walk that creates the path ahead; however, when we set off on the journey towards our dream, we feel very afraid, as if we had to get everything right first time. But, given that we all live different lives, who decided what 'getting everything right' means? If God made the giraffe, the elephant, and the ant, and we are trying to live in His image, why do we have to follow any other model? A model might sometimes help us to avoid repeating the stupid mistakes that others have made, but, more often than not, it becomes a prison that makes us repeat what everyone else has always done.

It means making sure your tie always matches your socks. It means being forced to have the same opinions tomorrow as you had today. Where does that leave the constantly shifting world?

As long as it doesn't harm anyone, change your opinions now and then and be unashamedly contradictory. You have that right; it doesn't matter what other people think, because they're going to think something anyway.

When we decide to act, some excesses may occur. An old culinary adage says: 'You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.' It's also natural that unexpected conflicts should arise, and it's natural that wounds may be inflicted during those conflicts. The wounds pass, and only the scars remain.

This is a blessing. These scars stay with us throughout our life and are very helpful. If, at some point - simply because it would make life easier, or for whatever other reason - the desire to return to the past becomes very great, we need only look at those scars. They are the marks left by the handcuffs, and will remind us of the horrors of prison, and we will keep walking straight ahead.

So, relax. Let the universe move around you and discover the joy of surprising yourself. 'God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise,' says St Paul.

A warrior of light often finds that certain moments repeat themselves. He is often faced by the same problems and situations and, seeing these difficult situations return, he grows depressed, thinking that he is incapable of making any progress in life.

'I've been through all this before,' he says to his heart.

'Yes, you have been through all this before,' replies his heart. 'But you have never been beyond it.'

Then the warrior realizes that these repeated experiences have but one aim: to teach him what he has not yet learned. He always finds a different solution for each repeated battle, and he does not consider his failures to be mistakes but, rather, as steps along the path to a meeting with himself.

/> The Dangers Besetting the Spiritual Search

As people start to pay more attention to the things of the spirit, another phenomenon occurs: a feeling of intolerance towards the spiritual search of others. Every day, I receive magazines, e-mails, letters, and pamphlets, trying to prove that one path is better than another, and containing a whole series of rules to follow in order to achieve 'enlightenment'. Given the growing volume of such correspondence, I have decided to write a little about what I consider to be the dangers of this search.

Myth 1: The mind can cure everything

This is not true, and I prefer to illustrate this particular myth with a story. Some years ago, a friend of mine - deeply involved in the spiritual search - began to feel feverish and ill. She spent the whole night trying to 'mentalize' her body, using all the techniques she knew, in order to cure herself purely with the power of the mind. The following day, her children, who were getting worried, urged her to go to the doctor, but she refused, saying that she was 'purifying' her spirit. Only when the situation became untenable did she agree to go to the hospital, where she had to have an emergency operation for appendicitis. So, be very careful: it's better sometimes to ask God to guide your doctor's hands than to try to cure yourself alone.

Myth 2: Red meat drives away the divine light