A boy is born into his family, his homeland and his culture, and even as a child he hears who was their hero, their teacher and their master, and he feels the deepest longing to become like him, to be like him.
He joins up with like-minded people, practices hard discipline for years, following the great example, until he has become like him, and thinks and speaks, and feels like him.
But he believes that something is still missing. So, he sets out on a long journey to the furthest point of isolation in order to perhaps cross one last frontier.
He passes by old gardens that were abandoned long ago. Wild roses are still flowering, and tall trees bear their autumn fruit that’s falling to the floor uncared for, there is no one to collect them. From here on it is desert.
And soon an unknown emptiness surrounds the boy. It is as if all the directions are the same, and what appears before him sometimes, he recognizes soon as empty too. He wanders on in aimlessness losing connection to his senses. And then he finds himself before a spring. It comes up from the earth and quickly seeps away into the sand again. But where the water goes, the desert is transformed into a paradise.
And as he looks around, he sees two strangers coming. They did exactly as he did, following their hero, until they were like him. They, too, had set out on an arduous journey, into the desert’s loneliness to meet the last frontiers that is left to overcome. And like him they found a spring. Together, they bend down to drink from the same water, and they believe themselves to be quiet near their destination. They tell each other their names: “My name is Gautama, the Buda.” “My name is Jesus, the Christ.” “My name is Mohammed, the Prophet”.
But then the night falls and surrounds them as for an eternity, with the far-off splendor of the silent stars. No words. No sounds. One of the three knows he is so close to his beloved master, like he never has been before. It is as if for just one moment, he has a glimpse of what it was like for Him when He did know: so powerless, so futile, and so small. And how it would be if He knew about the guilt as well.
The next morning, he turns back and he escapes the desert. His path leads once more past the lonely gardens, and takes him further to the garden that’s his own. Before his gate an old man greets him, as if he had been waiting all the time. He says: “He who finds his way back from so far away must love the fertile earth. He knows that everything that grows will also die, and when its life ends, it will nourish others.”
“Yes,” says the returning one, “I agree, these are the laws on this dear earth.” And he begins to cultivate the garden.
Hellinger, Bert. Rising in Love Hellinger Publications. 2008 (pg 198).
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