Mello - Heart of the Enlightened

A N I MAGE B OOK
PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY
a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036

I MAGE , D OUBLEDAY , and the portrayal of a deer drinking from a stream are trademarks of Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

This Image Books edition published 1991
by special arrangement with Doubleday.

eISBN: 978-0-307-80549-2

Copyright 1989 by the Center for Spiritual Exchange
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

v3.1

Warning

It is a great mystery that though the human heart longs for Truth in which alone it finds liberation and delight, the first reaction of human beings to Truth is one of hostility and fear. So the Spiritual Teachers of humanity, like Buddha and Jesus, created a device to circumvent the opposition of their listeners: the story. They knew that the most entrancing words a language holds are Once upon a time , that it is common to oppose a truth but impossible to resist a story. Vyasa, the author of the Mahabharata, says that if you listen carefully to a story you will never be the same again. That is because the story will worm its way into your heart and break down barriers to the divine. Even if you read the stories in this book only for the entertainment there is no guarantee that an occasional story will not slip through your defenses and explode when you least expect it to. So you have been warned!

If you are foolhardy enough to court enlightenment, this is what I suggest you do:

A. Carry a story around in your mind so you can dwell on it in leisure moments. That will give it a chance to work on your subconscious and reveal its hidden meaning. You will then be surprised to see how it comes to you quite unexpectedly just when you need it to light up an event or situation and bring you insight and inner healing. That is when you will realize that, in exposing yourself to these stories, you were auditing a Course in Enlightenment for which no guru is needed other than yourself!

B. Since each of these stories is a revelation of Truth, and since Truth, when spelled with a capital t, means the truth about you, make sure that each time you read a story you single-mindedly search for a deeper understanding of yourself. Read it the way one would read a medical bookwondering if one has any of the symptoms; and not a psychology bookthinking what typical specimens ones friends are. If you succumb to the temptation of seeking insight into others, the stories will do you damage.

So passionate was Mullah Nasruddins love for truth that he traveled to distant places in search of Koranic scholars and he felt no inhibitions about drawing infidels at the bazaar into discussions about the truths of his faith.

One day his wife told him how unfairly he was treating herand discovered that her husband had no interest whatsoever in that kind of Truth!

Its the only kind that matters, of course. Ours would be a different world, indeed, if those of us who are scholars and ideologues, whether religious or secular, had the same passion for self-knowledge that we display for our theories and dogmas.

Excellent sermon, said the parishioner, as she pumped the hand of the preacher. Everything you said applies to someone or other I know.

See?

Instruction

The stories are best read in the order in which they are set out here. Read no more than one or two at a timethat is, if you wish to get anything more than entertainment from them.

Note

The stories in this book come from a variety of countries, cultures, and religions. They belong to the spiritual heritageand popular humorof the human race.

All that the author has done is string them together with a specific aim in mind. His task has been that of the weaver and the dyer. He takes no credit at all for the cotton and the thread.

Given the nature of the spiritual quest

A man came upon a tall tower and stepped inside to find it all dark. As he groped around, he came upon a circular staircase. Curious to know where it led to, he began to climb, and as he climbed, he sensed a growing uneasiness in his heart. So he looked behind him and was horrified to see that each time he climbed a step, the previous one fell off and disappeared. Before him the stairs wound upward and he had no idea where they led; behind him yawned an enormous black emptiness.

true seekers are rare

When the King visited the monasteries of the great Zen master Lin Chi, he was astonished to learn that there were more than ten thousand monks living there with him.

Wanting to know the exact number of the monks, the King asked, How many disciples do you have?

Lin Chi replied, Four or five at the very most.

imposters many

A couple on their honeymoon were about to get into bed at their hotel when a masked burglar broke in. He drew a chalk circle on the floor, beckoned to the husband, and said, Stand there in that circle. If you step out of it I shall shoot you through the head.

While the husband stood there bolt upright, the burglar took everything he could lay his hands on, threw it all into a sack, and was about to get away when he saw the pretty bride covered in nothing more than a sheet. He beckoned to her, turned on the radio, made her dance with him, hugged her, kissed herand would have raped her if she hadnt valiantly fought him off.

When the burglar finally took off, the woman turned to her husband and yelled, What kind of man are you that you stood there in the middle of that circle doing nothing while I was almost raped!

It isnt true to say that I did nothing, the man protested.

Well, what did you do?

I defied him. Each time he had his back turned toward me, I stuck my foot out of the circle!

The kind of danger we are ready for is the kind we can face from a safe distance.

After thirty years of watching television, a husband said to his wife, Lets do something really exciting tonight.

Instantly she conjured up visions of a night in town. Great! she said. What shall we do?

Well, lets exchange chairs.

In a little frontier town there was an old man who had lived in the same house for fifty years.

One day he surprised everyone by moving into the house next door. Reporters from the local papers descended on him to ask him why he had moved.

I guess it was the gypsy in me, he replied with a self-satisfied smile.

Have you heard of the man who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his expedition to the New World and kept worrying the whole time that he might not get back in time to succeed the old village tailor and someone else might snatch the job?

To succeed in the adventure called spirituality one must have ones mind set on getting the most out of life. Most people settle for trifles such as wealth, fame, comfort, and human company.