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A story about a man, who is head of a gathering of young people, who come regularly to investigate about life and about self-exploration and awakening.
And one young man stops coming to those gatherings. And so this old man visits him in his house.
The young man sees him coming. He knows he hasn't come to those gatherings for many months. So he sees him and immediately opens the door for him.
The old man comes in, sees the young man has a nice warm fire. It is a very cold wintermorning. He sees there is a fire there. There are 2 seats ready, one for the young man, one for himself. He goes and sits in the seat.
The fire is burning, there is coal in there.
They don't say anything, they just sit next to each other.
This impeccable presence: the old man and this young man who is supposed to go to this meeting, but hasn't been for a long time.
The old man picks up his stick and pokes in the fire, without saying a word and picks up a coal with his stick and knocks the coal out. A piece of coal, black coal that has been burning, knocks it out of the firegrate. It falls away from the fire and for a few moments they watch it with their eyes. The coal gets colder, it was red first, it becomes greyer and black and greyer and black.
It cools down and becomes nothing.
Twenty minutes have gone. The old man picks up the stick, takes the coal, flicks it back in the fire. Back in the fire the coal starts getting redder and once again catches fire. The old man gets up, pushes the chair away, goes towards the door and is about to walk out when the young man says:
''Thank you for coming and thank you for a beautiful sermon. Next week I'll be back in the meeting.''
What did he do? There was hardly anything spoken. There was hardly anything said. But it did something. That is what you are doing. Somehow there is a power of coming together. So my mother would say: once in a while come together like this in your town, in your village, in your place. Sit together under trees, or by the brook or by a stream. With or without a candle. By the stars or by the moonlight. It doesn't matter. But keep your soul alive. When you come out sometimes on your own, the fire can die.
So you have come here and I know that you are all helping each other. And I want you to know that. That you came here maybe to receive, but in the act of coming here, you ended up giving. Each one of you is helping every person in this group. I know it seems there are people teaching, but you too are blessing this gathering in a way that words cannot describe.
Bovenstaande tekst is uit geluidsopname overgenomen van een teaching van Mansukh Patel in Wales. Vertaling "Zin van Samenkomen" staat op de vorige pagina.
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