by Lucy Lopez…
There’s this gorgeous story, I believe it’s from the Islamic tradition, about a king who happened to secure a spectacularly beautiful necklace for his daughter. Unfortunately it went missing (how do things like that happen in a palace with all that security???).
Well, the king being rich (could he be otherwise!) offered a substantial reward for the recovery of this exquisite piece of jewelry.
Now a businessman who was walking his usual route home, which happened to be along a river, noticed something shimmering in the water. He stopped, wandering what it might be.
As he stood there, he remembered the king’s necklace and the reward for its recovery. He was motivated to investigate this shimmering phenomenon!
He bent down for a closer look and soon realized that the river was pretty grotty. Nevertheless, he stuck his hand in to see if he could get hold of the shimmering item. No such luck.
Now, as you can imagine, he didn’t much like getting his good clothes soiled and wet. Still, he persevered, each time getting more of himself and his good clothes dirty. Oh, it wasn’t fun I can assure you! But the prospect of the king’s reward was, well, too tempting. Why, he’d be able to invest a portion and live the rest of his life from the passive income!
In due course, along comes a saint (don’t you just love when that happens!) who asks the man what he’s doing. Now, this man isn’t a businessman for nothing. He knows about people stealing information from you and using it to their advantage, so he refuses to tell the saint. (Clearly, he didn’t realize the passerby was a saint. Tch! Tch!)
But the saint being saintly was determined to help this rather troubled and by now, filthy looking man. The man, weary, frustrated and disgusted with his condition, soon gives in and tells all.
The saint, with a saintly smile, points to a tree branch overhanging the river. “Look”, he says, “the necklace is up there. You’ve been chasing a reflection”.
Ouch!
Okay, I am not going to tell you, because you already know it, that the river represents our conditioned, materially-driven existence.
Neither am I going to tell you that the reflection in the river is the longing, the desire we have for happiness.
And I am definitely not going to tell you that the necklace hanging from the branch above is where our true happiness, lies – in our higher/unconditioned state of consciousness.
I am not going to tell you any of this because you already know that, like the businessman, we too think that this is how to find happiness. Just like him, we’re prepared to get ourselves caught up in materialistic pursuits because we’re convinced we’ll find happiness there.
Oh sure, we know that true happiness is really found within, which is of course why we spend so little time in the world ‘within’ and so much time in the world ‘outside’ with its wild promises of happiness when all it really delivers is fleeting moments of ‘pleasure’!
Instead of creating our outer world from our inner state of happiness, we look to the outer world to give us what we already are! But you already know all this. I’m writing this mostly to remind myself but especially to share that gorgeous story with you. Hope you liked it!
About the Author:
Lucy Lopez is uncompromisingly dedicated to happiness – hers and yours! Lucy helps people find happiness and achieve success through personal and spiritual awakening using her background in mentoring/teaching, Science, research in education and cognitive psychology and a spirituality anchored in meditation, metaphysics, music and major spiritual traditions. Contact her at Lucy’s Planet Happiness at http://www.lucylopez.net/planethappiness/,
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