Once upon a time

There was once a young man who wanted to know everything. His thirst for knowledge had no limits. While other young men his age were playing, he was continuously studying and reading.

One day he thought to himself: I should leave my village and travel the world so that I can learn everything about it.

Before his adult age, this young man had become fluent in many languages, could play several musical instruments, had learned the art of navigation, the sciences of the time, and had mastered the religious texts of his country. At night, while gazing at the brilliant stars in the sky, he had the strong desire to visit the celestial worlds. It was his desire that nothing should be unknown to him. 

One day, as he was drinking water in a clear fountain, an old man approached him and said: ‘Do you realize that the universe is unlimited?’ The young man was totally surprised by his words.

‘What do you say? Who are you?’

‘Even if you lived a thousand years and never stopped learning, you would have learned only an infinitesimal amount of all that is available to learn in the universe.’

‘But sir, if we want to become truly knowledgeable, shouldn't we learn as much as we can?’

‘If your desire is really to become truly knowledgeable, then come with me and I will teach you the most rapid way to know everything.’

They walked together for a few hours along the nearby flowing river.  Soon the old man showed the young man the hut where he had lived for many years. This simple house did not have anything to nourish and satisfy a highly curious mind. There were no books, just a few dishes and a small bed.

‘When I saw you, I had the feeling I might be able to teach you the essence of what I have learned during my long life. Today I will teach you the greatest gem of my treasure of precious knowledge.’

The old man showed him to an open field nearby.

‘You see that big tree there? Climb out on its branches and get me one of its fruits.’

The young man began climbing the giant tree and after about 10 minutes returned with a fruit in hand.

‘Now open the fruit and tell me what you see’.

The young man broke the skin of the fruit and in a moment the half open fruit lay at the old man's feet.

‘What do you see in this fruit?’

‘I see a dozen little seeds.’

‘Take one of the seeds, open it, and tell me what you see.’

Each seed was minuscule and fifty of them would easily have fit into the palm of one's hand. The young man opened one and to his great surprise discovered that the seed was totally empty. This seed was in reality only an envelope which contained nothing at all; a bit like the skin of a balloon hiding only air inside.

‘You see, the giant tree which you climbed a while ago has emerged from this emptiness.’

‘But what does it mean old man? What am I to understand from this?

‘The origin of this tree is the empty space within this seed. The goal of all the work of the tree is to create other seeds similar to the one which first created the tree itself. Each of these seeds is empty and yet each will produce a gigantic tree.

The universe is a tree of many branches extending to the infinity of time and space. The supreme wisdom teaches that it is only possible to know the universe when we have come to know the emptiness from which it arises. This seed appears to be empty, but in fact is not. In reality, the seed is full of that intelligence which has created everything.

Each human being possesses at the deepest level of his awareness the emptiness of the seed from which arises the total universe. It requires only knowing how to open the seed, fathom its unlimited content, and discover that its apparent emptiness contains all the creative power of universal life. That silent inner emptiness is the silence of pure awareness, which is at rest and fully awake. Its nature is bliss consciousness.

In the following days, the old man taught his student the art of transcending through a simple technique of meditation. Then, he invited the young man to stay in his rudimentary dwelling while he traveled to a place about which he gave no details.

The young man stayed in the hut of his meditation master, in that forest where grew immense trees and where there was a river which flowed so peacefully that one could not hear its singing.

The daily practice of meditation revealed to him the totality of universal existence available within every man. Having discovered that his own awakened consciousness in its infinite dimension is the empty seed from where emerges the totality of knowledge, he was able to seek within himself the answers to all his own questions and fulfill all his desires for knowledge. Having located the totality of universal existence within his own being, he, at last, was able to enjoy total knowledge and thereby total existence.
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This story was inspired by a tale from ancient India which Maharishi once told in order to illustrate wherein lies total knowledge.

To read the same story in its original French language, click on tab: Réflexion Mensuelle, then on title: Il était une fois.