Words from the Master

A small story:

One 90-year old man used to sit every day at the beach from morning to evening, watching the people at the beach.
Another man who noticed this went up to him and asked him, “What do you actually do sitting here everyday?”
The old man replied, “I am searching for a woman to be my wife.”
The man was simply shocked at this reply and asked him, “Why did you not search in your youth?”
The old man replied, “I have been searching since I was 30 years old.”
The man was astonished and asked him, “What sort of a woman are you searching for?”
He replied, “I am searching for a perfect woman.”
“And you haven’t found one?” the man asked.
“I found one woman who matched what I had in mind but it didn’t work out well with her,” replied the old man.
The man asked why.
The old man replied, “She was searching for a perfect man!”

(Loud laughter!)

This is what happens when we try to get a perfect match for the image that we carry inside us.

But after a long search, we suddenly find a person who seems to match our mental image – from a distance. The picture in our mind is green – and the person, the image that we see also seems to be green – and then, all is green! A match seems to be found!

What happens at this point is what is called ‘falling in love’. This is the science behind falling in love. Note that it is always ‘falling’ in love, never ‘raising’ in love! It is nothing more than the mischief of the hormones, masquerading as love. Because what actually happens is, because of our own strong needs and expectations, we see things as we want to see them. We project our mental image upon the other.

So anyway, the world becomes filled with greenery and music. Life becomes poetry. At last, our search is over! This is the stage at which we begin to write poetry, make paintings of each other and what not.

As long as this distance is maintained, things go on smoothly. We continue to project our imagination upon each other. But slowly, the person comes closer and then we feel that what we saw as green is not so green but only a pale green. But it is alright; you move on. After a while, you come still closer and feel that it is not even pale green but actually a sort of yellow.

But, at this stage, we don’t want to accept that our imagination has turned out to be a lie, so we start making excuses for the situation. We say to ourselves, “This is life! Everything can’t be perfect!” and so on. It requires tremendous courage, tremendous intelligence to live with reality. So we use these excuses instead, as a buffer system, to shield ourselves from reality.

Finally, when we get close enough, we find that it is not even yellow, it is just white! What is inside us is green and what is outside is white. Fantasy and Reality are totally different.

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.