And it is further true amongst all those who claim leadership by virtue of divine authority we may apply this test with authority - that the man who stands for humanity, first, last and all the time, against all vested interest, religious and economic, is the man who stands as Jesus stood.
I just finished reading the book Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, the classic story of one man's experiences seeking enlightenment. Siddhartha, the story's protagonist, discovers that wisdom is incommunicable. A life, after all, must be lived. At the end of our journey, we may have learned many things from those we called our "teachers". Still, it is our inner-voice that is always with us. We simply are who we are and we become who we become. The river of life continually flows through us. The river speaks to us. The river laughs at us. The river cries with us. The river reminds us, when are able to hear her voice, that it was here before we sat down beside its banks to consider the meaning of life and it will be here once we've taken our leave.
We are not the river. We are in the river and the river is in us, but, we are not the river. The river is all of us and all that will ever be. You and me. Bin Laden and Bush. Yeshua and Muhammad. The Pope and the Dalai Lama. Bill Gates and the guy at the entrance to the freeway with the sign asking to work for food. The river is all things.
What is man that we know so much and yet understand so little about ourselves? What am I that I sense a truth in my belly that I believe with all that I am and yet I'm too much a coward to share my truth with the same enthusiasm as those who preach judgment, teach hatred and condone violence in the name of justice ?
The river, of course, has been watching it all since the beginning. The river laughs even at these words I write today. Or, maybe the river cries today. Either way, the river will continue to flow and I will return to my sanity once I can remember again that I'm not the river. The river is in me, but, I am not the river.
