Have you ever watched a fly bumping against a window pane in your house? Sometimes there is an open door right next to it, but still it insists on continuing to bump against the same window for hours. That’s because it sees the light through the window but doesn’t feel the air coming from the door. It’s trusting the wrong sense. It needs to stop flying for a moment, and stand still. It needs to listen with it whole body, with the thousand micro-hairs it has to listen with.
Once it stops, it can ask itself: where is the air is coming from? Once it locates the source, it can easily move towards the open door. That’s the way to freedom.
I often think about Theseus in the labyrinth, unable to find his way out without the help of the silver thread given to him by Ariadne. We are all stuck in a labyrinth of our own thoughts, and as long as we trust our minds to find the exit we will never find it. We need to follow something much more subtle. We need to develop and follow the micro-hairs of our intuition.
That’s why each and every one of us will one day learn to meditate. We will learn to slow down, getting quiet within. We will stop listening to the mind, which is neither able nor desirous of getting us out of the labyrinth in the first place. The mind panics, like the fly, and just wastes energy bumping against the window pane.
Eventually, we listen to our intuition. And the funny thing is… it always knew exactly where the air was coming from.
Joy Biscuits 