What Do You See?

Seeing

   There are many ancient teaching stories from different traditions.  The heritage of the Sufi’s contain many wonderful stories, and often the chief character is a fellow named Nazrudin.  One day Nazrudin heard about a holy man, a very wise man who sat on a mountain pass not far away.  Being a seeker himself all his life, Nazrudin decided to travel to visit this wise man, and sit at his feet to see what he could learn.  He had been sitting there all day when a traveler came up the mountain toward the pass and asked about the village in the distance. What are the people like? The wise man asked why he left his former town.  The traveler said he was leaving because it was full of unfriendly, dishonest, unkind people.  “Such as the world has become,” said the wise man.  “You will find the same people in the next town.”
   Then a second traveler stopped and asked the wise man the same question.  When asked what the town he was leaving was like, he said it was a village full of loving, wonderful people.  They even paid for his move to this new town so he could find work.  Nazrudin replied, “such as the world has become.  You will find the same kind of people in the new village.  After the second traveler passed, Nazrudin looked at the holy man in confusion, and asked “Wise one, do you speak the truth?  “Yes, of course I speak the truth,” was the answer.  “Then how can you speak the truth and give a different truth to each man?”
   And that is the question.  How can it be that we can each go to the same place and find very different experiences?  You can see it powerfully in churches in transition.  Part of the congregation thinks the minister is the source of all the problems.  Part of them blame the board.  The larger part thinks everything is just fine and can’t figure out what the others are making a fuss over.  One church, filled with people who know each other; people having a different experience of the same community.
  What each of us, as people committed to making the world a better place, has to realize is that we don’t see the world as it is.  We see the world as we are.  If I am hasty to judge the actions of others in spite of not having complete information, then I have stepped into the energy of keeping the world the tense place that it is.  Each of us is accountable for our response to any situation and quick judgment blocks us from gathering complete information.
   Having said that, we know some people are not good at boundaries.  That’s why we lock our cars and our houses.  We must learn to set appropriate boundaries, while maintaining compassion for those whose path we can only see partially, and therefore have no way of  truly understanding.  What we do, what we say, how we respond to people face to face is very important but there is something even bigger.  The energy we carry in our body is broadcast moment by moment, and if that energy field is negative, we do damage even if we never interact with anyone.  There is an old saw that's been around for years, but it's still around because it's true.  "What we focus on increases."  Let's focus on what's good.