Awareness - 23
Before we discuss this, let me tell you a story. Somebody
once asked, “What is enlightenment like? What is awakening like?” It’s like the
tramp in London who was settling in for the night. He’d hardly been able to get
a crust of bread to eat. Then he reaches this embankment on the river Thames.
There was a slight drizzle, so he huddled in his old tattered cloak. He was
about to go to sleep when suddenly a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce pulls up. Out
of the car steps a beautiful young lady who says to him, “My poor man, are you
planning on spending the night here on this embankment?” And the tramp says,
“Yes.” She says, “I won’t have it. You’re coming to my house and you’re going
to spend a comfortable night and you’re going to get a good dinner.” She
insists on his getting into the car. Well, they ride out of London and get to a
place where she has a sprawling mansion with large grounds. They are ushered in
by the butler, to whom she says, “James, please make sure he’s put in the
servants’ quarters and treated well.” Which is what James does. The young lady
had undressed and was about to go to bed when she suddenly remembers her guest
for the night. So she slips something on and pads along the corridor to the
servants’ quarters. She sees a little chink of light from the room where the
tramp was put up. She taps lightly at the door, opens it, and finds the man
awake. She says, “What’s the trouble, my good man, didn’t you get a good meal?”
He said, “Never had a better meal in my life, lady.” “Are you warm enough?” He
says, “Yes, lovely warm bed.” Then she says, “Maybe you need a little company.
Why don’t you move over a, bit.” And she comes closer to him and he moves over
and falls right into the Thames.
Ha! You didn’t expect that one! Enlightenment! Enlightenment!
Wake up. When you’re ready to exchange your illusions for reality, when you’re
ready to exchange your dreams for facts, that’s the way you find it all. That’s
where life finally becomes meaningful. Life becomes beautiful.
There’s a story about Ramirez. He is old and living up
there in his castle on a hill. He looks out the window (he’s in bed and
paralyzed) and he sees his enemy. Old as he is, leaning on a cane, his enemy is
climbing up the hill—slowly, painfully. It takes him about two and a half hours
to get up the hill. There’s nothing Ramirez can do because the servants have
the day off. So his enemy opens the door, comes straight to the bedroom, puts
his hand inside his cloak, and pulls out a gun. He says, “At last, Ramirez,
we’re going to settle scores!” Ramirez tries his level best to talk him out of
it. He says, “Come on, Borgia, you can’t do that. You know I’m no longer the
man who ill-treated you as that youngster years ago, and you’re no longer that
youngster. Come off it!” “Oh no,” says his enemy, “your sweet words aren’t
going to deter me from this divine mission of mine. It’s revenge I want and
there’s nothing you can do about it.” And Ramirez says, “But there is!” “What?”
asks his enemy. “I can wake up,” says Ramirez. And he did; he woke up!
That’s what enlightenment is like. When someone tells
you, “There is nothing you can do about it,” you say, “There is, I can wake
up!” All of a sudden, life is no longer the nightmare that it has seemed. Wake
up!
