A Problem And Its Solution
The spiritual guide stood before the group. She had been asked
to give a talk on mysticism.
She began with: “This evening I intend to outline for you one of
the biggest problems facing human kind. This problem is at the heart
of nearly every single crisis with which human beings are confronted
presently, as well as throughout history. It is a problem which has
inundated nearly every government and community that has ever
existed.”
She could tell by the look in the eyes of the audience she had
managed to arouse their interest. She continued on: “The nature of
this problem is both extremely simple to state, and, yet, at the same
time, the ramifications which arise from it have the most complex of
forms.
“For millennia, philosophers have tried to address this issue and
have failed to arrive at workable solutions. Moreover, if anyone in
the room could solve this dilemma, they would be awarded a Nobel
prize, and the United Nations would declare a holiday to be observed
around the world in honor of the individual who could offer a
solution to this problem.”
Budding interest began to transform into avid curiosity. What
was this problem to which she was referring?
“Shall I tell what the problem is to which I am referring?” she
asked in a kind of rhetorical fashion since she had every intention of
doing so and the audience would have been annoyed if she stopped
now.
However, the assembled group played their part. They gave an
assortment of nods and verbal comments which indicated they
wanted the teacher to say more.
The spiritual teacher turned to the blackboard behind her. She
drew a straight line and at the right end of the line, she drew a circle
just beneath the line, with the top most part of the circle barely
touching the line.
After drawing the line and the circle, she put down the chalk,
turned to the group and said: “There you have it – the problem.”
Diverse murmurs of confusion, mystification, and annoyance ran
through the group. Someone asked: “What kind of problem is this
other than that I don’t know what it means.” Then, as an
afterthought the person speculated: “Is that it ... the problem is
ignorance?”
The teacher laughed and replied: “Well your suggestion is an
excellent one, and there is no doubt that ignorance is a huge problem,
but, in truth, ignorance might not be the problem it is were it not for
the problem which I have diagramed on the board.”
A few people in the audience began twisting their heads at
various angles in the hopes that a change of perspective might
provide a clue as to what the drawing on the board meant. Most
people just stared at the board and shrugged, or looked at one
another to see whether any of their neighbors had any idea what it
was all about, or shook their heads, waiting for the teacher to say
something more.
The spiritual guide said: “I am very certain that everyone in this
room knows what this drawing means but things just haven’t clicked
in yet. Maybe, an alternative example might start you thinking
outside the box, a little.
She turned back to the blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk,
and printed:
t l d j q o t l t c t s b f
The group was even more mystified than before. How was this
going to help shed light on the first drawing if they couldn’t figure
out what she had just written?
She let the group struggle with the letters for a short while. Then,
she provided a clue: “What if I were to tell you the letters I have put
on the board have something to do with typing.”
There was a brief silence before someone near the back of the
room said: “The lazy dog jumped quickly over the log to catch the sly
brown fox.”
“Give that woman a cigar,” the teacher said. “Someone’s neural
pathways just fired, but all of you probably had this knowledge
within you because, at one time or another, all of you have heard or
seen something very similar to the words just spoken by our winner.”
The teacher smiled, raised her hands, and arched her eyebrows,
in a way which seemed to say: “Well, what about our first drawing?”
and she pointed again at the diagram.
The group did not seem to be any nearer to an answer. A certain
amount of frustration and boredom began to creep into some of the
body language of various members of the audience, even though,
supposedly, there on the board before them was the most critical
problem facing human kind.
The teacher offered a clue by writing two letters on the board:
D W
She turned back to the audience and waited.
A short while later, her patience was rewarded. A woman in the
front row said: “Desire, World.”
The teacher replied: “Exactly. Can anyone else expand on this
answer?”
A man off to the right said: “The line represents human desire,
and the circle represents the world.”
“Right again,” the teacher responded.
She deposited the chalk, which she had been carrying around
with her, back in the tray beneath the board. Turning back to the
audience she commented: “Although the diagram on the board
appears to be static, the fact of the matter is that it is very dynamic
since, after all, both desire and the world are in motion all the time.
But, desire being what it is and the world being what it is, there are
certain principles or laws which govern how desire and the world
engage one another.
“For instance, one of the expressions of desire is the way human
beings always try to bend the world to the character of desire, and
since this can never happen, the attempts to do so lead to nothing but
frustration, anger, resentment, impatience, jealousy, envy, hatred,
depression, and despair – this is so even amongst the very rich and
powerful because the nature of the world is such that it is forever
eluding their grasp and cannot be completely controlled in the way
they wish.”
The teacher briefly surveyed the audience from right to left, and
from back to front, before saying: “As I indicated at the beginning
of this exercise, I was only going to outline this problem which I have
diagramed on the board. But, let me ask you a question: “What is the
solution?”
Lots of ideas came to the minds and hearts of the people in
attendance, but no sooner were they mentioned, then, someone would
point out a problem with the suggested solution. However, at one
point during the discussion, a young man proffered the following: “It
seems to me that if all the problems begin with our trying to make the
world conform to our desire, maybe, what we need to do is find a way
to get our desires to conform with the actual nature of the world?”
Everybody, including the teacher, liked the young man’s answer.
After a short pause, someone asked: “OK, so how do we do that?”
The young man said: “I don’t have a clue,” and everyone
laughed.
The eyes of the group returned to the teacher with a collective
question written upon them. She smiled and said: “Why mysticism
of course ... but the solution requires a lot more work than figuring
out the problem, and I’ll leave the details of the solution for another
time.”
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