Short Story: Two spiritual masters discuss enlightenment

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The old Zen master, Relop Zerploski, was talking to another master, from an Indian philosophy, known as Vedantism, Sri Arama Rokami. This Guru guy was saying that it is our thoughts that stop us from becoming enlightened. "Freeing ourselves from thoughts connects us to the enlightenment that exists beyond these thoughts." "Holding onto, identifying with each thought, creates an attachment to the thought." "We need to become the watcher, and just let each thought come and go," he told the Zen master. Then, he quoted a renowned spiritual master from Hinduism, Sri Ramana Maharshi, (1879 to 1950). "'The sense of doership is bondage, and not the actions themselves." "Be still, and know that I am God.'" "'When stillness prevails, there will be no agitation of the mind.'" "'Agitation of the mind is the cause of desire, the sense of doership, and of personality, or the personal sense of "I." If that is stopped, there is eternal peace and bliss.'" The guru then finished his discourse with this couplet: "Thinking diminishes consciousness." "Loving more creates more consciousness." "Drop thinking because it brings you non-love; only loving brings you more love." The Zen master smiled in reply: "Do you know that even God thinks, and has thoughts?" "The Christian Bible refers to this, when it quotes God as saying:" "My thoughts are not your thoughts," in the Old Testament book of Isaiah, chapter 55, verse 8. "Why do some people devalue their thoughts, and try to get rid of them altogether, then?" "Is there really any value in our dropping our thoughts?" "Thoughts are a means of communication with ourselves, and with others; to stop communication is to block who you are, and to be a dead tree, dead to the world, as even a live tree talks to the world too." "Stop not thinking." "Think, but connect your mind to your heart, and always think loving thoughts, and drop the non-loving thoughts, and all will be well with you then too." "No. We must not get rid of anything that makes us up. Everything within us must play its part within us, for us to know God. Even our ego can serve us, then too." "It is when we allow our thoughts, or our ego alone, to work on their own, that we then cut ourselves off from our hearts, and soul and love." "We should put our hearts first, but not try to kill off our mind, stop our thinking self from functioning, or kill off our ego-self either." "When all parts of us work from love, for love, serving love, it is only then, that we are enlightened, inflamed completely by that love." And after that conversation, each went their own way again. Had either influenced either? Who knows? Our own philosophy can be hard to shake, and often it can become a blockage to our being free of such bondage too. Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com We never become anything by destroying, or trying to destroy, any part of who we are.