The Teachings of the One True Path

The Teachings of the One True Path

The teacher was seated on a small wooden bench on the grass, in the shade of an old yew tree that had seen the summers of one hundred years.  The students would never have guessed it, but the yew tree had seen almost as many summers as the teacher that sat before them.  In front of the teacher, sitting in silence waiting, were the students.  "Are there any questions you would like to ask?"

All of the students remained silent until one had the courage to raise their hand.  The teacher inclined his head and smiled for the student to continue.  "Why is it that you always appear to be so happy, even when so many things are wrong in this world?"

"Because the light will always shine on those that find the courage to walk their one true path", replied the teacher, remembering that it had not always been this way and that there was always a price to be paid for the happiness.

"What is the one true path?", asked another student, who was now feeling emboldened because the silence had been broken. 

"The one true path is the path of love.  It is the walking of your one true path where you will discover the ultimate gift, which is the love of self.  Through walking your one true path you will find your purpose in life and through that purpose you will enjoy a deep sense of inner peace and happiness in your soul." 

"Can there be more than one path?", asked the same student.

"Yes.  There are many paths that you can walk in life and each of them can teach us the lessons of life.  But there can only be one true path for each of us.  That is the path that gives our lives their true meaning.  That is the path that has been placed in front of you by God.  By walking your one true path, not only are you fulfilling your own destiny, you are fulfilling the work of God."

"Will we learn more of life's lessons on the one true path because that is the path God intended for us?"  All of the students now wanted to ask questions and become involved in the discussion.  Just as in life, it only takes one drop of water to breach the dam and the rest will soon follow.

"No. The lessons of life can be equally learned along any of the paths that you walk.  Often, it is the wrong path that teaches us more and the wrong path can often reveal to us our true purpose and our right direction.  Every path has value and it is for the walker of that path to understand the lesson that is being taught.  Only when that lesson is understood can the walker move on towards their true path."

"What if I don't understand the lesson that is being shown to me?", asked another different voice.

"If you fail to understand a lesson that you must learn in order to progress and evolve, then the universe will create the opportunity to teach it to you again and again, until finally you comprehend its meaning.  You could find yourself continuing to walk the path that you are on until that lesson is learned, or you might find that the same lesson is repeated on a different path.  When this happens, the lesson could wear a different guise, so that at first you do not recognise it when it appears, but the lesson will always carry with it the same meaning.  For some people, all of the lessons that they need to learn in life appear to them on their one true path.  Remember always, that the journey is different for every person." 

"How do you know if you are walking your one true path?", one of the students asked.

"How do you know that you have to breath?", asked the teacher in return.

"I - I just know it.", the student replied.  "I feel it and I do it without even thinking about it."

"Exactly.  And so it is with the one true path.  If you have to ask yourself the question, is this my one true path? then you cannot be walking your true path.  When you are on your right path, you will know it.  You will feel it from a place that is deep within you.  A place that you never knew existed before.  Love and happiness will permeate throughout your body, your soul and your mind, and it will flow outwards from you and it will pervade everything that you do."

"How do I find my one true path?"

"That is simple, you follow your heart.  I, like many others, hold the belief that the power of the universe resides within each of us in the form of our hearts.  That power can be called many things.  Whether you decide to name that power God or Allah, or any other name, it is one and the same thing.  The power of the universe is the force that creates.  It is the Creator.  Therefore, if you are following your heart, you are also doing that which the universe intended for you.  Your heart will always lead you in the right direction, even if you are not conscious of what it is doing.  Your heart will seek out that which you need and it will bring it to you.  Only you can decide whether or not you wish to see it, to see the opportunity that has been placed before you, and to accept the love that is being offered to you."

"If God is in our hearts, does that mean that he is not in Heaven and that there is no such thing as Heaven?", the student seemed concerned about this.

"No.  I believe that Heaven and Hell exist as concepts.  Imagine leading a life where you are never at peace with yourself, where you feel a sadness inside, you feel unfilled and empty, you yearn to do something different but you cannot, you feel fear, you feel resentment towards others that have achieved their dreams in life, you do not experience the power of love, and you harbour regrets about the things that you have not done.  That for me would be a living hell.  Now imagine the opposite.  You feel happy and content with life, you do not live with fear, you view each day as an opportunity, you carry no regrets, you feel a happiness that permeates throughout your body and soul, you express love because you feel love from the inside of your core, and you see the good in every one and every thing.  That would encapsulate the spirit and meaning of Heaven."

"Where do I begin to find my one true path?"

"You take a moment and steel yourself.  You take a deep breath.  You find the courage in you heart.  And you take the first step into the dark abyss of the unknown that awaits you."

"But what if I don't know in which direction to walk?"

"Imagine that you are walking in a large forest and that you have become lost.  How would you find your way home?  You would try each path in turn until you discovered the one that was right, until you found the one that led you back home.  It is the same with the one true path.  To seek, is to try.  To try, is to walk.  And to walk, is everything.  All that matters is that you take the first step and then another.  You must begin to walk.  If you do not walk, then there you have no chance to discover the direction that is the right one for you.  By walking, you will eventually find the one true path, even if you have to walk several paths before you find it.  Each of those paths will teach you something and prepare you for all that is to come."

"Why are some people more fortunate than others and seem to find their path easily?"

"How do you know that these people are more fortunate than any other person?  That is only the way in which you might perceive them because now that they walk their one true path, they always appear to be happy to you.  You do not know the battles that they have faced to get to where they are.  You do not know the battles that still lay in wait for them along their path.  You do not know of the struggles that they have needed to overcome and the nights when utter despair and torment took them.  Never judge one person against another.  Remember that each of our path's is different and that sometimes the greatest stories of heroism in life remain forever untold."

"What if I keep trying different paths and I never find the one that is right for me?"

"Then you are not walking with your eyes open to the simple and plain truth.  The universe is always attempting to reveal to each of us our one true path.  It will manifest it before you on many occasions until you acknowledge it and until you begin to walk along it.  And the universe will continue to do this until that moment when you draw your last and final breath.  If you are not finding the path that is the right one for you, then it is simply because you look but you do not see.  It might be that you believe yourself to be undeserving of the one true path, because that is the path of light."

"You have talked about the path of light and you said that the light will always shine on those that walk their one true path.  What do you mean by the light?"

"The light is the glow of love that basks us in all of its glory, when we discover our true purpose in life and when we walk the one true path.  The love that we feel is generated at the centre of the universe and is freely available to all those who wish to receive it.  Not every person understands that love is not conditional on another person and that love is readily available, if they would just reach out their hand and take it."

"Why is that?  If this love is freely available to all people, then why wouldn't they wish to receive it?"

"Simply because they believe that they are undeserving of receiving such a love."

"What makes us think that we are undeserving of receiving love?"

"There are many factors that influence us, but in most cases, it is because of the way we were raised as children or because of some traumatic episode that occurred when we were young.  As children, we are very impressionable, so if our parents do not give to us the amount of love and attention that we need, our minds are impregnated with the thought that we must be undeserving of their love.  We plant the seed of that thought at the very core of our being.  Each time something happens to us that reinforces the belief that we are undeserving of love, we water the seed and it begins to grow.  Eventually, it eclipses our true soul and it becomes the way in which we think of ourselves.  From the point that this happens, we will always believe that we are undeserving of love."

"Then why don't all parents love their children in the way that they need?  Then every person would feel that they deserved love."

"Let me ask you this in return, how do you know how much love another soul requires to quench its thirst?"

The student looked abashed and stared at the ground for a few moments, then answered, "I would give as much love to my child as I was able to give."

"Quite right, and that is all that you can do."  The teacher smiled at the student to give reassurance.  After all, what good is a student who stops listening because he believes that he has made a mistake and feels embarrassed in front of his peers?  In life, there are no stupid questions, since without the questions we can never learn and we can never evolve.  "Many parents give as much love as they are able, but through the demands of modern life, the amount of time they are able to give is not enough for the child.  It is not their fault.  That faults lies with society and the way we are being conditioned to live.  There are some parents that fall into the trap of thinking that if they provide a comfortable home and fill it with rich material possessions, and give to their child every thing that it demands, that they are creating a loving and nurturing environment.  This is not true.  If it were, then all children born into poor homes would be loveless, which is certainly not the case.  So, these parents work long hours and prioritise work and careers over time spent with their children, in their misguided beliefs and they fail to understand until it is too late, that time with your child cannot be purchased at any price because that is the most precious thing of all.  And it is time spent with your child that provides the child with everything that it needs.  Because all a child really needs is to feel loved.

Silence fell over the garden.  Only the gentle hum of the bees and the songs of summer birds in the trees interrupted the quiet.  It felt like perhaps the class was over, until one of the students, raised their hand and asked, "Why is there so much evil in the world?"

"What is evil?  Evil is a word created to describe something that goes against the morals that you believe in.  Let me tell you a short story.  There was once a small uninhabited island in the middle of the ocean.  This island was equally as close to two different nations and each of those nations made a claim to the island.  The politicians of each nation talked and negotiated with each other but they were never able to reach an agreement.  Eventually, each of the nations declared war on the other.  The politicians of each side told the people of their nation that the people of the other nation they were now at war against, were all perpetrators of evil.  All of the soldiers who fought in this war firmly believed that they had the just and the right cause and many of them died for that cause.  Prayers were offered by each nation to the same god, appealing for the god to help them, to protect them and to help them win, since it was they who fought for the just cause.  Each side captured some of the other side's soldiers and when they met them and spoke with them, they discovered that they were in fact no different from themselves.  They too had exactly the same needs and wants in life, and they too had been told that the other nation was a nation of evil.  In the end, the politicians agreed to share the island, something that had been discussed before the war started and had been rejected, since neither side wished to look weak and lose face to the other.  So you see, to decide what is evil in this world, it really depends on your own personal point of view and in those things in which you believe.  The only real evil in the story was that of the politicians because through their reluctance to reach an agreement and to negotiate a peaceful solution in the beginning, they showed a total disregard for the price of a human life and they cost the lives of many innocent people.  And what is the price you can put on the miracle of life?"

"But there is so much bad that happens in the world.  If there is a supreme power, why does it allow so many bad things to continue to happen?"

"Every person has his or her own path to walk in life.  You can regard those paths as threads in the weave of all of the universe and all of life.  If you look at a tapestry that hangs on the wall, what do you see?  You see many different threads all interweaving to create one single, coherent picture.  To create the picture, each thread must have a different colour, each thread is but one part of the entire story.  And so it is with life.  All of the paths that are walked interweave to create everything that we see around us.  Every person walks a different path.  Every person needs to learn in order to evolve their spirit.  Some of the lessons of life are learned by the need to do good and some of those lessons are learned by the need to do bad.  In order for us to perceive the good, we need to have a notion of what is bad.  Therefore, good and bad must be created in equal measure.  The balance must always be maintained.  In this universe there is matter and anti-matter, and just as the Chinese have their ying and the yang, so there is the good and there is the bad."

"So you are saying that there will always be people who must do bad things?"

"Yes.  Gradually, the collective spirit of humanity will evolve.  What you think of as bad now will no longer be true.  History has shown us that slowly we are evolving as a race.  Many of the things that we might have considered at one time to be bad have been slowly eradicated.  For example, slavery, racism and sexism.  Societies are working towards equality and freedom for all.  And slowly all of society evolves and moves forward towards the good.  But the target is always moving and it is always changing, since societies are constantly redefining it.  What was once accepted as normal is now abhorred.  Without the need to regard something as bad, it could not have been eradicated.  Humanity would cease to evolve its spiritual collective. And that is why there will always be bad things that happen in this world, because humanity must continue along its path of spiritual evolution, spiritual growth and learning."

"But humanity is destroying so much life and the planet in the process.  Why is that allowed to happen?"

"There is a lesson that must being learned by all of humanity.  Humanity needs to understand that is does not hold dominion over life or over this planet.  It is life that holds dominion over everything.  The lesson might unfortunately be learned at a very high cost, but it will be learned by the last of us.  In the very moment when all is lost, enlightenment will be found and the lesson will be understood.  It might be too late for humanity, but life will continue because life cannot be denied.  It has always been this way and it will continue to be this way, until everything has reached its point of ultimate evolution."    

"Does everything evolve?"

"Yes.  Every single thing in the universe follows its own path.  The air that you are breathing.  The blade of grass in this lawn.  The bird in the tree.  The fish in the ocean.   The pebble at the beach.  The moon and the sun.  Each of you.  Me.  In fact, the entire universe is in a constant state of evolution.  All things came from the one thing only.  And so, all things are seeking to return to that one thing.  That is their destiny.  That is where the paths on which they walk will lead them."

"What is the one thing?", many different voices asked, as all of the students were eager to know this.

"The one thing is love."

The teacher stood and the students knew without asking that the discussion was ended.  Each walked away in silence, lost in their own thoughts, contemplating all that had been said.   There was much to consider.

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