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Tuesday, July 29, 2008

The tramp: “What is enlightenment like?”


The tramp
“What is enlightenment like?”

“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.


Awareness

Anthony de Mello

Stubbornness


Stubbornness



“Henry, how you've changed!
You were so tall and you've grown so short.
You were so well built and you've grown so thin.
You were so fair and you've become so dark.
What happened to you, Henry?”
Henry says, “I'm not Henry. I'm John.”
“Oh, you changed your name too!”

How do you get people like that to listen?

The most difficult thing in the world is to listen, to see. We don't want to see.

Awareness

Anthony de Mello

Johnny, the mentally retarded


Johnny, the mentally retarded

There's the story of little Johnny who, they say, was mentally retarded. But evidently he wasn't, as you'll learn from this story. Johnny goes to modelling class in his school for special children and he gets his piece of putty and he's modelling it. He takes a little lump of putty and goes to a corner of the room and he's playing with it. The teacher comes up to him and says, "Hi, Johnny." And Johnny says, "Hi." And the teacher says, "What's that you've got in your hand?" And Johnny says, "This is a lump of cow dung." The teacher asks, "What are you making out of it?" He says, "I'm making a teacher." The teacher thought, "Little Johnny has regressed." So she calls out to the principal, who was passing by the door at that moment, and says, "Johnny has regressed." So the principal goes up to Johnny and says, "Hi, son." And Johnny says, "Hi." And the principal says, "What do you have in your hand?" And he says, "A lump of cow dung." "What are you making out of it?" And he says, "A principal." The principal thinks that this is a case for the school psychologist. "Send for the psychologist!" The psychologist is a clever guy. He goes up and says, "Hi." And Johnny says, "Hi." And the psychologist says, "I know what you've got in your hand." "What?" "A lump cow dung." Johnny says, "Right." "And I know what you're making out of it." "What?" "You're making a psychologist." "Wrong. Not enough cow dung!" And they called him mentally retarded!


Awareness

Anthony de Mello