A story is the shortest distance between a human being and truth.
So this is the story.
There was a temple built on an island about two miles away from the mainland.
That's where the island stood.
And in that temple there were a thousand silver bells,
Large bells,
Small bells,
Bells made by the best craftsmen in the world.
And every time the wind blew or the storm raged,
The bells would peel out.
And it was said that anyone who heard those bells would be enraptured and would be taken into a deep experience of God.
Well,
As the centuries passed,
The island sank into the sea.
And with the island,
The temple,
And the bells.
But the tradition persisted that those bells now rang out continuously.
And if anyone had the gift of hearing them,
That person would still be transported into God.
Well,
A young man was inspired by this legend,
And he undertook a journey of hundreds of miles till he came to the spot opposite to which it was said that the temple had stood centuries ago.
He sat under a tree,
A large coconut tree,
And he began to strain to hear the sound of those bells.
But no matter what he did,
All he could hear was the roar of the waves as they splashed against the shore,
As they dashed against a nearby cliff.
And that irritated him because he tried his level best to push that sound out so that he would get into silence and hear the sound of those bells.
Well,
To no effect.
He tried for a week,
And for four weeks,
And for eight weeks,
And then it became three months.
Occasionally,
When he became discouraged,
He would hear the village elders at night talk about the tradition and about the people who had been given this grace,
And his heart would glow within him.
But he knew that a glowing heart was no substitute for hearing those bells.
Well,
After he had tried it out for six or eight months,
He decided to give it up.
Maybe the legend wasn't true,
Or maybe the grace was not meant for him.
He said goodbye to the people he was living with,
And then he went to the shore to say goodbye to that favorite coconut tree of his and the sky and the sea.
And as he sat there,
He began to listen to the sound of the waves.
Strange.
It wasn't a jarring sound.
He discovered for the first time that it was a soothing sound.
And it relaxed him,
And he became silent.
And as the silence went deeper and deeper,
Something happened.
He heard the tinkle of a little bell,
And he jumped up and thought,
I must be producing this.
I must be suggesting this to myself.
Once again,
He began to listen to the sound of the sea and relaxed and became silent.
And the silence became deeper,
And he heard it again,
The tinkle of a little bell.
And before he could jump up this time,
It was followed by another and another and another and another.
And soon he was hearing the glorious symphony of a thousand temple bells peeling out in unison.
And he was transported out of himself and was given the grace of being united with God.
The moral of the story is,
If you want to hear the sound of the bells,
Listen to the sound of the sea.
If you want to recognize the dancer,
Look at the dance.
If you want to hear the voice of the singer,
Listen to the song.
Look,
Listen.
Hopefully,
Someday it will be given to you to see and to recognize in silence.
