The Still Pond

 

It was true he had committed more sins than most people.

But that was all a long time ago. He had given himself three mental breakdowns trying to deal with the guilt and shame, and even induced one state of catatonia, when he would not respond to anyone with even an eye movement, for three months, and most doctors said he was beyond recovering. But he had. And it was now five years since he had been released from his prison sentence.

 

Inside, he had found God. Or at least some higher being or power that he called God. He had been working in the prison library, mopping the floor, when his shoulder had knocked against one of the shelves and a book dropped down next to him. It was a bright green colour and had a strange picture in the middle of it, a sign made up of strange foreign symbols. He had picked it up and looked at the writing on the cover- The Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu.

He took it back to his room and read it, and over the following days something within that ancient Chinese text stirred something deep within his soul.  He would read one page in the morning, or at times even just ten lines of a page, and would spend the rest of the day ruminating, and meditating, on the meaning of those words. For within the words, if he repeated them often enough, and fixated on them enough, he found in them a strange, almost ethereal magic. Some sort of a truth. And that truth, to him, was that there was some higher universal power, an energy which the book kept calling, tao.

And he started to feel that tao all around him, even in his prison cell.

He had gone on to read the Bible cover to cover, and the Quran, and the Bhagavad Gita, and then some spiritual philosophers like Tolstoy and Jung, and countless Indian mystics. But it was always the Tao that he came back to.

 

He strolled along the vacant path, between the high reeds, until he came to the pond. And he sat on the bench and looked out over it. The sky was grey. Not a breath of wind stirred the air. The water was like glass. And everything was silent. He kept his back straight and closed his eyes as he inwardly chanted the word Aum, and went deep into himself. So deep that whatever was him did not really exist. And there was a great peace and stillness. And there was the point where all that mattered was.

 

He opened his eyes and looked out over the pond. He allowed his thoughts to drift back into the past a little, only to reflect and to learn from it. He sighed wearily. He knew his actions had been unnatural, against the universe’s way. He knew that his former aggressive and violent acts had been him straying too far from the way. He had got too caught up in his head, in his ego and selfishness.

Back then he didn't know that he was really nothing at all. Nothing but perhaps a soul. An empty soul vessel in which thoughts happened to pop into.

 

His roaming eyes landed and rested on a lone blue iris flower, its thin green stalk standing upright in the water. Its petals and stalk were rigid. Perfectly still. As if it were sleeping, or even dead. He considered that the flower would not stir to life, or even have become alive in the first place, if not for the wind. And just like that flower, he now knew that he also was interdependent on, and with, everything else in life. Well, better learned later than never, he supposed.

He had tried to do all he could to be forgiven by the families. He had written to each and every one in prison, apologising profusely in long drawn-out tear-dampened letters. He would have given them all his possessions if he had any. Alas, he did not have any. But, he had eventually reasoned, that person in the past was not the person that he was now. He could not think of anything else he could do that he had not already done. His forgiveness now, was within himself, and would only come from working to be at one with his mind, at one with the energy of life, and at one and at home in nature.

 

Presently, a few raindrops landed upon the pond, sending ripples reverberating out to the edges. He felt another one drop onto his head. Before long, what had formerly been silent, was alive with the noise of fresh running water.

And then he felt the faintest breeze brush against his cheek, and saw the little blue iris waving gently on its stem. He stood up, on his bare feet, and walked back along the empty path. He walked off the path and carried on, up towards the mountain.