I came across this piece of writing in a book by Byron Katie, it was a gift from a good friend some years ago. It’s always hard to say how a book calls you, and I do know they call me. So, I turned to this page and realized it was the perfect message at this moment. I chose to share it on the chance that you, too, may connect with it.
“The awakened mind is like water. It flows where it flows, envelops all things in its path, doesn’t try to change anything, yet in its steadiness all things change. It goes in and out, around and over, above and below, and without meaning to, it penetrates wherever it can. It delights in its own movement and in everything that allows or doesn’t allow it. And eventually everything allows it.
An old friend perceives me as unkind. He has all the proof. And though I am not the person he knew twenty-five or thirty years ago, he must continue to project his experiences of the old me onto the woman in front of him now. For the last twenty years he has continued to meet that woman of his thoughts, yet the woman of today is like water. I don’t move back, I don’t avoid, I don’t attempt to change his mind, I don’t defend or qualify, I listen to him as a student while he tells his story of me, I continue to flow in and out, over and under and around, always listening, looking into his eyes, and loving him. And today, for the first time, I noticed that when he talked about me he seemed lighthearted and trusting. As we walked to the park, he took my hand. We sat under a tree, and he told me what was going on in his inner life. It was such an intimate conversation. He seemed to have caught up to me, as if he were seeing and responding to something other than his old projection. It was as if I were watching myself reborn in him, and he was sitting with someone we both knew: a friend. I got to hear about his sorrow and his happiness, rather than about the woman who didn’t exist, the one who had caused his problems. There was a lot to laugh about this time, and I sat with two of us who were like water, flowing together, joined as one. It wasn’t the water that had changed, it was the rock. And in that change, the water continues to flow.
The Master has given up helping because she knows there is no one to help. And since she loves and understands her own nature, she realizes that in every action she is serving herself and sitting at her own feet. So there is nothing she gives that she doesn’t receive in the same motion, as the same internal experience. Even when she appears not to give, that is what she is giving. The Master is the woman who dented your car, the man who stepped in front of you on line at the supermarket the old friend who accused you of being selfish and unkind. Do you love the Master yet? There’s no peace until you do. This is your work, the only work, the work of the Master.”