Ocean of Knowledge in a pot of water

A seeker went to a master one day and begged him to enlighten him. "I am obsessed with seeking out God. I can neither rest, work nor be at peace. Can you help me find God?" The master gazed far away with half-closed eyes for a while, and said slowly, "Go with a pot to the ocean in the mornings, gather some water in it and, sitting on the sands, meditate for some time before beginning your day's chores".

Thanking the master, the seeker immediately bought a pot and eagerly went to the ocean near his house. He filled the pot with seawater and sat down on the beach. On what should he meditate, he wondered. He had tried many supposedly potent verses and powerful mantras earlier, to no effect.

The master had, however, not given any special mantra. Just relax, he had said. Meditate and relax! The two seemed to him a little contradictory. Meditating, to him, meant concentration and action, and relaxing meant idling and letting go. He thought over this dichotomy for some time but suddenly remembered an important chore. He poured the water back on the sand as he had been told to do, and hurried home.

Contradiction notwithstanding, he somehow felt a little soothed and relaxed. He even felt a tad energised. So he went again the next morning, and every morning thereafter. Now this became his routine. Every day, he felt a little better and even learnt to relax fairly well. Repeatedly, the contradiction between relaxation and concentration presented itself to him and each time he slipped a little deeper in its grips. He was not aware that, unknown to him, the cogitation itself had become a mantra.Effortless, unwavering, natural, a relaxed concentration.

The seeker looked meditatively at the ocean that stretched far to the horizon, almost endless. Now it surrounded him too and encompassed him. He looked at the water in the pot. That water too came from the ocean, and although a minuscule part of it, it was the very same. One was vast and infinite, and the other, a tiny part of it. One was called the ocean, and the other, a pot of water. But the contents were the same. The difference was in the measure. The infinite sustained a multitude of life, even untold filth, all turbulence, and yet, a deep silence and calm beneath. The ocean itself was not affected by any of this. It remained pure and clear within itself, full of energy and dancing with joy.

Suddenly it hit him, This is God! Vast, endless, pure and knowledgeable, engulfing everything, including himself. Only, instead of water, now it was Consciousness. Immaculate and crystal clear, despite all the festering scum of anger, violence, hatred, prejudice generated by the murky mind.

The seeker poured the water back into the sea. It disappeared in the lapping waves and became one with the sea again. The seeker saw that he, too, was part of that vast ocean of Consciousness, had merged in it and become Consciousness itself, infinite, eternal, pure, sheer joy, and knowledge.

He was in every atom, every cell, in every individual. His persona was micro and macro, the Entirety. He was here and he was everywhere. He was the past, the present and the future. He was the elements of the universe. He was time and he was space. He was knowledge incarnate.