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Right Vision Comes from Within
There was once a king who ruled over a vast land. He had almost everything and seemed to be happy, except for one problem. He had a persistent stomach ache. He searched everywhere for a cure, consulting the best doctors in the land and following all treatments faithfully, but nothing worked. Then one day the king came across a wandering holy man who gave him advice. “Your stomach ache will cease if you limit yourself to only seeing the color pink.” The king dedicated himself to the treatment. He instructed all the painters in the land to paint everything pink. Months went by and the kingdom was taking on a peculiar pink tint. Everything was painted: buildings, trees, and animals, even the ground and people. What an extraordinary sight!
The king was busy with this Herculean task when one day he again came upon the holy man. The king proudly showed off his accomplishments, but lamented that his stomach was still aching. The holy man replied, “How can you expect to see only pink if you direct your aention outward? You can never change everything in the outer world to a pink color. The only way to accomplish this feat is to change yourself. It would be very simple if you only wore pink colored glasses. To accomplish the cure, you must change the way you see the world (sense control and turning our vision inward to God), not change the world to the way you want to see it.”
Perhaps we can understand this teaching by a simple experiment. If I close my eyes and imagine myself blind from this moment on, never to see green swaying trees, cool blue lakes, graceful swooping birds, multicolored flowers, or the blazing sun, how sad I would feel. Upon opening my eyes I see the wonder of God’s creation and am filled with happiness. It is not a desire for objects that brings happiness; rather it is bliss that comes with awareness. Broad vision means being aware of the glorious fundamental miracle of existence and awareness, and being immersed in the bliss of this vision. All objects should
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