A Soulful Journey

A stranger finds a man on his hands and knees under a street lamp in front of his house. He asks what he's doing there. The man replied he's looking for his keys and the stranger than gets down on his hands and knees to help.  After while the stranger asks, "Where did you drop them?"   "In my house,"he says.   "Then why are you looking out here?"   "Because it is dark in the house."  There are times when, seeking to avoid pain or difficulties, we look for enlightenment where it cannot be found.

“Some people want to recognize God only in some pleasant enlightenment - and then they get pleasure and enlightenment, but not God.”   -Meister Eckhart, 13 th Century

A certain Rabbi Isaac, legend tells us, living in a remote village, dreamt that he was to look for a great treasure beneath a bridge in the capital city.  He immediately went to he bridge but its base was guarded by soldiers day and night.  Rabbi Isaac visited the site day after day looking and wondering.  Finally the Captain of the Guard asked him why he was spending so much time in the vicinity,.  Rabbi Isaac described the dream that had led him to the bridge.  The Captain of the Guard laughed and said, “I too had a dream.  My dream was of a treasure hidden beneath the oven of the house of a particular Jew named Rabbi Isaac in such and such a village.”  Isaac immediately returned home and dug up the treasure, beneath his oven.  – Rabbi Joseph Heckelman It is not in heaven, that you should say, "Who will go up to heaven for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?" N or is it b...