Some years ago a successful man had a serious identity crisis. He sought help from psychiatrists but nothing came of it, for there were none who could tell him the meaning of life - which is what he wanted to know.
By and by he learned of a venerable and incredibly wise guru who lived in a mysterious and most inaccessible region of the Himalayas. Only that guru, he came to believe, would tell him what life meant and what his role in it ought to be. So he sold all his worldly possessions and began his search for the all-knowing guru.
He spent eight years wandering from village to village throughout the Himalayas in an effort to find him. And then one day he chanced upon a shepherd who told him where the guru lived and how to reach the place.
It took him almost a year to find him, but he eventually did. There he came upon his guru, who was indeed venerable, in fact well over one hundred years old. The guru consented to help him, especially when he learned of all the sacrifices the man had made towards this end.
“What can I do for you, my son?” asked the guru.
“I need to know the meaning of life,” said the man.
To this the guru replied, without hesitation, “Life,” he said, “is a river without end.”
“A river without end?” said the man in a startled surprise. “After coming all this way to find you, all you have to tell me is that life is a river without end?”
The guru was shaken, shocked. He became very angry and he said, “You mean it is not?”
The moral of the story:
The first thing to remember if you want to know what life is, is: never seek it without, never try to find out from somebody else. Nobody can give, nor tell you the meaning of life. The meaning cannot be transferred that way. The greatest masters have never said anything about life - they have always thrown you back upon yourself. Nobody, except you, can come upon it. Only in living your life will the mystery be revealed to you.
Life is already there bubbling within you. Don’t seek life anywhere else. Don’t seek it in scriptures, don’t seek it in clever explanations. Live well, and in so doing, you will find the meaning of life.
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