I CAN SLEEP WHEN THE WINDS BLOW!
Years ago, a farmer owned land along the Atlantic seacoast. He constantly advertised for hired hands. Most people were reluctant to work on farms along the Atlantic. They dreaded the awful storms that raged across the Atlantic, wreaking havoc on the buildings and crops. As the farmer interviewed applicants for the job, he received A steady stream of refusals. Finally, a short, thin man, well past middle age, approached the farmer. "Are you a good farm hand?" the farmer asked him. "Well, I can sleep when the wind blows," answered the little man. Although puzzled by this answer, the farmer, desperate for help, hired him. The little man worked well around the farm, busy from dawn to dusk, and the farmer felt satisfied with the man's work. Then one night the wind howled loudly in from offshore. Jumping out of bed, the farmer grabbed a lantern and rushed next door to the hired hand's sleeping quarters. He shook the little man and yelled, "Get up! A storm is coming! Tie things down before they blow away!" The little man rolled over in bed and said firmly, "No sir. I told you, I can sleep when the wind blows." Enraged by the response, the farmer was tempted to fire him on the spot. Instead, he hurried outside to prepare for the storm. To his amazement, he discovered that all of the haystacks had been covered with tarpaulins. The cows were in the barn, the chickens were in the coops, and the doors were barred. The shutters were tightly secured. Everything was tied down. Nothing could blow away. The farmer then understood what his hired hand meant, so he returned to his bed to also sleep while the wind blew! This seemingly simple story touches upon some of the deepest spiritual aspects that one embraces on the journey to Self and yet it shows how the culmination of any spiritual seeking is living these truths - shorn of their intellectual understanding- in simple practical day to day ways! Moreover, many think spiritual growth & evolution takes one to a state of being that is beyond problems or challenges! This story however gently points out that ‘seeming’ outer storms & 'challenges' will appear time to time even when deep on the path - they will come and go as they must as its part of the duality experience- but as we increasingly establish in Self, we will be at rest within and thus external situatations or problems don’t affect our equanimity! Indeed only by remaining unaffected by external issues- do they become ‘non existent’! At a deeper glance the story shows how we move into a phase of being where the two states (problems & handling them well) begin to blur and ultimately dissolve. As we establish in Self these are not two different states a) The storm (problems) b) And its after calm (handling the situation)! Indeed there is one seamless state of equanimity: if you observe – for the farm worker in the story there was no storm! The 2 states of a storm and its passing or being handled were for the farm owner only. You can call this complete empowerment and its surrender; you can call it centering; you can call it the state I refer to 'it is it is'- where one moves into state of being beyond the labels of good/happy and bad/painful; you can call it living in the Now; you can call it being the witness- established in Self - thus viewing the cosmic game for what it is - a play of consciousness!
Divyaa Kummar
www.divyaakummar.com | 
