Illusions by Richard Bach
This is a short parable from the beginning of Richards Bach’s Illusions [Illusions](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/sim-explorer/explore-items/-/0440204887/0/101/1/none/purchase/ref%3Dpd%5Fsxp%5Fr0/002-0866658-8621634)
Makes excellent reading, even though I’d read it earlier.
[In a Time not so Long Ago](http://yearightproductions.com/home/short_story_from_illusions.htm)
Excerpt…
And he said unto them, “If a man told God that he wanted most of all to help the suffering world, no matter the price to himself, and God answered and told him what he must do, should the man do as he is told?â€
“Of course Master!†cried the many. “It should be pleasure for him to suffer the tortures of hell itself, should God ask it!â€
“No matter what these tortures, nor how difficult the task?â€
“Honor to be hanged, glory to be nailed to a tree and burned, if so be that God has
asked, “â€said they.
“And what would you do, “ the Master said unto the multitude, “if God spoke directly to your face and said, ‘I COMMAND THAT YOU BE HAPPY IN THE WORLD AS LONG AS YOU LIVE.’ What would you do then?â€
And the multitude was silent, not a voice not a sound was heard upon the hillsides, across the valleys where they stood.
And the Master said unto the silence, “In the path of our happiness shall we find the learning for which we have chosen this lifetime. So it is that I have learned this day, and choose to leave you now to walk your own path, as you please.
IMO, Bach’s point seems to be: for one to attempt to serve the world, make others happy, etc – one must start with oneself being truly happy!
Heh, and I thought it was I who came with this theory… So much for my genious. 🙂
On a serious note, this a good theory. Happy people tend to spread happyness around them. People want to be and often choose to be around happy people. I guess that increases the overall happiness of the world. The opposite is true. Seeing (or knowing that) someone suffering – who can that make ANYONE happier?
Well several of Bach’s readers in some online forums [and also my own experience as well] – say that they can identify their own exact thoughts in his books. Sometimes we think things that may seem to be absurd, but then seeing the same thing in a book kind of gives it a bit more validation and encouragement …so I’d say it remains your theory 😉 A lot of (good) writers maintain that they only remind the reader of what the reader *already* knows! 🙂
Hey, does anyone know the quote on thejacket of the hard-cover?
I just have the soft-cover now…
something to the effect of, ‘Find what you most want to do and do it no matter what.”
thanks!
The link is no longer working, so found the main part of the parable (preface to the book) on the net…
Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. The current of the river swept silently over them all–young and old, rich and poor, good and evil, the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self.
Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth. But one creature said at last, “I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom.”
The other creatures laughed and said, “Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks and you will die quicker than boredom!” But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.
Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more. And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, “See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all!”
And the one carried in the current said, “I am no more Messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure.” But they cried the more, “Savior!” all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone making legends of a Savior.
© Richard Bach
@Mike: Maybe you’ve found it already but there’s a similar quote by Buddha who says: “Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it. “