Daily Meditation: Tuesday, February 22, 2000

Suppose I walk into a house in the middle of …

02/22/2000

Suppose I walk into a house in the middle of winter. Everything is closed, the doors and windows are tightly shut. The air is foul-smelling, because to save fuel the animals have also been allowed in: the cat, the dog, the horse, and even the pig! The inhabitants are completely befuddled from living in this atmosphere. What should I do? If I explain to them that they live in an unhealthy atmosphere, there would be endless discussion, and I would be wasting my time. So I take a different approach and invite them to come for a walk with me. We walk in the fresh air for a half hour, or an hour, and then return. When they open the door it is they who exclaim loudly and ask themselves how they could possibly have existed in such an atmosphere – that is to say, since all this is symbolic, how they could have put up with such a philosophy, with such points of view. Without any explanation from me it was they themselves who understood, because they immediately experienced the difference, they made the comparison. Perhaps when they went out they did not fully realize how good it was to breathe fresh air, but on their return when they suffocated, then they understood.