A Place Where Heart and Soul Meet

In this meditation, we are going to look at the totality of our life—the path that we have chosen for ourselves, including the priorities that others have imposed on us.
We are going to revisit our childhood--a time of our life when we felt like skipping school and spending all the time playing with our friends.
Listen to the words of our parents and teachers.
What are they telling us?
You have to work hard.
You have to be ahead of everyone else in whatever you do.
We are listening to two messages--one coming from our heart and the other from our parents and teachers, and we don’t know what to do.

We have just finished high school.
How do we feel?
Let us revisit our dreams about how we wanted the whole world to stop and take note of us.
Did anyone care?

Now we are going to college.
Again we hear similar messages that we have heard before: achievement, competition, and the need to get ahead.

We just finished college. How do we feel?
Now we are in our first job.
There are pressures to succeed and to prove our ability.

If we are married now, revisit the early years of our married life.
If we are single, what is going on in our life?

One day, the boss calls us. He is very impressed by our work.
“I think you have a great future in this organization,” he says.
“I want to show you something that you have not seen yet.”
He presses a button and a wall opens up and you see a ladder.
“This is the corporate ladder and I want you to climb it.”

We are hesitant but we have learned by now to obey all orders.
We start climbing the ladder, one step at a time.
We are climbing and the view of the world around us is getting better.
We can see clearly that we are much ahead of our peers.
But we are getting tired and old.

We miss the love and care of our family.
There is an artificial community here. We call it team or teamwork.
Other people are also busy climbing the ladder and they don’t have much real time to spend with us.
Finally, we see the end of the ladder.

We are happy that it is going to be over soon.
We reach the last rung of the ladder and we throw ourselves into a chair and instantly fall asleep.
Suddenly, someone shakes us and we get up frightened and confused.
“You are sleeping while others are passing you by. Did you think you reached the end of the ladder?”
“Yes, I did. The ladder ended here,” we protest.
“You are sadly mistaken.”
The boss takes a remote control from his pocket, and the wall opens again and we see a new ladder.

We reach deep within ourselves and pose the question: What should I do now?
I don’t want to climb a ladder anymore.
There is nothing more for me on this ladder.

We get an answer:
If we look carefully, there is a path in front of us. We can take that path.
We listen to our heart.
We take this path.
There is much more light on this path and many more people – there is a whole community over there.
We enter a garden where all our loved ones are waiting for us.
They hug and embrace us.
Now we are walking with them, holding the hand of our dearest companion.
We still need to work, but work is not the only thing that matters.
And work is not just a pile of ladders; it is a place that provides us with a creative space; that make us contribute to the wellbeing of our fellow human beings.
This is a place where our heart and soul meet.

Copyright © Surinder Deol 2006.