A Lesson from the Spirit

The Spirit sat on a rock in the middle of a mountain stream. It was very hot, the sun high, and the water in the river cool and pleasant.
“What are we doing here?”
“In summer heat it can be tiring, yes? Sometimes you want a refreshing coolness.”
“True. What is the lesson?”
“You are used to going forward blind, following a route you often do not want to take, resisting it. From that rejection of the route, that rejection of yourself, a heat rises — a state of irritability, a state of aggression toward yourself, toward loved ones, toward others.
You often begin to lose your temper over various causes and for no cause at all. You keep walking into that heat, increasing the temperature with every step, heating up all the space around you with each step, heating it with your irritation, with your non-acceptance, with your denial and unwillingness. But if you come to a mountain stream, if you stop, put your feet into the cool water, sit and think, see yourself in your soul, see and cry out for help, for understanding, for awareness and insight, then that understanding, that insight, that illumination will begin to appear on your path as a light cool breeze that calms you, tames your ardor, and gives you new ways of knowing yourself, new ways of following.
Negative emotions, irritation, will not give you coolness — you will walk dragging all that baggage behind you, and in the end you will destroy yourself.
Sometimes stopping does not mean slowing your journey. Sometimes stopping is the only right decision. Do not be afraid to feel yourself, do not be afraid to listen to yourself.
Find harmony within yourself and go without fears and doubts, in full trust in yourself and in the Divine light filling you. So be it.