Inner truth: Lesson From Ganges

Each morning before sunrise, I walked to the bank of Mother Ganges and looked out into her swift current. She was perhaps a hundred yards wide at this spot, her riverbank covered with soft, silvery sand. Like ornaments, rocks ranging from tiny pebbles to boulders of thousands of pounds lined her banks. Feeling unworthy of the treasures I sought, I felt a desperate need for purification. I begged my Lord for direction.

Then and there I resolved that for one month I would sit in silence and prayer from sunrise to sunset. Spread out around me on all sides was Mother Ganges in her winter dress of sparkling, undulating aqua. As I sat on that rock, I imagined that watching the flow of the river was like watching the passing of life. If one is inside the river, one is greatly affected by it, but if one sits on the bank, one can observe it with detachment. Slavery and freedom, war and peace, political conquest and defeat, like the seasons they have all come and gone. Through it all, timeless Mother Ganges patiently flows toward the sea. Truth, too, is unchanging. Whatever may happen in this world, however dramatic, cannot disturb the flow of the One Spiritual Truth.

The author is a spiritual guide.