“Man is offered the path of good and the path of pleasure.” — The Upanishads
This morning, I sat quietly beneath the warmth of the sun with the words of the Upanishads resting gently before me.
One sentence rose from the page and refused to leave.
‘Man is offered the path of good and the path of pleasure’
I have walked the path of pleasure. Not only in the obvious ways. Not simply through possessions, ambition, laughter, or the pursuit of success.
But through the subtle pleasures as well—the desire to be recognized, the need to accomplish, the constant movement toward the next achievement.
There is nothing inherently wrong with these things.
Yet somewhere along the journey, they quietly convinced me that fulfillment existed outside of myself.
As I continued reading, another image entered my mind. There was a whisper of something entirely different.
A single droplet of water. Separated from the ocean.
For a moment I found myself thinking not about water, but about humanity.
How often do we separate ourselves from one another?
Families.
Neighbours.
Coworkers.
Communities.
Entire nations.
Sometimes because of belief.
Sometimes because of politics.
Sometimes because of fear.
Sometimes for reasons we can no longer even remember.
We create distance where none truly exists.
We judge without understanding.
We divide without knowing.
Perhaps ignorance is nothing more than forgetting that we were never separate to begin with.
The droplet believes itself to be alone.
Yet every part of its being is still the ocean.
As I sat with that thought, something inside me became very still.
My attention drifted toward the small fountain in my garden.
I also heard everything else.
A crow calling in the distance. A neighbour speaking.
The steady movement of traffic beyond the trees.
The ordinary soundtrack of an ordinary morning in the city.
Then something unexpected happened.
The sound of the fountain slowly gathered everything into itself.
The crow disappeared.
The traffic disappeared.
Even my own thoughts seemed to dissolve.
There was only water.
Not because the other sounds had ceased.
But because my awareness had changed.
It felt as though the droplet had returned to the ocean.
There was no struggle.
No effort.
Only presence.
Then I heard something else.
An airplane.
Immediately I was transported back to childhood.
This wasn’t the first time the sky had spoken to me.
As a young boy, I remember sitting in the grass, pushing a small toy car through an imaginary world of my own making. Somewhere above me I heard the steady rhythm of a twin-engine airplane. I searched the sky but couldn’t see the actual plane. Staring into the vast blue sky there was a fullness and shift. Somthing far greater than an airplane filled my awareness. I didn’t have the words then, but I experienced a profound sense that I belonged to something infinitely larger than myself.
As a child, I simply received the moment.
As an adult, I spent decades trying to explain it.
This morning, while reading the Upanishads beside the sound of flowing water, I realized I no longer needed an explanation.
I only needed to remember.
This morning, decades later, I was captured by the sound of a plane as I looked up once again.
This time I saw the airplane.
Yet what moved me wasn’t the airplane itself.
It was the realization that somewhere along life’s journey, I had learned to see.
Not merely with my eyes.
But with something far deeper.
But with something far deeper.
For years I believed I was searching for knowledge.
Books.
Teachers.
Philosophy.
Psychology.
Science.
Religion.
Martial arts.
Each became another step along the path.
And like many seekers before me, there were moments when I quietly believed I had arrived.
How subtle and tricky the ego can be.
It convinces us that accumulating knowledge is the same as awakening.
Yet standing before the infinite, even the greatest human knowledge becomes like a single shell resting on the shore of an endless sea.
The ocean never ends. The Mystery never ends …..and neither does the Soul.
Perhaps that is what I was truly experiencing.
Not an understanding of life. But an awareness that life itself cannot be fully understood.
Only entered.
Only lived.
Only surrendered to.
There is a strange freedom in admitting that no word can contain what the heart already knows.
As I sit here now at my keyboard trying to translate this experience into language, I realize every sentence falls short.
Words point – but they cannot contain.
Perhaps that is why the great teachers so often taught through silence.
Through rivers.
Mountains.
Birds.
Wind.
And water.
There was one final realization before I rose from my chair.
In years past, when moments like this found me, I often tried to hold onto them.
I wanted them to remain.
I feared their passing.
When they faded, frustration quietly followed.
I now understand why.
I believed these moments came and went.
Today I see something different.
They never left.
I did.
Each time I returned to distraction…
to busyness…
to the endless pursuit of pleasure…
I simply wandered away from what had always been waiting.
The ocean never abandoned the droplet.
The droplet only imagined it had become separate.
Perhaps that is the invitation the Upanishads have been extending for thousands of years.
Not to become something greater.
But to remember what has always been true.
To walk the path of good.
To return to presence.
To recognize ourselves in one another.
To understand that beneath every name, every title, every success, every failure, every fear…
there remains something infinite.
Something whole.
Something that neither begins nor ends.
Today I am simply grateful.
Not because I have found the answer.
But because, for a brief and beautiful moment, I remembered the question. And perhaps…this is where wisdom begins.