A Banyan Tree Parable on Moving Beyond the Mind

Instead of reading the stories here with you mind, perhaps listen to the song of the story and allow your soul to sing sovereignly along with it. Transcribed in West Bengal, India in October 2017. 

Few words were spoken under the majestic Banyan Tree.

The masters gathered beneath the shade of its branches and sat cross-legged, though their feet never touched the ground. 

Their linen shirt tails hovered above the soil as the canopy of leaves swung low in the shifting winds of the Hooghly River.

Time stopped. No one could remember how long they'd been there floating, being, had they been asked. Yet, no such question occurred.

Then one of the masters began to think about choices, was he making the right one, being here, doing nothing. These questions raced through; his head hurt.

Not sure where this foreign voice came from, he dropped instantly to the soft soil below with a slight thud.
He found he was hungry, thirsty, and desperate to know what day and time it was as the gravity set in.

The other masters continued to hover, suspended in air, unaware of the ripple in their own river of consciousness.

The tormenting thought, looking for a place to spread, to land and feed again, could find no home.
It departed empty-handed from the circumference of the banyan tree's hugging branches.

Only one of the masters gathered looked down at the fallen man, and spoke so softly the man in the dirt strained to hear.

"The soul's passion is beyond choice, beyond the human condition, my friend."

​With that, he began to lift into the air once more.
His feet tucked easily and neatly beneath him.

​He found his hunger satiated, his thirst quenched,
​and time dissolved with the shifting winds of the Hooghly River, once again.