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[Tree Hugger]

Hello Seekers
When you curse the hardness of the world you might be learning valuable lessons which add up to wisdom, thus even negative situations provide opportunities.


Two brothers were having an argument about which was the best pursuit. To sit upon the mountain in the cave with the eagles and clouds and observe humanity from afar, or to live in the midst of civilization. Which would bring true enlightenment.
The brother with the intent of climbing the mountain said to the brother intent on going back to the city. Go your way and in one year we will meet here at the base and see which was the best way to enlightenment.
So they both went their way, and the brother dragging his sack of rice and seeds fought his way up the mountain and swept the cave and built a fire and cooked some rice and sat down. During the next year, only the wind visited him, and a feeling of extreme peace came upon him and he felt God within the mountain and the cave, and in the world he saw why men hated and killed and cheated and lied. In this way he felt he had gained enlightenment.

The other brother went to the city where he was robbed, and forced to do hard labor just to afford a tiny place to live. All around him were arguments and suspicions and unhappiness. He watched and saw why men hated and killed and cheated and lied.
At the end of a year the two brothers met under the noon sun. The hermit with beard spoke. I believe I have found enlightenment, he said, because I am full of love for all of creation and this is truly the way to hear the sound of God in the eagles and the wind and the majestic mountain. There is no other way but to leave the world of humanity.

But the other brother told his story of being set upon by robbers and how he struggled and was abused and had to sleep while the sounds of battling neighbors raged around him.
The first brother embraced the second consoling him of all his miserable experiences and thinking he had found the way out of misery and into enlightenment.
But the second one said. Don’t pity me living in that city, because many opportunities came to me that did not come to you.
Sitting on this mountain, you found peace but I did not find peace. I found the opposite of peace; I found contention. You found the balance of nature, but I found the imbalance, which is found in abundance, in the world of human civilization.

While you were basking in nature, I was developing patience, and while you were seeing the free flying eagle, I was seeing humans in bondage to their own ignorance, and so I was developing compassion. I saw the consequences of abusing and ignoring other humans, and the fears and mistrust.


I had to choose to either become like them, or to see why I did not choose their way, so I was provided with much comparison, I would not seen had I remained in the cave.

And the hermit brother saw the difference in his brother, that he was no longer arguing his point and seemed to have much more appreciation for the gifts of life.
And the city dwelling brother filled his lungs with the fresh mountain air he smiling said, behold….this vista was before to me just as a picture in a frame on a wall, but seeing the lack of beauty and harmony in the city, I really l love everything now, and I see how we are all learning enlightenment by watching the unwise consequences of a life apart from harmony.

So the brothers decided that they were both were right. Only by seeing and experiencing the disagreeable could they truly appreciate the agreeable and contrast is the teacher.


Tree