The old man said, “I was waiting for the right moment, for the ripe moment, for the time when you would be able not only to hear but to understand it. The journey is short, but you should not stop at every achievement – because every achievement is so fulfilling that your imagination cannot think there can be more than this.”

You are asking me what can be more beautiful than to be in the presence of the master. Why not dissolve in the presence? To be in the presence of the master, there is still separation. Why be in the presence? Why not become the presence itself? And only then you will know that to be in the presence was only the beginning of a journey that ends in becoming the presence.

I know you, and I know your heart. I have not told the story of the woodcutter without remembering the fact that you have such an innocent heart yourself. Just don’t stop anywhere. It is possible… Make it your realization. Become the light yourself, and then whatever is experienced is inexpressible.

In your dark moments, while you have been away for one year, you have heard the word watch. With your innocent mind, it is very simple for me to speak to you from any distance, a heart-to-heart communion. Those words were mine, and you have recognized them. Because there are things you need not bother about, you simply have to watch and they pass on: anger, greed, jealousy. All the components of darkness have one quality in common: that if you can watch them they start dispersing. Watching is enough; you are not supposed to do anything with them.

In the life of one of the great mystics, Baal Shem, there is an incident. He used to go towards the river in the middle of the night just to be in absolute silence, alone, to enjoy the peace and the beauty of the night. Just on the bank of the river was a rich man’s mansion, and a watchman was there who was puzzled about this man, Baal Shem. Every night, exactly as the tower bell was tolling twelve, Baal Shem would appear out of the darkness.

The poor watchman could not contain the temptation to inquire, “Why do you come here every night and sit next to the river in the darkness? What is the purpose of it?”

Rather than answering him, Baal Shem asked, “What is your work?”

He said, “I am a watchman.”

Baal Shem said, “Exactly! That is my work. I am a watchman.”

The watchman said, “That is strange. If you are a watchman, then what are you doing here? You should be watching the house where you are the watchman.”

Baal Shem said, “There is something to be explained to you: you watch somebody else’s house; I watch my own house. This is my house. Wherever I go, I go with my house – but I am continuously the watchman.”

I love the story.