Positive Health Online

"Let Joy be your feelings, Love your attire, Peace your guide and you will discover a mystical paradise here on earth." Michael Levy

A time ago upon once, a brave knight, dressed in the best of glittering armour, rode proudly through the countryside seeking good deeds to perform. One day he happened upon a sight never seen before. A large neon sign "Paradise" shone over a de-lightful place filled with hues in tones of superb eloquence. He laughed out loud and wondered who erected such a nonsense sign, for he knew there was no such place as paradise on earth.
 
As he approached on horseback the road suddenly turned to gold. He could see the gates to the entrance of Paradise ahead. Being the most brave and courageous knight in the land, he decided to make a grand entrance and find the joker who built this mirage. Smacking his horse, he galloped as fast as he could towards the entrance. All at once he hit an invisible bubble that covered Paradise and was thrown from his horse.
 
As he picked himself up with dishevelled pride he could see his horse trotting though the gates with no trouble at all. Thinking he may have fallen off the horse he ran headlong into the invisible bubble once more. This angered him more than ever, so in a great rage, he pulled out his sword and gave the invisible bubble a mighty whack. The sword shattered into a thousand pieces and the handle melted in his hand. He realized all at once that this in-deed was the true place of paradise.
 
As he contemplated what to do next, a little boy appeared on the other side of the invisible bubble eating a peanut and banana sandwich on whole-wheat toasted bread. The little boy chuckled and softly said, "you cannot enter here with armour, you must first remove it before you gain entrance." Since he had nothing on under the armour he was hesitant to remove it; however, with his curiosity now aroused, he stripped off all the armour and leisurely tried to walk though the invisible bubble.
 
He now felt dejected and downhearted and asked the youngster why he could not enter. He stated he had always done good deeds to help people in distress. Also, he was the cleverest knight in all the land, having scribed many papers on mathematics, science and the arts.
 
The little boy sniggered kindly and while still munching on his delicious sandwich declared, "You don't understand; the armour you need to remove is not on the surface of your body, it is in your mind. You have filled your brain with all the knowledge and education that your ego, personality and intellect hangs onto as their realities. You have imprisoned your thought process with cleverness and pride of who you be-lie-ve yourself to be.
 
"Even though you are doing good deeds and are a truly brave and courageous knight, you have evicted yourself from Paradise by your own cleverness that lives outside the realms of truth. On one side of your brain, the subconscious lives in emptiness filled with wisdom. On the other side of your brain the conscious – ego/intellect, personality – lives with all types of labels and role plays – all filled with taxing, trying, weighty demands, diffi-cult ideas, laborious perceptions. It rides in rough terrain of negative emotions, all of which are illusionary as they do not exist in Paradise.
 
"It is the simple mind of tranquillity and serenity that can guide the mind to use its thoughts in love and joy, which allows all its deeds and actions into Paradise. When you can detach your mind-set from the incarceration of your ego/intellect, the invisible bubble will evaporate into thin air.... It was never here in the first place and is not here now. You are the only one who constructed it and as you stand here in your nakedness outside the compass of Paradise, you need to ask yourself if it is time to become a knight of meek simplicity." With that, the little boy disappeared and the knight was left sitting on his horse gazing up at the starlit sky. As he stroked the horse's neck, little traces of peanut butter became visible on his fingers.