People respected a Sufi dervish for his virtue and religious devotion. They would ask, "How did you become so holy?" He would answer, "I know what is in the Koran."
One day, he had given this reply to an enquirer in a coffee house, and another man asked: "Well, what is in the Koran?" "In the Koran," said the Sufi, "there are two pressed flowers and a letter from my friend."
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Religious persons often invest a magical quality to their holy books, prophets, sages, mystics, etc. What if such sources of inspiration point us outside themselves? Could they point to two pressed flowers and a friend's letter as equal to themselves in truth and inspiration? Is a Holy Bible any holier than a grain of sand or a child's laughter? Is a Buddhist sutra any more enlightened than a child's first poem, penned and tucked away in secrecy within her diary?
I was raised on a strict belief that the Christian Scripture, called the Holy Bible, is God-inspired and without error - a tenet, after much study, I long ago realized was untrue. Still, something from a holy book can become inspired for a reader, when what is read speaks truth in the moment of encounter with the reader - I often experience this myself. Yet, so can many things become, in a moment, inspired for a person, and equally inspired to any holy scripture. The whole world becomes a scripture. The person you are chatting with can become, right then and there, a holy book. That book can open right before you.
Inspiration - divine inspiration, God-inspiration (whatever works for you) - does not reside in something, it arises from an encounter. Nothing has inspiration, for inspiration is a happening, not a thing. And it happens, and when it does, you witness the inerrant, infallible nature of True Nature.
I find as much inspiration and truth via heart-to-heart meetings with others - and, sometimes, non-human others - as in any holy book. People are a holy book to me, so is a tree or a smile or a bird flying overhead.
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Life is two pressed flowers and a friend's letter. We can experience this intimately. This intimate encounter is a reason taste is a metaphor of spiritual experience. This metaphor is embodied in the Christian rite of partaking of wine and bread in Holy Communion. The Hebrew Bible has, "Taste and see the Living One is good." Santoka Taneda (1882-1940; Japanese Zen wandering beggar, poet free-verse haiku) uses the same metaphor. I will share two of his entries and two of his poems for your reflection:
September 20, 1930. Westerners try to conquer the mountains. People of the East contemplate the mountains. For us, mountains are not an object of scientific study but a work of art. Patiently I taste the mountains.
April 6, 1932. What’s important in life is getting the taste of things. Living, you might say, is tasting. People are happiest when they can really learn to be who they are. A beggar has to learn to be an all-out beggar. Unless he can be that, he will never taste the happiness of being a beggar. A person has no other way to live than to be out-and-out the person he is.
all through my body goodness of mountains good taste of water
in the sweet taste of a ripe persimmon too I remember my grandmother
