A Lesson About the Most Beautiful Thing

Once, the Master summoned his two disciples and asked them, “Tell me, which is the most beautiful thing in life?”
The first disciple answered, “The most beautiful thing in this world is water. If there were no water, beauty in this world would perish.”

Then there came the second disciple’s turn, and he said, “For me, the most beautiful thing in this world is the sky. It urges us to look upwards; it fills our eyes with beauty and admiration.”

And finally, the Master said, “I am going to tell you now which the most beautiful thing is. The most beautiful is hidden from the eyes of the world; it is also hidden from the eyes of life, and from the eyes of death, too. What is beautiful cannot be expressed - but it can happen; it can be experienced by the Chosen Ones. This happens when a Chosen One is deprived of all that is water: it is actually every living thing that he or she has ever loved. Then the Chosen One is being deprived of the sky: it is actually all that is spiritual, all that is unearthly and that he or she has ever loved.

And finally, when Chosen Ones are deprived of every single thing, they pronounce with Awe and Reverence their most profound words, “You have given me everything, and You have taken everything away from me. You are the Only One Whom I desire. I want neither life nor death.” Thus, the Chosen Ones become Truth-like and are already capable of ruling over life and death equally; because the Chosen Ones are beyond life and death. As long as humans are limited by life and death, they cannot come to know Supreme Beauty - which is the Truth Itself. Without the Truth, neither water can exist nor the sky, nor life, nor death, nor all human beings. Only that can really and actually exist which is chosen by the Truth. The most beautiful thing is that which is chosen by the Truth.”