As you sit there, and read this page, you might feel certain sensations in your body. Some of these sensations might be familiar, and some of them might be one’s that you’ve felt before. Either way, you can let these feelings remind you of those wonderful memories from before. You know the time I’m talking about. The time you had that experience, the one that made you feel just that way. And it doesn’t really matter if you can remember it completely; because one thing about experiences is that they are completely up to you to remember them any way you like that, right?
So as you let those thoughts that you are thinking circulate in your thought-sphere that exists some place in the realm of ideas, I’d like to borrow your attention for a few moments. Don’t worry; I’ll give it back when we’re finished here. Just relax, because you know that those experiences that you enjoy are really up to you to discover them here, now.
Once up a time there was a sheepherder. His job was to take his sheep from pasture to pasture, and let them graze. When the time came for him to sell their wool, he took them into town to the place that bought the wool. They would sheer the wool from the sheep, and take the wool to make various things. Clothing, blankets, rugs, and other things. The sheep were happy, because they didn’t really have to do much except eat, and get a haircut periodically. The sheepherder didn’t have an overly difficult job, because he just found natural grass for the sheep to eat, made sure the wolves stayed away, and had to find a market for the wool from time to time. All in all, it was a happy life for all of them.
As the character in most stories do, our sheepherder boy encountered a problem one day. He had grown bored with his sheep herding life. At first, when he first got into it, it seemed fantastic. Travel, no boss, make your own hours, it was a young man’s dream come true. But the more the years passed, the more he realized as he traveled from town to town that he was missing out on something. It seemed more and more apparent that the townspeople were enjoying a happiness that wasn’t available to him.
Despite his freedom and detachment from the world, he longed for human companionship. He longed for the touch of a woman, and the warmth of a fire in the fireplace of his own home, and the smell of fresh bread from his own kitchen.
But he didn’t want to lose his sheep. They had served him well over the years, and he couldn’t bring himself to just abandon them. So he decided to have a meeting with his sheep. He hired a sorcerer from a nearby town, as he would have to find a way to communicate his intentions to the sheep, and gauge their responses. The sorcerer claimed to have experiences in these matters. After a long discussion, he was convinced that the sheep would be able to govern themselves, and find their way into town to get their usual haircuts, as they’d been accustomed.
The sheepherder had agreed to take the profits generated by the self governing sheep, and set up a wolf free zone, so sheep could live in safe environment, free from predators. The money would be used to buy special minerals and mix them into a special recipe known only to the sorcerer, thereby keeping the wolves from encroaching on their territory.
When they had finished making the arrangements, everybody was happy.
The now ex-sheep herder boy set off to find the girl of his dreams, and start the exciting journey of his new life. As he was leaving, the sorcerer pulled him aside, to give him some last minute wisdom:
“Life is a long journey. It can be easy or hard, depending on what you make of it. You can find peace, or you can find pain. The greatest secret does not lie in how to get money or how to seduce the most beautiful daughter of a shopkeeper. Nor does it lie in conjuring magic to keep away the wolves. The secret lies in seizing your own power to choose. Once you fully realize that you have always had that magnificent power, the world becomes yours.”
The ex-sheep herder boy thanked him, and wandered off, open to the bliss that was in store for him, and you.