The Collector and the Treasure

That is quite a beautiful story, and I am not saying that because I am the one who wrote it, like all the texts on the blog. This story is a parable, a parable of what? Not a pair of bowls of rice, but about concepts. (funny, isn't it?)

Portrait of an old man with white hair and blue eyes

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The Collector and the Treasure

Once upon a time, in a village ignored by those who did not live there, in a time that is not our own, lived a man possessed by such a passion that he spent his life trying to satisfy: he collected things, gadgets, trinkets, doodads and, occasionally, worthless trifles.

He collected everything he did not yet possess and which had no value other than what he assigned to it by referring to a very personal scale. You want examples? Here are a few:

Bottle caps from mineral or spring water, frayed fragments of old string, pieces of clear glass, abraded by the sand of some unknown box, bits of wood resembling something else entirely, bird feathers fallen to the ground and crushed by a car wheel, very small but very pretty pebbles that brought to mind ancient times before the memory of man, etc.

He never left his house without pulling behind him a cart with two large bicycle wheels and fitted with sideboards*, so he could throw in all his discoveries. The objects of his desire were very small, so he could fit many of them into his cart.

* sideboards: wooden rails or boards forming the sides of a cart.

He had responsibilities

He had a family, a wife, children, a dog, debts, and all the terrible responsibilities that go with them. His wife worked somewhere at something in exchange for a modest wage that wouldn't allow anyone to simply exist without dying of hunger or thirst, yet it was legal, which left her bosses with a purely "boss-like" clear conscience, and he therefore had to work as well to remedy this state of affairs and continue living along with the rest of his family.

But he did not work, no, he was too busy attending to his monomaniacal occupation: the collection of those tiny objects that littered the paths of chance he traveled all day long. The objects of his craving were small, his cart was medium-sized, but the sideboards were high, thus, he could fit a respectable volume even considering the clutter that the heterogeneity of shapes created (I know: it’s difficult!).

Every evening, when he returned to the house where he lived, with his family, the mother of his children would ask him: "Did you find a job, you lazy bum?" And he would invariably answer: "No, not yet, honey" with the look of a courageous victim standing tall against the wind of a storm blowing on him with all its might.

His wife was not fooled: she sometimes saw him pulling his cart, his nose pointing to the ground in the posture of a hunting dog, if only a hunting dog were capable of pulling a cart with two of its four legs, and when she didn't see it with her own eyes, the eyes of her friends and neighbors saw it for her and everything was told with plenty of detail.

Thus the days passed

Thus passed the days, then the weeks (when you string the days one after the other in batches of seven), then the months and; finally, the years. The cart filled up more and more with tiny objects and, by dint of effort, the top of the sideboards was, finally, reached and the pile of objects overflowed into a more or less conical heap. He and his family survived as best they could, more poorly than well, depriving themselves of almost everything except the essentials for survival.

The overflowing cone made the cart heavier and harder to pull, and the man’s collecting fever grew at the same time the pile increased. One day like any other, the man found a wooden chest on the side of the road. The man took the wooden chest, opened it, and discovered, then, several handfuls of gold coins (Napoléons) which must have been worth a lot of money (in euros and according to gold prices).

The treasure

The man was seized by an arrhythmic heartbeat that betrayed his surprise. He saw before his eyes the end of his money troubles arriving with great and sure strides. He threw the chest onto the pile of his collection, and the chest tumbled off immediately! He tried throwing it again with more care, alas! Useless: the chest tumbled down the slope, dragging with it many pen caps, worn marbles, crumpled papers, mother-of-pearl from murdered oysters, and more. The man tried time and again, all failing: it was impossible to make this big, heavy chest stay on the pile at the back of the cart. Nor could he hold it under one of his arms while pulling the cart.

What should he do?

I am quite sure you wouldn't have hesitated for a second: you would have left the cart and all its contents there, right where they were, and held the chest full of gold firmly in your two arms cradled together!

Yes, but the man was not you, nor me, and he held onto his treasure of worthless objects that he had amassed throughout those long months. You would have, I am certain, eroded, flattened the top of the cone, even if it meant dropping part of the load, to make a place to set the chest, but there it was impossible too without dropping many gadgets and things onto the asphalt of the road, and the man could not do that either.

So, what do you think he did? He left the chest full of gold there and walked away, saying to himself: "I’ll come back later..." I know: this story is stupid. But I have seen so many people leave a treasure behind just to avoid getting rid of what they had spent so much time accumulating.

"Understand who can..."

There are seekers who spend years collecting everything that could have been written about the spirit, the soul, God, and spirituality.

The more they read, the less they understand. Little by little, concepts build, within them, the walls of their convictions, often without windows or a door, leaving them locked in sterile certainties that are full of charm.

If the truth comes knocking at their door, they open it, at first, then stare at this intruder who comes to disturb them, as if they were Jehovah's Witnesses or vacuum cleaner salesmen. If the truth looks a little like what they believe, they let it in, then take it, kneading it until the resemblance is perfect.

Some desire to receive the answer to their questions, but only on the condition that this answer looks like their questions. Before filling a bowl full of water with milk, one must empty the water from the bowl. To learn something new, one must forget what one knows. This is the story some already know of that master chef who only takes one apprentice every three years, and invariably chooses the one who knows nothing.

To the one who knows cooking, having already studied it for three years, at school and with bosses, and who asks him: "Chef, why did you select this boy who knows nothing about cooking when I already know so much?" The chef replies: "You, it would take me three years to unlearn what you know, then another three years to teach you what I know, whereas this ignorant and curious young man, I will teach him everything in three years."

This requires sincerity, lucidity, modesty, or even humility. It is the only way to walk The Path.

If you have any questions, please write here:

madhyama.marga@gmail.com

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