What distinguishes a floating log from a ship made of the same wood is that the ship has oars and can sail against the current.
N. Sri Ram
I heard these words from Sri Ram in my distant youth. This sentence was not part of his lectures, and I do not know if it is found in any of his books. It emerged spontaneously in a conversation.
I thought a lot about it, and when the time came to express the highest ideals in a classical way at the school of philosophy, the parable of the log and the ship left a mark on all my thoughts, feelings, and actions.
In general, people are like logs thrown into the river of life; initially dry and intact, later wet and battered, carried by the current redirected by the powers of the world…
And they float like that… colliding in senseless violence, dirty and muddy, without direction or a safe destination, until they break into pieces and disappear from the surface of this river that constantly flows, a river from which we do not know where it comes from or where it is going.
Logs, demolished, cut, carried from one side to the other, barely resist the current with their own weight! The dark pile slides, swaying in its tireless progress, yet so exhausting. During the day, the sun reveals the dark rot of the bark, and at night, a multitude of shadows float horizontally further, and only exceptionally does a log lift a part of itself towards the distant stars.
A river of logs!
There are more and more of them, colliding, injuring, breaking each other… a river of logs! How much have I thought about it!
But over the years, I have learned something about almost forgotten techniques of carving solid wood and how to make it lighter… that wood from which we are all made. It is made with vigorous blows of the tool on the surface, and then carving with glowing charcoal, which is constantly repeated.
And with the inspiration of great teachers of humanity, this experience is always painful and infinitely long. It is necessary to dig deep to the place where selfishness and cowardice intertwine their distorted roots, due to the illusion of belief. You hear how you are a log yourself, destroying yourself. But, a persistent worker, driven by his own willpower stronger than the whining of rotten matter, continues his task.
Little by little, the former rough log gradually transforms into a boat. The pointed bow and oval stern begin to emerge. The former wound is now a hollow; a smooth vessel of the traveling soul. From the remains, flexible oars are made which, depending on their use, serve both for rowing and steering. The rough sides are smoothed with endless patience until they become light and sturdy ship’s hulls.
And… so we have made a boat!
The pile of logs watches it with a mixture of admiration and disgust. It looks empty, different, funny, dangerous, unnecessary. But it is no longer a log… it is a boat!
Furthermore, it can sail against the current. That is unforgivable! Not following the trend, not changing its color according to the mud it passes through? Having its own color and sailing above the swamp, barely touching it? Unthinkable!
And her strange crew?
They say that we are not all the same because if we were, we would all be making mistakes without hope of mutual assistance. They say that there is no identicalness in nature because it is neither possible nor desirable. Differences make the whole beautiful and free it from boredom and herd mentality. They also say that different religions are just adaptations to the space and time of the same Message; that because of that, none of them is better or worse than others, but that everything outside the core of that original Message has been added by humans themselves with their ignorance and greed, and that they have been imitating each other for thousands of years.
This crew claims that they don’t believe in God, but that they know of His existence and that it is evident. It is enough to know and be on the path of His discovery.
They say that the Soul is immortal and uncorrupted and pure, and that it should not be identified with the clothes and masks it occasionally wears. They say that if there is forgiveness, it comes after redemption according to the law of action and reaction, and that these are me The laws of nature: he who sows wheat will always, sooner or later, reap wheat, and he who sowed thorns will only reap thorns.
For them, miracles do not exist on their own, only levels of knowledge exist. The apparent is secondary; the Babylonian priest who enchanted with small artificial lightning bolts jumping from one hand to the other would be an electrician today. Saint Patrick would be a chemist who knows what will happen when we pour water over white phosphorus or quicklime.
The crew of this ship has no need to deceive others. They seek and find the truth, slowly but surely. They direct their strength towards the oars and discern things that others do not see because they row against the current. They travel upstream towards the river’s clean and untouched sources. Their souls are full of enthusiasm, they enjoy laughter and beautiful things.
Noisy sounds bother them, but they delight in beautiful melodies by Strauss, Wagner’s cathedrals of light and shadow, and Mozart’s intimate sonatas. They do not pretend to see something more than what is really there. Confusion of noses, eyes, and tails in the paintings of modernists, and he prefers to walk in the snow with Goya, admire the gray skies of Velazquez, be amazed by El Greco’s crystal tears, or get lost in the fantastic streets among the painted walls of Pompeii. They do not believe that drugs are something good because those who misuse them turn into depraved beasts who rob and kill to obtain them. Rowdy and noisy drunken parties do not entertain them. They believe in a harmonious and vital order that transcends the blind mechanism of programs created by others. They believe in freedom and that people must appreciate and respect the freedom of others. They believe in will, goodness, and justice and that a world without these virtues is like mud that must be shaped into something harmonious, overcoming the resistance of coarse matter in the process. They believe in a new and better world, but for it to appear on the horizon, many good and new rowers are needed. Those who surrender to the weaknesses and complaints of the river of life inevitably approach their own physical downfall. They believe in science serving humanity, animals, plants, and above all, serving the planet in the global sense of the word because it is our cosmic home, and we are destroying it and disturbing its balance. They believe that old and useless structures, reeking of decay, dried-up corpses that move their limbs with the galvanic power of money and power in a terrifying simulation of life, should be replaced by younger and stronger structures, without complexes and limitations. And above all…the members of this crew believe in themselves and in the ship they have created.
When they start traveling upstream the river of life, many young-hearted and sharp-minded people will start to act and transform logs into ships, and they will experience the wonderful spiritual adventure of rowing against the current.