Walking within the garden of his heart, the pupil suddenly came upon the Master, and was glad, for he had but just finished a task in His service which he hastened to lay at His feet.
"See, Master," said he, "this is done: now give me other teaching to do."
The Master looked upon him sadly yet indulgently, as one might upon a child which can not understand.
"There are already many to teach intellectual conceptions of the Truth," he replied. "Thinkest thou to serve best by adding thyself to their number?"
The pupil was perplexed.
"Ought we not to proclaim the Truth from the very housetops, until the whole world shall have heard?" he asked.
"And then -- "
"Then the whole world will surely accept it."
"Nay," replied the Master, "the Truth is not of the intellect, but of the heart. See!"
The pupil looked, and saw the Truth, as though it were a White Light, flooding the whole earth; yet none reaching the green and living plants which so sorely needed its rays, because of dense layers of clouds intervening.
"The clouds are the human intellect," said the Master. "Look again."
Intently gazing, the pupil saw here and there faint rifts in the clouds, through which the Light struggled in broken, feeble beams. Each rift was caused by a little vortex of vibrations, and looking down through the openings thus made, the pupil perceived that each vortex had its origin in a human heart.
"Only by adding to and enlarging the rifts will the Light ever reach the earth," said the Master. "Is it best, then, to pour out more Light upon the clouds, or to establish a vortex of heart force? The latter thou must accomplish unseen and unnoticed, and even unthanked. The former will bring thee praise and notice among men. Both are necessary: both are Our work; but -- the rifts are so few! Art strong enough to forego the praise and make of thyself a heart center of pure impersonal force?"
The pupil sighed, for it was a sore question.
(From Sunrise magazine, November 1973.)