If you have ever asked yourself why things sometimes feel so difficult for you, here is one possible answer. It comes from a story told by Harry Moody and David Carroll in their book The Five Stages of the Soul: Charting the Spiritual Passages That Shape Our Lives.
“Long, long ago, a hermit received a vision in a desert monastery.
He saw a boundless ocean. On its shore stood a monk. The monk leapt high into the air and, with shining wings, effortlessly flew over the vast waters to the divine land on the other side.
As the hermit marveled at this strange vision, he noticed that a second monk approached the shore. He, too, spread his wings, but his flight did not go so smoothly. Although he managed to reach the opposite shore, he did everything he could not to fall into the raging waves.
Finally, a third monk came to the shore. The smallest and frailest of the three, this monk also rose into the air like the others, but his wings were weak and so he kept falling into the roaring element, swallowing water almost every time. Only through heroic effort and titanic struggle did he finally reach the other shore, half-dead and soaked to the bone.
After much reflection, the hermit went to his spiritual teacher and asked about the meaning of this vision.
The teacher interpreted the vision as follows: ‘The first monk you saw is a devotee striving to fly to heaven in our time—now, when religion and good people are everywhere and reaching heaven is quite easy.
The second monk represents those who will seek to reach heaven in a later time. Their journey will be much more difficult.
Finally, the third monk represents a devotee making spiritual efforts in the farthest future, when religion and justice will have almost vanished from the face of the earth. In that dark time, it will be exceedingly difficult even to imagine that you might find a way to reach the other shore.
So rejoice, for you live in our blessed time,’ the spiritual teacher concluded. ‘But remember, remember at all costs: the efforts of the third monk are the most precious—more precious than the efforts of all the others.’
