Einstein once explained relativity this way: spend an hour sitting next to a beautiful human being and it will seem like a minute; spend a minute sitting on a hot stove and it will seem like an hour. This is relativity. When somebody asks me what do I think is our purpose on earth, or what is really the nature of the Universe, I now ask in return: “What do you think it is?”. This is not because I’m trying to get rid of such questions, but because these conundrums cannot be comprehended or answered by our mind. Better yet, I think I would answer: “What do you feel it is?”

Our mind is like the surface of the ocean, filled with constantly changing waves. Blink, and the wave you were looking at will be forever gone, replaced by thousands of others that didn’t exist before that moment. It’s our mind’s nature. But reality, we know, is something that persists. In the ocean’s analogy, reality is the bottom of the ocean, that permanent fact that exists, no matter what is happening on the surface or in our thinking minds. If we can dive deep within, we can find that Reality; and to dive deep we need to go beyond the boundaries of our own mind, open up to the Incomprehensible. That’s what I learned when I found my spiritual path.

I have been following my spiritual path now for one year. The more I think about it, the more it amazes me. One year ago, I was suffering and struggling in this changing world, occasionally being happy, occasionally being sad, and not in contact with my spirituality at all. Now, a year later, all the puzzling questions have fallen away, the trying to dissect the fabric of existence and reality into comprehensible language. I like my teacher Sri Chinmoy’s aphorism where he writes:

‘Your mind has a flood of questions.
There is but one teacher
Who can answer them.
Who is the teacher?
Your silence-loving heart.’

~ Sri Chinmoy

Eduardo Gutierrez

Eduardo is a graphic artist and cartoonist who is from Mexico but now lives in Auckland. He has been meditating at the Sri Chinmoy Centre since 2011.